Page 34 of Unholy

“Each step the beast took felt like it was ticking down to our demise.”

“Shit.” Levi’s eyes are wide, and he sounds genuinely terrified.

“When it started to round the corner, Mom told me to leave her. She started pushing me toward the exit. I refused. I couldn’t leave her there. She took care of me. She gave me life. She nurtured me in the best way she knew how. She brought you to me.” I cup Levi’s cheek. “I owed her everything. At the very least, I knew I had to protect her.”

“Oh, Killian.” Tears swim in Levi's blue eyes as he looks at me in awe.

“So... I fought. I used my sword, and I fought the beast.” Flashes of the giant monster filter throughmy mind. The way its growl had shaken the entire cave, causing rocks to fall. How it almost took my head off with its huge claws. Its large yellow teeth had glimmered in the low light, dripping with drool. Its amber eyes peered at me with hatred I thought at best was incapable of feeling.

“I stayed between it and her as much as I could. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to kill it or incapacitate it, but it was definitely trying to kill us. At one point, it hit her, knocking her out.”

“Oh no,” Levi gasps, gripping my hand tightly.

“I saw red. She didn’t deserve this. She shouldn’t have been brought into the trials in the first place. She was innocent. So, I fought harder, eventually shoving the sword through the beast’s heart and twisting it. It fell hard. The cave shook around us. Huge rocks rained down on us, so I dove on top of her body, shielding it from the brunt force of the rocks.”

“But… but how did you …” Tears stream down Levi’s face as he searches my body, touching the bruises and cuts, clearly understanding how I got them.

“I don’t know. I survived, though. After the dust settled, Mom was still unconscious. I tried towake her, but she wasn’t waking up. I could tell she was still breathing, though. I could hear her heart beating. I knew she was alive, but I didn’t know for how much longer. Didn’t know how hard she was hit, and I still couldn’t get her loose. Finally, I just lost it. I started screaming at God.” I use the pad of my thumb to wipe the tears away from Levi’s cheeks.

“Why?” he asks, and I stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“Because he did this. It was his trial. I passed all three, so he owed me. He was just going to let my mother die to prove a point, so I started screaming at him. Told him he was a coward. That he had to give me what’s mine, and that was the rule, or else Lucifer would start a war.”

“A war?”

“Yeah. There are rules in place for a reason. If God keeps a soul that is no longer His, it is grounds for a holy war. Of course, God is a little bitch and wanted to avoid that, so he came. He eventually gave me my soul back, which I think is what you saw in your dream.” I touch Levi’s temple.

“Okay… but how did you get here so quickly?” Levi asks.

“After I got my soul back, God was going to leave. I stopped him and told him he needed to help my mom. That she was hurt because of him, and she was innocent, and she needed to be fixed. He begrudgingly agreed. I watched her head wound heal, and the chain disappear from around her ankle. I grabbed her hand, right as he was transporting her, so he ended up transporting both of us to her house.”

“You didn’t take her to the hospital?” Concern coats Levi’s question, and I definitely am in love with him.

“No need. Her head wound was healed. She woke up as I was carrying her to her bed. I tucked her in, and explained everything as quickly as I could. She said she was glad to have me back and told me to go to you. Even told me to take her car, so I did. I left. And I came here.”

“Okay…” Levi says after a few seconds, nodding. He places his hand over my heart, and it stutters in my chest, almost as if it is reaching to touch his hand. I wince, the adrenaline from the morning wearing off, leaving my broken body sore. “So why didn’t the devil have your soul?”

“The devil?” I would laugh if I wasn’t so damn sore. Levi looks puzzled by my response. “The human part of me was pure enough to be with God, so he was the one that had my soul. That’s why I had to trap an angel to begin with. If the Devil had my soul, I could have just, like… asked him.”

“I-I guess I’m just having a hard time believing that it was God. The voice in my dream. It belonged to God.” Levi looks as if he’s on the brink of losing it. I know I need to be gentle, but I also want to make him understand that God isn’t who he thinks he is.

“You don’t have to believe me but understand that I have no reason to lie to you. I will never lie to you again. That was God’s voice in your dream.” I look Levi in the eyes, unblinking, wanting him to truly see that I’m not lying about this.

“He sounded so… different.” He looks down, fiddling with a strand of my hair.

“What?” It’s my turn to be confused.

“When he visited me in my dreams, he always sounded so kind.” Levi raises his head, and Iswipe the hair out of his eyes. “But in this one, he was so menacing. He sounded… evil.” He looks as if his world is falling down around him again. And now that I have a soul, I can recognize that it is. I pull Levi to me, hugging him tightly.

“God is… whatever he thinks will serve him in that moment,” I say finally, petting Levi's hair in comfort. I brace myself for him to pull away from me again, angry that I would talk in such a way about God, but what I said was true. The sooner he realizes that, the better. But he never pulls away, never moves to get up. He just traces the cuts and bruises on my chest so gently, it feels like I’m being touched by a feather from the wing of an angel.

“So… after you left, you talked to your father, trapped an archangel, completed three trials, and met God all because I said you didn’t have a soul, and that I was ashamed because I liked your touch?” Levi taps my collar bone, as if checking off each thing I did.

“Yes.”

“Wow… that’s…”

“Obsessive?”

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