Page 108 of Infernal

Talon glanced back at Lucifer who responded with a curt dip of his head. With that, Taylor’s feet were back on solid ground, but she was far from being out of the clear.

“You’re a fool for coming here,” said Lucifer, shaking his head at his idiocy.

Ben’s eyes met mine and for the first time ever, I saw fear in them. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed.

But that wasn’t evenalmostgood enough.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I scolded him through strangled sobs. “You promised me!”

“I’m sorry, Jem,” he said again, rattling his head from side to side, the collar still fastened around his neck and restricting his movements. “I heard him say he wanted the sword…I knew you wouldn’t give it to him…I had to do something,” he explained, his voice as wild and desperate as his eyes were.

“And now you’ll pay for it…withherlife,” said Lucifer, calmer than a sleeping baby.

“Wait!” I yelled, my arms flailing out frantically. “We had a deal! We had a deal!” My legs tried to give out, but Lucifer held me up, keeping my head facing forward to make sure I got a front-row view of the massacre.

“Kill the girl.”

At Lucifer’s words, the orange-headed demon holding Taylor by her neck grabbed the sides of her face and twisted her head around until it snapped, the sound of it echoing through the building like a single gunshot to the head.

Her lifeless body crumpled to the ground as an ear-splitting scream tore out of my body, flaying the inside of my throat as it bludgeoned its way out of me. “NOOOO!”

“I’ll kill you!” screamed Ben as he tried to pounce on Talon, but Muscles promptly yanked the leash towards himself, repelling him backwards so that he couldn’t reach Taylor’s lifeless body. “Kill him, Jemma! Kill him!”

My feet were already pounding against the floor as Ben’s screams rippled through every bone in my body. I wasn’t sure if I’d escaped Lucifer’s grasp, or if he let me just to see what I would do, but I didn’t stop to question it.

Within seconds of reaching Talon, I was on top of him, savagely ripping a hole through his chest with my bare hands, gouging the cavity, as though taking his own heart might somehow make Taylor’s beat again.

My body went numb as I wrapped my fingers around the beating organ and squeezed until Talon’s eyes rolled back into his head. Before I could fully absorb the satisfaction, an arm snacked around the front of my neck, hauling me backwards as I clutched the still-beating heart in my hands.

“Now look what you did,” said Lucifer as he pressed his forearm against my windpipe and locked me to his chest. “How many more are going to have to die tonight? Hmm?” His hot breath blew against my ear as I bucked and kicked against his hold.

Realizing I was still holding the dead heart in my hands, I tossed it on the ground and then grabbed his forearm with both hands as I tried to rip, and claw, his arm away from my neck, but my hands were covered in warm, slippery blood, making it impossible to get a decent hold on him.

“Tell me, Daughter. Do have any more surprises waiting for me in the ceiling?” asked Lucifer as he pulled me off my feet by the rim of my neck, cutting off my oxygen. “Or should we just go ahead and kill the boy now?”

Unable to speak or suck in a single drop of air, I punched and scratched at his arm, silently screaming at him to let me go.I can’t breathe! You’re choking me!

“Yes, Daughter,” he whispered by my ear. “That’s the point.”

The lights flickered all around us as terror trilled through my bones. He was going to kill me—to strangle me to death right where I stood, or worse, just keep me lucid enough to watch another one of my friends die.

The lights flickered harder, flashing in and out of existence as my head grew heavy with fog. In and out. In and out. Blackness then light. Blackness then light. And then, I realized it was me, slipping in and out of consciousness.

I had to do something—but what? My hands were too slick with blood and sweat to do anything but slide right of his arm. And then it hit me. Panicked, I pulled my bloody hands from his arm and moved them to my neck, frantically coating myself in the blood in last-ditch effort to wiggle my way out of his iron-clad hold.

And it freaking worked!

One moment I was standing pinned against his chest, slowly suffocating to death, and the next, I was spinning on him, grabbing his arm and twisting it around so violently that his shoulder popped right out of its socket. He screamed out in pain as terrifying pools of red lava began swirling in his eyes.

My stomach knotted at the petrifying monster standing before me.

Red eyes.

Satan’s eyes.

“You will regret that, Daughter,” he said as he grabbed his arm and snapped his shoulder back in place.

I could hear chaos breaking out behind me, and I instinctively knew that Caleb had joined the fight. A part of me wanted to help him, to drag him and Ben out of this building and bring them someplace safe, but I couldn’t turn my back on Lucifer. I couldn’t give him the chance to get away. He had to pay for what he did.

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