Page 126 of The World Undone

“Explain,” Atlas said. The sharp hollowness of the word cut through my anxiety, curdling it in my stomach like expired milk.

“I—” I sighed, my tongue tied up as I fought to maintain composure, but I was one push away from breaking down in tears. “I don’t know the details, just that the ritual requires my full strength, the stone, and the nexus. Lucifer doesn’t think I will survive it. No person could survive it.”

“You learned this when?” Atlas’s voice was cool, detached, but his eyes were almost pure yellow and I could see him struggling to maintain composure, to control his anger.

I blinked back tears, knowing that this was his biggest fear. Letting me in, letting me close, loving me—just to lose me.

And I’d allowed him to love me anyway, knowing that I’d eventually have to break him.

“The first night,” I swallowed, my throat tight, “that I woke up in the lake. I had a dream-walk with Lucifer, and he—he confirmed it then.”

“Months?” Ro sniffed, his jaw clenching so tightly that I could hear his teeth grind. “You’ve been keeping this from us for fucking months, Max?”

“Yes, much time has been wasted,” Darius narrowed his eyes, considering, “which is why we can’t waste anymore. Hence, the family meeting. Who has ideas?”

“There aren’t—” I started, but Darius cut me off.

“You know, I really should have known better. I was so caught up in the whole,” he raised his hands in exaggerated finger quotes, “being the good guy thing,” he scoffed, took a sip of coffee and cringed at the bitterness, “that I started seeing the best in things, hoping for a bright and sunshiny future. Hell,” he turned to me, brows scrunched in disbelief, “I was even willing to live with a cat. But obviously sex and blood and love and what not have made me gullible and—” he waved his hand searching for the word before clearly give up, “you know, rose-colored glasses and what not, content to go with the flow, follow the will of the other good guys in their perfect world of nonsense. Because when I really think about it, of course you can’t survive that. A literal realm’s worth of power flowing through you? Get fucking real. How the fuck could anyone fucking survive that?” He shook his head, pointing his finger at me while he paced back and forth. “You see, this is why sometimes murder is good. Sometimes being greedy and cruel lets you see the world with more clarity, the images sharper, more true. See things for what they really are—all the shitty and evil and whatnot bits of it. If I hadn’t been so…so fucking reformed, maybe I would have figured this out months ago—maybe before Lucifer even confirmed it. Could have taken you away, and hidden you somewhere—like I’ve been wanting to do since you broke me out of that damn lab.”

“Lucifer’s been looking for other options.” I sank back into the couch, hyper aware of everyone’s eyes on me. “That’s what he’s been doing since the first time we left hell. He just hasn’t found whatever it was that he was looking for.”

“And now he’s missing,” Ro’s voice was even, too steady.

Yes. Now he was missing. As was Samael. We had no next option, no clue where to fucking go from here. For the first time, the utter helplessness and hopelessness of the situation clung to my bones, weighing them down.

“I just wanted the rest of my time here with you all to be good memories. I know I should have said something, but I didn’t want you all to look at me like,” I gestured around the room to them all, “like that.”

Izzy squeezed my arm again, quiet solidarity. Her anger and frustration lapped at my skin, but I could also feel her pushing that away for now. She knew I needed someone in my corner on this, and she’d do her best to be that person, even though I could tell she disagreed with me.

That realization—the simple depth of her friendship—made my vision blur.

“No,” Darius’s eyes widened and he took a step towards me, hand outstretched, before he paused, pulling it back, “no tears. This isn’t the end of things. It can’t be. I refuse for us to go through everything we went through just for,” he scoffed, “for this to be reward.”

“We still have time.” Eli bent forward, elbows on his knees as he scratched the back of his neck. “We don’t have the stone, or any leads on it. We don’t know where the nexus is.” He grunted, “also no leads. Kind of weird to be pleased with the fact that we’re missing these things, but at least it buys us more time—to plan for another path, another option.”

“There isn’t—” I licked my lips, “the blood oath.”

“The what?” Ro asked.

I jumped at the sound of a loud crash. Darius’s coffee mug was now shattered on the floor across the room, a watery-brown stain dripping on the wall above it.

“Fuck!” he ran his hands roughly through his hair, and for a moment, I froze, convinced that last night’s dream-walk hadn’t worked, that the magic would overtake him again, upsetting the delicate balance we’d created. “I fucking knew that goddamn oath would bite us in the end.”

“Explain.” Declan leaned against the kitchen counter, her arms crossed over her chest. “Now.”

“When I made that blood oath with Lucifer, and then broke it,” I said, ignoring Darius’s scoff, “it means that Lucifer has ultimate say over my will, until he chooses to relinquish it.”

“Meaning?” Izzy asked.

“Meaning that he can make me go through with the ritual, even if I didn’t want to. If I refuse his demand, I’ll die. My life will be forfeited either way.”

The flash of hope that Darius had been broadcasting dimmed all at once, until there was just panic and anger etched into his eyes.

“There isn’t another option,” I said, “I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t want to do this to you all. Seeing your pain—your grief—before I’m even gone, that’s the only difficult part of this decision for me.”

“There is.” Ro’s gaze latched on mine, before he turned to Darius. “There is another option.” Darius stood taller, soaking in every word Ro uttered, like he was bestowing the elixir of life. “Jarrod, that council member—he seemed to think that Max could survive if she shared her power with them, if they helped with the ritual.”

“Then we do that,” Wade said, pacing, “obviously. How? How do we find them?”

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