Page 46 of Disturbed Lucidity

Heading up the back stairs, I took two at a time. Turning the corner, I stalked down the hallway and smiled when I saw Agony sitting in a chair outside the heavy metal door, reading a book.

The same metal door Slash told me led to Luc’s room.

Flipping the page, he never looked up from his book. “Ain’t you supposed to be with Logic getting your head shrunk or something?”

“Aren’t you a bit too old to be babysitting a grown man?”

Agony shrugged, unperturbed.

“Luc in there?” I tilted my head towards the large steel door.

Agony jerked a slight nod.

Without looking up from his book, Agony strangely added, “Walk away, Ivy. You don’t want what’s behind that door.”

“How do you know what I want?”

“I don’t, but I know Luc.”

Curious, I asked, “And what does he want?”

Agony closed the book he was reading, standing to his full height. “What you can’t give him.”

Before I could ask what he meant by that, he walked away, saying nothing more. Watching him leave, I wondered what he was talking about.

As soon as I entered the room, a sharp chill ran down my spine, causing my body to shiver involuntarily. My heart pounded in my chest like a thunderous roar, filling me with excitement. As I looked about the dark room, a piercing high-pitched ringing assaulted my ears. Only darkness welcomed me. I could barely make anything out when my eyes landed on a mirror across the room.

There Luc stood, grinning behind me.

Spinning around, all I could see was an endless abyss of darkness.

He wasn’t there.

Was this some joke? Finding the mirror again, there he stood. As Agony’s warning blared in my head, the room’s true purpose hit me with the force of a wrecking ball, leaving me stunned. My lungs expelled the final breath, leaving me gasping for air. My lungs pleaded for relief while an overwhelming paranoia tightened its grip on my body.

How did I not see it?

All the signs were there. He’d trained me from an early age to see beyond a man, to the soul of him. To identify the truth of what laid beyond the illusion of a man.

I’d seen it many times before, just different variations of the same.

In the end, they were all the same.

My hand shook against my trembling lips, and I couldn’t help but let out a manic laugh, the sound echoing as I vigorously shook my head.

“I should have known.”

“Yes, you should have.” The sound of his gruff and gravelly voice enveloped me, causing an exquisite sensation that felt like tiny stings against my skin, while simultaneously, the buzz of a dark fluorescent light overhead temporarily blinded me, flooding the room with a disturbing aura of moral ambiguity.

In an effort to gain control, I concentrated on slowing down my breathing.

Blinking rapidly, I could feel awareness gradually creeping into my mind, like a gentle haze settling in. I fought against the overwhelming urge to gasp for air, instead taking deliberate, measured breaths to steady myself. I could feel the static charge in my limbs intensify while I pushed myself to stay focused on the task at hand.

This wasn’t a dream.

I had just voluntarily walked into the Devil’s chamber.

I felt a surge of heat in my belly as I absorbed the sight of the room, now bathed in light. The matte black walls exuded an ominous atmosphere, while an array of instruments hung proudly displayed for his amusement. Positioned prominently in the center of the room, a large king-sized bed stood as a foreboding symbol of his twisted desires.

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