The Lariat (Finding Justus Series)

by Ashley Dotson

  His blue eyes sparkled. He was enjoying my turmoil, “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know. Just more.”

  He had pulled me to him and we shared the hottest kiss yet. It would have probably led somewhere if we weren’t in an office that he shared with a sociology professor.

  It was a good afternoon.

  “Okay, you two. That’s enough.” Ava wiggled in between us. She was wearing her usual jeans and t-shirt. She wasn’t about to let her clothes get in the way of her daemon hunting.

  “Where are Kevin and James?” Cyrus asked her.

  She pointed across the room and he headed away from the two of us. “I won’t be far,” he said to me. I shooed him away and smiled, which was getting harder and harder to do since I had my own plan now.

  “Have you seen Ben’s photos yet?”

  “Not tonight. But I’ve seen them all before. I figured I’d just come here to support her.”

  “I think you should go see them. You know, they look a little different in a frame, on a wall. It’s special, you know?”

  “Okay,” I put down my glass. “Lead the way.”

  We wandered through the rough brick structure. There were so many people lining the wall, looking at the different pictures, sculptures and paintings. Ava led me into the back room farthest from the entrance.

  “No wonder I haven’t seen her. I didn’t even know anything was back here. I’ve been hanging in the front room. The closest one to the exit.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. She’s over there.”

  Ben finally caught sight of us and walked over. There was a bit of panic she was trying to hide when she saw us.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked Ava.

  “I don’t know. Her aura just shot to an intense violet. It’s so pretty with her outfit, but that probably means something’s up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Violet is more of a nervous aura color.”

  “Well, it is her big night. I can see why she would be nervous.”

  “No it’s something else.” But that’s all we could say before Ben reached us.

  Bennet looked at me, “Don’t be mad.”

  She was always making me laugh, “Why would I be mad?”

  Ben’s eyes shifted to Ava, and Ava’s face fell, “Ben, you didn’t tell her?”

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  “No. I didn’t. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

  Ava scoffed, “Oh, it’ll be a big deal. Especially now. When Layla has to find out like this.”

  “What are ya’ll talking about?” I wasn’t following them at all.

  Ava put up her hand in front of Ben’s face and grabbed my arm. She pulled my arm and I almost stumbled in my high heels. She led me to the back wall where I finally found Bennet’s black and white photos of the elevator shaft inside the Montrose.

  There were four of them each from a higher perspective than the previous one. A shudder erupted in my shoulders as I remembered that horrible day. I knew we never should have gone in there. We never should have tempted fate. Would we still be in the same position if I had told Ben no, if I had forbidden her from going? She would probably have gone by herself and would be dead by now.

  She really was an amazing photographer. I was so proud of her anyway, at least I was until I saw that I was her last photo. It was like looking into a mirror and realizing in horror I was standing in a room full of people without a stitch of clothing on. It was me. My wings, my face, my fire on display for the world to see. It was beautiful, just like the group beside me whispered to one another.

  I shrunk back unable to see myself that way, “Ben, you promised. What the hell?”

  She came up behind me wringing her hands together, “I know. I know I promised, but it was just so good. Layla, just look at you. Look at the light, and your face, even the angle. Shots like this don’t happen by accident. I had to use it.”

  “I’m sure you did. I worried you would do something like this. I can’t believe you.” My daemon began to rise. It didn’t like being on display.

  I didn’t want to be mad at her, but my daemon needed an outlet, and judging by the tilt of her chin, Ben was ready for a fight too.

  But I didn’t want one of Ben’s last memories of me to be an ugly one. This was her night. Her photo. And it was only a photo. No one knew that what they were looking at was a human girl in possession of both a daemonic and angelic soul warring within her. It would be fine. I just needed to leave. I couldn’t be in the same room with that picture.

  I backed away, feeling all eyes on me now, and it wasn’t the dress. “I need to go get some air.”

  “Of course! Leave. Everything is always about you.” Ben turned to walk away, but I grabbed her arm.

  “I’m not mad, Ben. Just tell me why.” My voice got too high and manic. I looked in her eyes for a moment too long.

  She pulled free and tried to move through the gathered audience. “Of course you’re not mad. Not perfect, brilliant, gorgeous, resilient Layla Justus.”

  My jaw dropped and my voice lowered, “Ben, you have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Are you sure about that? You are so blinded by your own glory you can’t see anyone else around you. Who do you think stood beside you, the new girl, when everyone called you Easy Lay? It was me that listened to you cry about how Orrin broke your heart, when all I wanted to do was scream I told you so.”

  Her eyes began to tear up. She was unleashing three years of anger on me. Anger that she had been nursing, holding tight to and waiting for this moment to unleash.

  Bennet kept going, “I cleaned you up so many times while you stumbled in drunk. I worked my ass off to graduate, to keep my GPA up, but not you. Only now I know how you did it all. You didn’t work for anything. You’re a liar and a cheater.”

  My eyes darted around the room. Most of the on-lookers had heard her words and their faces were unapproving.

  But Ben had exposed her own raw wound, and now I wanted nothing more than to pour salt in it. “Ben, you’re wrong. You have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual. I have watched over you for years.”

  She crossed her arms and scoffed, “Oh yeah, and how do you think you did that when you were unconscious?”

  “You haven’t worked for anything in your adult life. You’ve just tried to ruin it all. You have perfect grades, perfect looks, a perfect family, and now a perfect man chasing after you. And you don’t deserve any of it. You are a selfish, two-timing liar, who doesn’t know how to be a real friend. You really wanna know what I saw when I looked at Samael that night?”

  “Ben, shut up.” I growled, my voice darkening.

  “I saw you,” she said and walked away.

  No one knew what she was talking about, but every understood her meaning. The crowd began to turn their backs to me and my daemon wanted to kill them all. I was angry and embarrassed by what Ben had said, but there was something else there. I had been shamed by the truth and my daemon was pissed.

  I had to get out of here before people knew for sure it was me in Ben’s impressive photo. My heart squeezed and my hands shook. I felt like I was having a panic attack. I wasn’t the protector I thought I was. I wasn’t a hero. I was a failure.

  Ben’s outburst was proof of what I had been feelings for so long. It wasn’t just the other grad students in my class who thought I was worthless. It was Ben too. My best friend. How could I have been so blind for so long? I never thought I was truly an egocentric person until Ben had opened my eyes to the truth.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Ava said. “I’ll go find Cyrus.”

  “No.” I turned and pulled her along with me, whispering, “I don’t want him to see me like this.”

  “He probably already heard what Ben said, Layla. Everyone else did.” Ava scanned the crowd, while I focused on the front door.

  “You’re not helping. I just want to get out of here before
I hurt someone. Before I lose it and go after Ben. Why didn’t she ever say anything?”

  Ava looked baffled, “I never knew she felt that way. She never said anything like that to me before. But I didn’t know about your drinking. Why didn’t you ever tell me? Or your dad? You never said anything to Orrin either. You know you could have come to any of us.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to worry anyone. Including Ben. I didn’t know I had become such a burden to her. I never imagined…”

  We moved to stand by the front door. I leaned against the window seeking anything to cool my raging temper. My insides felt torn to shreds with the effort of caging my daemon.

  Ava came to stand in front of me. “I know what you’re feeling. I do. I’ve a different perspective on your birthright. Having my own ability, I can fully relate when you said it was a curse. I feel like that too. But I also understand why she is so upset. This…business,” she gestured into the air, “of ours is a lot to take in. Just give her some time. Let her have her night and you two can talk tomorrow.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right. I need to apologize. I don’t want to lose her over this. I don’t have a lot of people I’m close to.”

  “I know.” She hugged me, “We’re family. All of us. We’ll stick together. You’ll see.”

  I hoped she was right. I felt a tiny bit better, but I still needed out of this scene. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Are you serious?” Ava face fell as I held the door open for her. When she didn’t move I walked through it and left her standing there.

  “What? It’s not like we have to worry about Samael right now. My mother said it would take him a few days to recover enough power to reach Earth again.”

  “Yeah, but that was yesterday.”

  “And today’s today. Are you coming with me or not?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I reached down and pulled off one of my heels and then the other. I stood against the iron railing and tossed both shoes into the dark river. I wouldn’t need them anymore.

  She pulled out her phone out of her back pocket and began texting someone, probably my father, and walked after me. “Hold on. Wait. Damn, Layla. I said wait. What is wrong with you? Are you really upset about the picture or is there something else? Why did you throw your shoes into the river?”

  I was trying not to cry and failing miserably. I was upset about Ben’s eruption, but there was more. So much more. I had a short time left with the people I loved and I had just run out the door. I told Ava not to call Cyrus. I didn’t even know where Orrin was. I didn’t know what I wanted and I didn’t have a handle on myself. I had never felt so close to giving in to my darkness. I didn’t want to die, but I couldn’t continue down this path knowing it was either death or world destruction. This is why I drank- to avoid moments, emotions, problems like this one.

  I wanted to tell her everything, but I didn’t know where to start. I needed to tell someone who would understand and not try to stop me when it was time for my surrender. We had walked away from the safety of the art gallery and stood in the shallow light illuminated by the neon lights of the other riverfront restaurants. From where we stood, if we turned left we would end up in front of the sanctuary at Travis Park church. If we went right, the paved road quickly darkened and would take us in front to the Montrose.

  It was a decision that came from someplace other than my brain. I felt it- the simple answer welled up from the place my soul resided. And hadn’t I been told enough times that it was the simplest answers that were sometimes the best? Especially when I listened to my intuition.

  Ava was hugging me telling me it would be alright, that I was just under so much pressure. She sighed and pulled me in the direction I needed to go, “Come on. I’ll walk with you.”

  The ground rumbled beneath my feet and I stopped. “Did you feel that?”

  I had felt it before when Orrin opened a portal into Hell. Orrin had the ability to rip a hole between our world and Hell when souls needed to pass from one to the other. He also did it when there were daemons that were too weak to return on their own.

  The last time it happened Samael slipped through the thinned veil.

  “Feel what? Layla, are you feeling okay? Do I need to go get your dad? Or Cyrus?”

  I shook my head and it happened again. I was sure of it now. But why? Why had he done it?

  Is that why he isn’t here with me now? How far away is he? Why would he open a gateway into Hell knowing Samael was waiting to break free?

  None of that sounded like him. He was smarter than that.

  It will be tonight. My daemon’s voice resounded in my mind.

  “But I’m not ready.” I said to myself, wrapping my arms around my waist, “I still wanna…I’m not ready.”

  I wanted to cry out to Orrin, I needed to see Cyrus once more, but I couldn’t. Something within me stole my voice. My eyes went wide silently pleading to Ava for help.

  “Layla, you don’t look so good. Let’s go get some air. It’ll be just you and me. We haven’t had a chance to talk like this much. Just you and me. We probably shouldn’t go too far though.”

  Do I tell her?

  She kept moving to the right. The way we were meant to go. The ground rumbled once more as my feet carried me away from sanity and toward my hell. Toward my salvation.

  Toward my surrender.

  30

  “Where are we headed friend?”

  Ava’s words didn’t even register. I was moving on instinct. Wherever I was going was where I was meant to be. It would be tonight.

  “Layla? Layla.” I could hear her quick steps, “Slow down. I can’t keep up with you.”

  “Then don’t,” my words were cruel. “Where I’m going you can’t follow.”

  “Layla, can you slow down and talk to me?” Ava yanked my arm. Hard. I tried to pull free, knowing I was on the edge, hanging by my fingernails. My fist connected with her chin on accident and she fell back. Thank God there was no effort behind my movement or I would have done major damage. As it was, Ava hit the rough exterior bricks and whipped back, ready to take me on. Maybe my dad didn’t know it, but she was more than ready to assume her role as a daemon hunter. When she turned back to me, her eyes were round and disbelieving. A bruise was already forming on the skin on her jaw.

  “Ava, I’m sorry.” I stepped back, “I didn’t mean to…

  “Layla, you really are the most morose girl I know. I have always dealt with your mood swings, but I don’t get your constant need to punish yourself. Don’t shut me out too. I’m here for you, but I won’t take this kind of abuse from you. Either you talk to me right now or I am leaving, and not just back to the Bennet’s party. I mean I am packing up and going home.”

  “I don’t know if I can tell you what’s happening,” I looked around the darkened street wishing she could just see. I needed it to be her that read my mind, “He might hear me.”

  “Who?” Ava stood a little straighter rubbing her jaw.

  “Orrin,” I mouthed, but I feared there were others involved “or any of them.”

  And then I felt it. I heard it. I grew dizzy from it. He was here.

  Samael had come through, either with help from Orrin or on his own, but he was here.

  “I need to go Ava. I was wrong. You need to get away from me. You all need to stay far, far away.”

  A portal had opened and I was so worried that Orrin might have aided Samael through. I watched Orrin’s daemon throw a baby into the ocean. Could he have slipped up again? Could he have opened up a portal and let Samael through? I knew how good it felt to give in to the dark fire that fed our souls.

  “Please, please. Don’t let it be him,” I whispered into the night. I left Ava standing by the river wondering what just happened. She watched me go and then ran back inside the gallery. It wouldn’t be long before everyone knew I had freaked out and ran off, but to where? I still didn’t know.

  Actually, I was lying to myself at that point. I knew whe
re I was headed. I had made my choice. It would be tonight. And as my feet struck the pavement I moved closer and closer to the looming, dilapidated structure that stood taller than any building in downtown San Antonio.

  The Montrose.

  And I prayed they wouldn’t follow.

  Cyrus would be furious, my dad wouldn’t understand and I didn’t even know where Orrin’s allegiance lay any longer. Would he try to end this his way? Would he make a deal with the devil to save me? I knew he loved me, but could his love withstand a dictate from Samael?

  There were too many what-ifs with Orrin. There always were. Fate brought us together but never gave us a chance beyond that. But I couldn’t worry about him right now, I was running head-long into an unknown certainty- tonight was the last night of my life.

  ***

  They beat me there.

  Standing in the shadow of the Monstrose was Samael. He was patiently waiting for me, both of his long white hands placed on his hips in the most authoritative manner. Did he know I was standing there watching him? Could he feel me close by or had I actually surprised him. He brought with him the thick black fog of Hell. It hid in the dark alleyway, but I could still see it. It climbed up the walls, rolled into itself, blossomed and withered as if it was just waiting on permission from its maker to take possession of the light and air of this world.

  Orrin was nowhere to be seen, which didn’t mean much, but I began to feel guilty that I could assign the blame to him so easily when I had no proof- only Samael with two Vile in tow.

  My daemon almost ripped through my skin at the sight of Lillith pacing back and forth. She was my most gruesome nightmare, always on the edge of my consciousness, waiting for me to close my eyes. She haunted me more than my own daemon. I don’t know if it was a fear of her or my need for justice, but her evil smile and hollow eyes lurked in the back of my mind. I hated her and she knew it. My heart pumped faster and I tried to steady my breaths. I needed to keep my presence hidden for as long as possible.

  Orias looked on from the bench a few yards away. I could see the contempt in his eyes for both of them. I couldn’t explain away his presence here. I knew he was ultimately beholden to Samael, he was a daemon and loyal to Samael, but would he really double-cross me? Would he be crazy enough to double-cross his overlord?