Page 103 of Babalon

“No, I didn’t. I simply agreed to making a deal.”

“All I needed was consent and you gave it. What’s done is done.”

This cock sucker took my fucking eye!

Leaning my head back, I suck in several breaths trying to calm my nerves. I am trapped, restrained to what I assumed is a metal chair, in a fucking hole somew—the pit, I’m in the pit!

Turning I look around hastily, trying to take in as much of my surroundings as I can. Old cell doors hanging off their hinges, some lying across the floor, stone rubble lining the hallway we sat in. There is water streaming from somewhere, I can hear it, and hear as Lucien walks through the puddles.

Further down the hall, I can see periodic light streaming in from above, shadows passing on occasion, then the haunting whine I unwillingly became accustomed to when I was sitting in solitary. She was right, right about everything— it's directly below solitary.

Seeing me look around and absorb my surroundings, Lucien gets closer. Tilting his own head to see the light pouring in before he opens his stupid mouth.

“Don’t get comfortable. We are going to be moving later. This is just one part of it but I don’t want anyone close enough to hear you screaming.”

“What do you mean, move?”

“We will be moving to a different side of the prison, away from drains that would let your pathetic cries be heard.”

“Why the hell are you doing this?”

“You want the list?”

“No, not really. Just give it to me in the simplest form.”

“Because you touched what wasn’t yours after I told you not to. You’d do well to listen.”

“Nadia doesn’t belong to you.”

“That’s where you would be wrong. She’s always been mine. Even when we were little, she was mine.”

I’ve heard a lot of weird shit come out of his mouth, ever since he got to Darkwater, his obsessive religious bullshit, the way he would talk to himself on occasion when he thought no one else was listening. Yet the way he speaks about Nadia like they are lifelong friends makes my stomach sour.

Is he here for her?

“Is she why you’re here and not in some other prison?”

Lucien drops down into a squat, both of his hands on my legs like he is trying to keep himself upright— I hope she gave you a concussion and then some, you monster.

A wicked smile stretches across his face.

“You’re finally catching on.”

“Why?” I ask immediately.

“Something I saw in her when she was young. Maybe you’ve seen it now that she gave you a glimpse. She’s like me.”

“She’s nothing like you.”

“Of course she is. Tell the fractured bones in my body that she isn’t.”

“Talking to voices and murdering people is nothing like protecting what is yours and being lonely, Lucien. Please go find a whole bottle of pills and swallow the whole lot.”

He flips his hands over and pulled the sleeves up, showing me the scars that decorate the pale-tattooed skin there. Some smooth and running from left to right, other jagged ones trailing up the center of his arm. Lucien inspects them, one by one, almost as if he were in awe of what he has done to himself.

“I’ve tried to take my life more times than I can count. I’ve poured my own blood over the bodies I’ve broken, yet nothing. The Lord brings me back every time.”

“I think it’s your unwillingness to fucking die that keeps brings you back, not God. Your God would never let someone like you continue to exist.”

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