by C. G. Blaine
“I really hope I don’t look this terrible in my nineties.” I scrunch up my face at her, and the creases deepen.
Her hand falls back to the bed, and I crawl over to sit against the wall on the other side of her. My legs create a bridge over her, my sneakers dirtying up the clean white sheets. They’ll change them in the morning.
We sit in silence. She won’t or can’t talk, and I have nothing of value to tell her. Sometimes, we just need the familiar. A constant we can latch on to when the rest threatens to become deafening. And every day, I creep closer to losing that hum. I fall onto my side, bringing my legs over so I can lie down. I put my head on her shoulder, the tears soaking into the hideous white nightgown they keep dressing her in.
If I pull this off, the first thing I’ll do is burn the damn thing. No, the second thing. The first thing I want to do is hear her voice again. I don’t even care if Nyla yells at me for almost letting her go. I just don’t want the last time my sister spoke to me to be the last time ever. Which means I need to figure out how to work around my latest obstacle—and fast.
“What’s your name?” I’d asked. My hands were in his unruly blond hair, cool tiles on my back while his hard everything pinned me against the wall.
A low chuckle rumbled from his throat. “Does it matter at this point?”
It never did. I’d wanted him the moment I saw him at the bar, nursing his beer. Then his smoldering stare had landed on me, a dangerous brow arching. I’d known right then that I couldn’t leave the bar without feeling his hands on me first.
I pushed down his jeans, his briefs, offering to moan his name if he told it to me. His rough fingers skidded up my thighs and under my skirt, but he still wouldn’t.
“You can cry out whatever you want, gorgeous,” he said. “Sex god or badger.”
He picked me up while I laughed, my legs tying around him. But I wanted him to tell me because I wanted to say it.
“I’m not calling you—” I couldn’t finish because he thrust into me in one smooth stroke. “Oh fuck.”
His lips found mine and then his tongue. He tasted of his beer and something more intoxicating. He moved in and out of me, my heels pushing into him each time he retreated to bring him back. It made him fuck me harder, and I moaned into his mouth. He let out a harsh breath as his grip on me tightened.
“Chaz,” he rasped.
My heart pounded when I heard him say it. Not because I didn’t know it. I’ve known his name almost as long as my own. Chazaqiel. One of The Fallen. And I was already sorry for what I would have to do to him.
Once Kai gets back to the apartment after dropping Nyx off, I text him to let him know I’ll be back tomorrow night. Convenient how fast a fake conference can wrap up when the reason it was created won’t be an issue anymore.
Hit me up when you get in, he sends.
And I will as soon as Nyx walks away and doesn’t look back.
Not something I thought I’d say, but I actually miss my charges. Fuck me. I need to spend less time with Ros. Get my edge back.
For the first time since the fight, I sleep more than a few hours. Existence is already getting back to normal. When Avery leaves for her morning and afternoon shifts at the daycare, I follow along, knowing Kai will spend most of the day lounging around. The breeze from last night turned to a cold wind, so he’ll stay in recovery mode an extra day. Then, tomorrow, he’ll have me five hundred feet up on a rock face without any gear.
I check periodically to see if Nyx has shown up but no dice. All I suggested was she end things today. My bad for not specifying a time.
After Aves gets off work, I wait across the hall. Considering most of my time is spent hanging around and waiting, I shouldn’t feel a need to keep checking the stone, but I’m pulling up Kai in ten-minute intervals. Then, around eleven, the door across the hall shuts. I summon Kai’s image, breathing out a sigh when I see Nyx taking off her coat.
Fucking. Finally.
I set the stone on the kitchen counter, not interested in the specifics, and drag off the polo I’ve worn all day on my way to the bedroom. Once she’s out of the picture, Kai will want to go to the nearest club to end his dry spell. I’m ready to end mine as well. He hasn’t been getting any from Nyx, and I haven’t gotten any since her.
Before I shower, I text Cass to let him know Project Nix Nyx is in the final stage.
When I called earlier, my brother wasted no time in barking out a, “Told you so,” to Hannah, pretty proud of himself for predicting the necessary outcome from day one.
I swear I heard her roll her eyes through the phone.
I toss my phone on the bed along with the amulet and snag clothes.
Twenty minutes later, I check the mirror one last time, dressed and ready to cheer up my charge. As I step out of the bathroom, music plays from across the hall, so I head straight for the kitchen to check the palm stone. Sure enough, Kai’s alone and sprawled out in the living room, playing a video game.
My existence is mine again.
As I tuck the stone in my pocket, I smile and grab my keys off the counter. But my door isn’t even shut yet when I come to an abrupt stop. Nyx is on the floor outside of Kai’s apartment, her back against the wall and her knees to her chest with her hands covering her face.
Fuck.
Her head lifts when the door clicks behind me. She notices me and shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says, pushing to her feet.
Once she’s standing in front of me, I see the redness in her cheeks, her eyes.
“Were you crying?” I ask. I sound way more confused than I should because why would she be crying if she’s the one who did the dumping?
She looks back at the door and whispers, “Yes,” like she doesn’t want Kai to know she’s still here.
“He won’t hear you with his game on. And even if it wasn’t loud as shit, he zones out when he’s playing.”
Her shoulders rise with a slow breath. “Yes,” she says louder. “I was crying. Kai broke up with me.”
Now, my face matches my voice. “What? He dumped you?”
She nods, tears welling again. “Yep. I mean, I came over here to break up with him, but still.”
“So, you’re crying because he broke up with you first?”
The pink in her cheeks turns to a full blush, and she chooses the ugly carpet in the hallway instead of eye contact. “Partly.” She blows out a breath before she looks up again. “I also left my coat inside and can’t bring myself to knock and ask for it.”
That part might be my fault with the whole tell him goodbye and never contact him again phrasing. I’m about to offer to get it for her, but she’s not finished.
“And at this point, I can’t knock, or he’ll know I’ve been out here for fifteen minutes. Not to mention, I’ve already had a really shitty day. My car wouldn’t start earlier, and I’m pretty sure I screwed things up for my sister…” A sad laugh escapes her, her head shaking again. “You’re probably the last person I should be dumping all this on, considering your relationship with Kai. Sorry. I’ll just buy a new coat tomorrow and wait for my Uber outside.”
Nyx forces a smile, and with a small wave, she starts down the hall toward the elevator. For some fucking reason, I’m still standing here when she steps inside and turns around. Then we watch each other until the doors close.
I stare at Kai and Avery’s apartment door, clenching my jaw while I reach for the knob. But before I touch it, I groan and rush down the hall to the stairwell.
Even though Avery has her finger ready on the pepper spray, I always make sure I’m there when she walks to or from the building at night. Nyx doesn’t even have a coat, and I doubt her phone would scare away a fucking raccoon.
“Hey,” I say, catching up with her just outside the entryway.
She glances over her shoulder, her eyebrows scrunching together when she sees me. “Hey.”
I scan the front of the building, jogging the last stretch of sidewalk between us. “I can wait
with you.”
The wind whips around us, and Nyx’s teeth are already chattering.
“Here,” I say, peeling off my hoodie. Christ, I really am turning into Rosdan.
“No.” She pushes it back at me. “Now, you’ll be cold.”
“I will. But I’m at least wearing a T-shirt.” My head tips to the low neckline of her tank top.
She takes the sweatshirt, and fuck, it really is cold outside. Maybe I should have kept the amulet on and used it as a heater. By the time her head pops through the neck, I’m already over it.
“You order a car yet?”
She brings out her phone. “You stopped me, remember? Really, I’ll be fine. Go inside. If anyone comes near me, I’ll stab them with my apartment key.”
She pulls a single key out of her pocket to show me, and I chuckle.
“That will do enough damage to piss them off.” I dig my own keys out of my pocket and nod toward the parking lot. “Let’s go.”
She hesitates to follow me but then falls into step beside me. “Thank you.”
I shrug. “I just want to make sure I get my sweatshirt back.”
The drive only takes a few minutes. I let her give me directions, acting like I haven’t followed her ex-boyfriend there multiple times. When I park in the lot behind her building, Nyx is looking at her hands while she plays with her apartment key. I rest my head on the seat, turned toward her. The console lights up her face, green instead of the blue cast from the screen the first night she showed up at the apartment. I study her one last time. The profile of her pouty mouth and the curve of her nose.
Her eyes flick up to mine, and the air feels thick from the heat blowing out of the vents. Even without her remembering how good we felt together, the tension’s there.
I’m about to say fuck it and slam my lips into hers, but she beats me to it.
She whimpers the second her mouth is on mine, her hands skimming to the back of my head to pull me closer. I lean in over the console, bringing a hand to the side of her neck. But when my tongue dips in to stroke hers, she pulls back.
“Come inside,” she says.
I force myself to stop looking at her mouth, and what the hell am I doing? I just erased her memories of us screwing, and now, I’m seconds away from recreating them with her in the passenger seat of my car.
“No,” I say. “I can’t.” But I barely believe myself, so I add, “This was just supposed to be a ride. I don’t want you to think it would ever be anything else.”
Nyx slumps back in her seat like I slapped her. Then, after a beat, she recovers and sets her jaw. “Of course you don’t. I broke up with your best friend less than an hour ago.” She smiles and shakes her head, turning for the handle. “Plus, I’m not at all your type, right?”
She climbs out, and I sigh as the door slams behind her.
I should let the human sulk, thinking she’s been rejected. Let her go about her life where she’ll stumble into a rebound with the first person she comes across who owns both a set of eyes and a dick. But if I’ve learned anything about me and this chick, it’s that should doesn’t fucking matter, and I turn the key off in the ignition.
She keeps going, almost to her building when my door shuts.
I stalk up the sidewalk after her. “Nyx.”
Her body freezes, her fists clenched at her sides. As she turns, I slow down, stalling out completely once she faces me. She looks like heartbreak, features crumpled with tears streaming down her cheeks. And I want to make her forget everything I just said.
I start to close the space between us, but on step one, the last words out of her mouth hit me. You’re not at all my type. I told her that last night while I wiped her memories. She shouldn’t have remembered.
A shadow moves behind her, and my muscles tense. A figure slowly steps out. He comes to a stop beside her, and she glances at him. Now, the light casts a yellow hue over her, over his slicked black hair and the suit to match. The demon from the fight. His pupils begin to glow a deep red before they drift over my shoulder, and then Nyx’s line of sight follows.
Part of me already knows what they’re looking at—or who. The scent of sulfur seeps through the air along with some tacky-ass cologne. I turn around to a smirk that ignites an existence worth of hatred.
The black-on-black-suit-wearing motherfucker tips his head to the side. “Chazaqiel.”
Lower-level demons pour out of a portal next to him. I glance back at Nyx, under the arm of the other Upper.
She set me up.
Shaking my head, I chuckle, bringing my attention back to Abaddon. “Well, this should be—”
Chains. The Demon of Destruction, and he needs chains to hold on to an angel without any fucking powers? Abaddon is a disgrace to the name. My head throbs where I assume a Lower took a fucking cheap shot, but when I open my eyes, they connect with the slimy Upper from earlier, so maybe he’s the one I’ll have to fucking kill later.
I survey the rest of the dank concrete room. I’m on my knees in the center, my arms outstretched. A single caged light hangs above me, three Lowers hovering by a doorway off to the side. Shadows conceal one of the corners in front of me while the Upper perches in the other with Nyx nearby, her head down and hands hidden in the sleeves of my hoodie. If I were in any sort of a bargaining position, I’d demand she give that shit back, but we’ll save it for another time.
The chains clink when I rotate my wrists, testing the give. Not much, but here’s to Avery seeing a mouse in the next thirty seconds. A rough spot on one of the links digs in when I yank a little harder, but I keep tugging to fill the room with the irritating clanks.
“Probably not necessary since I don’t have my powers,” I shout over the noise, waiting for the ringmaster to reveal himself in some showboat, master-villain bullshit entrance. “Unless you plan on taking our will they, won’t they to a whole new level, Abaddon. In which case, you should know my safe word is actually a phrase.” I stop my assault on everyone’s ears and roll my head toward the cluster of Lowers. “It’s Donny can blow me. But given the situation, maybe I should switch it to Justin Bieber.”
A set of red ovals lights up in the dark corner. “Just when I think I can’t get any more joy out of killing you, you open your mouth.” The rest of Abaddon appears, the demon slinking out with a smug smile that causes the scar just below his right cheek to dent.
I straighten up, pushing out my chest and raising my head, matching his expression with a smirk of my own. “Afraid I’ll huff and puff and blow your flame out?”
He flicks his palm open, the blue flame springing to life as he marches toward me. His hand flattens against my chest. The fire eats at my skin, and a growl escapes me, but I don’t back down. I push into the burn, jaw clenched tight and muscles fighting to pull away. Every second I challenge him pisses him off until he shoves me backward. Not having my powers leaves me at a disadvantage, and my ass lands on my heels.
When he moves to the side, my eyes connect with Nyx. Her hand covers her mouth but falls away when I wink at her.
“Don’t worry, beautiful. I’ll be loose in no time. Then the real fun begins, and I can hunt you down to return this little favor.”
Her shoulders pull back in a sharp breath, her chin tipping up. But I catch the hint of doubt behind the façade. Donny’s still walking away, being dramatic as shit, so I stare her down.
“What are you?” I ask, taunting her. “A demon groupie?”
She starts to take a step when the suit beside her places a hand on her shoulder. She shakes it off, shooting him a warning glare, and I whistle to bring her attention back to me.
“Please tell me you fucked Donny because I’m dying to know who’s better.”
“You sure about that?” She arches a brow and smiles.
All fucking bravado. But she confirms she remembers our time in the ladies’ room. I wonder how she kept my light from working on her. A spell? Enchanted object?
“If you’re finished whining about be
ing outsmarted by a human…” Donny finishes his runway walk and holds his hand out to the suit beside her. “Hex.”
I throw my head back, laughing. “You’ve got to be fucking joking. An Upper named Hex? You guys aren’t even trying anymore, huh?”
The suit’s cool demeanor slips. The darkness grows from his hands, vining up his arms, but Donny steps in front of him, hand still extended. After killing me a thousand ways in his mind, Hex reaches behind him. It’s not until Donny turns around that I see what they handed off between them.
And my fucking body ices over—muscles, blood, soul.
Light glints off the steel, Donny’s talons wrapped around the handle.
The Dimming Blade.
“Surprise,” Donny says, flicking his wrist and slicing through the air with the only thing outside of God that could end me. And I don’t have my powers to defend myself. No Cass or Rosdan for backup. Nothing and no one.
“You good?” he asks, bending his knees to dip down closer to my level. “You look a little dim.”
“Save the puns, asshat.” I swallow, refusing to show him vulnerability, no matter how fucked I am right now. I lift my chin to gesture to the weapon. “I’ll bet my eternity you can’t even work that little knife. You think you can just poke me and hocus-pocus happens?”
“Oh, Chazaqiel, you are always underestimating me.” He twists the point on his fingertip—thin, dark shadows leaking from where he punctures his flesh. “I’m going to watch the light drain out of you, and then I’ll wipe you from existence once and for all. Because an eternity of nothingness isn’t enough. I want you to be nothing.”
I might not be able to access my light, but it’s still a part of me. Locked down, but there. Without the light, I’d be mortal with an angel soul. Killable yet unable to die. It’s a strong blip in the matrix of existence, resulting in one of two outcomes. Either I fill the void of light with darkness and become a demon—an upper-level, of course—or when my mortal life ends, I cease to exist.
Abaddon squats in front of me, still scrutinizing the tip of the blade poking into his finger. “Of course, the blade must be activated first.” His eyes meet mine, their red glow somehow more sinister than usual, and I growl as he leans in to whisper in my ear, “But that only requires a sacrifice.”
