“Come on, don’t be scared.”
“I have so many things to be scared of though.”
He smiles, giving me a gentle tug.
“I know, so do I.”
He drags me inside the shack. Inside smells of earth and mold and dampness. My feet fall on a stone floor, covered in dirt and puddles of water, patches of grass growing between some of the stones.
“What was this place?” It’s empty, accept for a low table in the center of the room, out of which the tree that has broken through the roof grows. The roots have taken hold somewhere between the stones, growing a twisted and beautiful tree that seems to be thriving.
“No idea.”
He lets go of my hand. Out of the corner of my eye I see him shed his soaked tank top, leaving him shirtless. The water still drips on us, but it’s not the deluge it was outside.
He hangs his shirt on the tree and turns to me.
“I guess we rest here,” he shrugs.
I guess so.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cora
I lean on this, ‘whatever it used to be’ thing the tree is growing out of. My feet hurt, so after a moment, I slide down to the floor, spying a dry spot. I kick off wet shoes and socks and groan in sweet relief.
He smiles at me. He sits down in front of me, meeting my eyes for a moment.
“Give me your foot.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why?”
Leaning forward he grabs both my bare feet in his hands.
“So I can rub them.”
Rub my feet? I can’t stifle the smile. I watch him gently take me feet and place them in his lap. He grazes his masculine fingers over the right foot, tracing the lines, rubbing out the pain as I sit, hypnotized by his hands and the occasional eye contact. Persistent tingles shoot up my legs with every stroke.
“So, I guess I’ll go first,” he says, after a long stretch of silence.
I watch him play with my toes, biting my lip. “Talk about what?”
He laughs. His hands regretfully stop moving and I look up, pouting.
“Why did you stop?” I whine.
“Oh, sorry.” He picks up my left foot. “I think we are both pretty freaked out by a lot of stuff. I thought I’d go first.”
“Like truth or dare?”
He raises a flirtatious eyebrow. “Sort of. So ask me a question.”
I cross my arms, he looks down smiling at my feet. “You mentioned this baby thing. Why would Devin tell me the truth about what’s caused all my miscarriages when he wants to stop me from having a baby?”
“Good question. My theory, is this. My mom told me when I was growing up that one of the tricks the Devil likes to play is mixing the truth in with the lies, so we can’t tell where one ends and one begins. Think about Adam and Eve. He told Eve some lies, but he also told her some truths. Makes it so much more believable. I think that is why they told us what’s wrong. Made it easier for you to swallow, and more likely to believe him when he fed you more lies and tried to pull you away from me.”
“That makes a lot of sense.”
He moves from my foot to my calf. Heat travels up my thighs to places that make me squirm on this hard, dirty floor.
“My turn. Tell me what you’re afraid of.” His voice is soft.
For some reason, I can’t look away from his eyes. They are warm and gentle, and invite me to tell him everything, but instead I swallow and scramble for something to say, anything but the truth.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Time seems to stand still for a moment as he moves, crawling closer to me. He sits, one knee up, the other tucked in. He leans forward, catching my face in one large hand. The touch causes my lungs to seize up for a moment.
“Talk to me.”
The hushed way he speaks in this quiet place draws my eyes to his mouth, then back to his beautiful, soulful eyes.
“Will you leave me when this is over? When I can remember the truth?” My words tremble.
He curls his fingers around the base of my neck. “Cora, I’ll never leave you. You’re my everything,” he whispers.
I take in the words as if they are oxygen and I need them to live. They bloom like a flower in my chest, and pull me closer to him.
“Everything that happened between us, I’m so afraid that I’ll remember and, when it all comes out again, you will remember why you wanted to go away and I’ll lose you. I don’t even remember, but I know that losing you would cripple me.”
“I promise. I swear to you. My heart and soul are yours. When you remember, when you can look into my eyes and tell me that you love me, I’ll cherish it. I just want to be yours again. You’re my love, Cora. Please don’t be afraid.”
“I feel so dirty.”
My eyes drift closed when he leans in to catch the tear that falls with a kiss. Soft lips pressed to my skin, lighting up a deeply dark place inside me with a spark.
“Please don’t. You’re beautiful.” He kisses away another tear.
“I’m not.” I shake my head in disagreement. “He used me, he deceived me. He tricked me and now I’m just….” I reach for a word, but I can’t find it. “I feel so sick inside.”
“I don’t think you’re dirty, or used, or sick. I think you’re gorgeous. You’re sweet and you make me laugh. You made me who I am. Now you’re free of him. Whatever hold he had, whatever spell, it’s broken. You see him for what he is and what he did, don’t blame yourself. It’s over.”
“It’s not over. What if he comes to find me?”
I look into his eyes. He stares so far into me I swear he can see the pit that has become my soul.
“Then I’ll be right here waiting with you. He can take me, too.”
The spark of light that I feel burning its way through the depths of me slowly spreads, eating away at the blackness. I feel hope for something beyond despair, for the first time since I woke up here.
I love this man. I know it like I know I have to breathe, or eat. He gazes at me as if lost, and he never wants to be found.
“I do love you,” I whisper. “I knew I did as soon as I saw you.”
He doesn’t answer me, instead he bends and touches his lips to mine. A kiss that is soft, and slow causes a deluge of tears to flow, salting our lips. He takes my mouth slowly, gently, as if for the first time. Tastes my tongue and traces it with his own. I push my hands into his hair, pulling him closer to me.
Andrew pulls me between his spread legs, sighing when I trace the line of his jaw, or run my fingers through is wet hair.
The slow kiss becomes deeper, but never picks up speed. His mouth finds my ear, my throat. He grips the hem of my damp shirt and gently pulls it off, taking a moment to look down into my face, as if he’s memorizing me.
In that second I see the first flash, the memory of us as teenagers. Him a gangly, adorable boy that thought I didn’t notice him. Thinking I never saw him watching me. I smile at the memory as his lips find my throat, my hands trace the muscles in his shoulders, his chest, and his back.
His hot mouth tastes my collarbones, pushing my bra straps away. I remember our first date.
His hands full of my bare breasts, I remember the moment he told me he loved me for the first time.
Free of my jeans and gently laid down on my back, I recall being in his bed the first time. The moment he gave me his virginity.
Watching him unbuckle his pants. Getting engaged.
My body wrapped around his, in the very depths of me, whispering his love into my skin, the rest comes flooding back. The floodgates open, with every stroke, with every whimper and groan, a moment. Every declaration of love, a memory returns.
My leg slung over his rocking hips, his hand slipping up my naked thigh holding it in place.
“I remember,” I gasp around his trusting hips. “Oh God, I remember everything.” I arch off the floor, slamming into his hard body. “I’m yours, Andrew-” I shout the words as he pounds the orgasm out of me.
And eve
rything is clear. As if cobwebs have been dusted out of my brain, and blinders removed from my eyes.
I see everything.
***
Andrew
Our eyes lock as I recover from loving her. The fog is gone in her brown eyes, replaced with a light. The way she shines fills the whole room, breaking through this broken roof and into the sky above us.
She takes my face in both her hands and smiles up at me.
“My Andy.” Her whisper touches my soul.
I touch my lips to hers. “You’re back.”
“Seems I am. You came for me, to this place.” Disbelief and something akin to awe dances in her brown eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
Devouring me with yet another kiss, I groan into her mouth. She laughs at my renewed enthusiasm.
“My dear, you are stuck with me it seems.”
She giggles when I shift, pulling myself into a sitting position and her astraddle in my lap. Her skin caresses mine, the glow coming off her radiates peace and calms all the fear that I’ve been swallowing, hoping to keep us both from freaking out on this journey.
“So now that you remember everything, do you still love me?” I take in a sharp breath as she presses her lips to my neck and shoulder, grinding her hips into mine.
Cora looks up, her eyes shine with the smile playing around her lips, puffy from my kisses.
“Do I love you? Silly boy, I’d follow you to Hell itself if I had to.”
The feeling is mutual, but I can’t make my mouth form the words to express the emotions swirling inside me. I’m so relieved to have her back. It’s funny how you don’t get the full effect of how much you missed someone until they are home again.
“I need to find Jonathan and figure out how to get us home,” I mutter between kisses.
She pulls back, shaking her head. “I can’t go home yet. I have to go back,” she says, simply.
I wrinkle my brow at her. “What do you mean, go back? You want to head back into the waiting arms of the devil? Let him fool you all over again? I can’t let you do that, Cora. I won’t.”
She smiles sweetly, as if to a child that doesn’t understand.
“Don’t you see? It’s all so clear now.” She leans closer to me, whispering against my lips. “We have nothing to fear.”
I take her face gently in my hand, shaking my head. “Of course we do.”
“No, we don’t. It’s all lies.”
Her cryptic answers are giving me a headache. “Explain.”
“Xander, he only wants us to think that he has all this control. He has nothing. His power is all a deception.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Seems to be pretty real to me.”
“Of course, that’s part of it. The thing is, I could have chosen to leave anytime I wanted. They just kept me from knowing that. You see, Xander and all his stupid minions have already been defeated.”
Realization lights in my brain. “Of course. Christ. How stupid of me. God you’re right.” I laugh at the knowledge. So simple, yet brilliantly deceptive. “You can’t lose someone that’s already lost.”
“If you choose the right side,” she adds, crossing her arms over her naked chest.
“So why do you have to go back? I still don’t understand.”
She chews her lip. “I don’t know for sure. I just know that I do. Will you come with me?”
The question is tossed out as if me staying here and waiting is an option. I grip her face in one of my large hands, steal a kiss, and grin.
“Ask me another stupid question, woman. I came this far, there’s no going back now.”
“If I don’t go back, he will just follow me forever. This has to happen,” she explains, getting off me and offering me a hand to help me off the floor.
She retrieves her clothes, now almost dry.
“Where are we going?” I ask, buttoning my pants.
“Back to the apartment.”
I pull on my shirt, watching her sit down and put on her shoes. No hint of fear, nothing of the woman that I saw in her only forty minutes ago. She’s surer of this than she is of anything.
Who am I to doubt her? My Cora is back, and she’s a force of nature.
***
Cora
The walk back is peaceful, almost serene. It’s strange how different everything seems now that the tar has been washed off my soul. The air smells cleaner, my mood is lifted, even though I may be leading my love into the gaping maw of hell itself.
He takes me by the hand and laces his fingers with mine. With a smile, I touch my other hand to my face to catch a hint of his smell on my skin. He catches me and winks. It’s been so long since I had this scent on my body that it leaves me feeling euphoric.
As we walk, he asks me questions that I can’t really answer. I don’t know where I’m going, or why. I just know that something is telling me, screaming at me to go back, and I won’t have peace until I do.
So back we go. After everything in me screamed to run away… I know it really makes no sense.
I haven’t eaten in what feels like at least a day. My stomach was caving in on itself earlier, but now the pain has stopped and I find my thirst is quenched, my body doesn’t ache after this long walk. We take no breaks this time, I suppose we are just eager for this to be done, and go home.
With the apartment complex in site, we pause. Andrew looks at me, taking my hand and pressing it to his lips.
“You ready for this, whatever happens?” he asks.
I cherish the feeling of his kiss and meet his eyes. “As ready as I can be, I guess. Whatever we face, we do it together.”
He nods. “Together.”
I take the first step out of the forest, onto the pavement of the street that takes us back to Devin. My heartbeat is a bit thicker, sweat rolls down my back. Am I up to this? Facing the very Devil? Can I look into those abysmal eyes and not fall in?
Only one way to find out.
Crossing the parking lot, I follow the path back to the apartment that I know all too well by now. The sidewalk takes us between buildings and around the park, where children are playing. Of course, they can’t see us. As we pass, Andrew grips my hand just a bit tighter. The apartment is just around the corner.
We round the corner, and walk up to the door. I swallow. Is he inside?
“You can do it,” Andrew whispers.
I nod, taking in a gulp of air as I turn the knob. Pulling the door open, what I’m faced with stops my heart.
The apartment is gone. Instead, we are faced with a great, gaping hole. It appears to be the opening of a tunnel, deep darkness in its depths.
“What the shit?” Andrew mumbles. His voice bounces off what seems to be natural stone. “This wasn’t here.”
The very gates of Hell.
“No kidding.” I shake my head at his overly obvious statement. Placing one foot inside, I test the opening. Hard rock under my foot. The air is warm, smells fresh, not dank like you might expect. The evil in here is fluid. It rolls and bounces off the walls, floating around like the wind on a summer day.
“We are protected,” I offer. “You realize where we are, don’t you?” I look up and meet his eyes.
The fear is distinct, but so is his determination. It soothes the turmoil I feel in this place. Somehow, I’m sure that I won’t slip back into the darkness that Andrew’s love just rescued me from only a few hours ago.
“I’m ready to follow you to the end.”
I take a deep breath, and we step inside. The door closes softly behind us, encasing us in deafening silence. What should have been pitch black, is illuminated by the inner glow that each of us gives off. Now that we are inside, I can better see this place.
It’s really beautiful. The stone is laced with veins of silver and gold, peppered with purples and blues, glowing and shining in the light like precious, unmined gems. Reaching up, I touch the walls. They are warm, and pulse under my fingers.
“These walls have a pulse.�
� I touch in a different place, mesmerized by the seemingly living rock around me.
Andrew takes my arm, gently pulling me away. “Be careful, babe. This place is evil.”
I nod, moving away. “Okay. Let’s get moving”
Walking, I eye my surroundings. The tunnel hums in places, and in others I hear what sounds like whispers floating on the back of the air, teasing my ears.
“Do you hear that?” I whisper. My voice doesn’t echo, strangely enough.
“I do. It’s freaking me out.”
I meet his eyes, he squeezes my hand, and we press on.
The path widens as we move forward.
“How far down does this go?” Andrew whispers.
I stop walking. “Do you hear that?” I take a step forward, straining my ears in the painful silence to listen. “Someone is crying. There is someone else in here.”
He furrows his brow. “I hear it.”
We walk about two hundred more yards before the figure comes into sight. Sitting, curled in on herself, sobbing. Wearing jeans and no shoes. Dark hair falls around her shoulders as she trembles. I know who this is.
“Fuck, that’s Marilyn.” I breathe after a moment. “How is she here?”
Then I remember what Xander told me. He wanted to bring her here if she got pregnant to protect the child. Is she pregnant? God I hope not, not in the state I last saw her in.
I rush to her side. She looks up at me, recognition lights in her red rimmed eyes. She glances around, as if seeing for the first time.
“What are you doing here?” I crouch by her side.
“Xander brought me here, told me to wait for him. He left me in the dark. You brought the light with you.” She turns her hands over, as if seeing them for the first time. “It’s so dark in here.”
“Xander left you in here?” I question. I look at Andrew, concern all over his face. He stands over us.
“Yes. He loves me, you know.” She sniffles, smiling.
My heart sinks. I can see by the look in her eyes that she’s swallowed his lies. How can I make her understand?
Lucifer's Game Page 18
