Page 201 of Wicked Believer
Fuck my life.
One streams down her face, its descent distorting reality until we’re all being molded and crushed at the edges. Pressure erupts inside my skull, the pain causing an earsplitting ringing.
“Lucifer.”
I’m uncertain how to put a stop to this, how to end this hell, but somehow amid the chaos of it all, I know if that tear falls, reality will rip. Like a black hole. A fissure.
A tear in the fabric of the universe itself.
“I won’t let him do that.”
Abruptly, reality rights itself, and I realize only as I bring my hand to my head, still in a haze, that the tender words came from me.
Lilith looks to me, a terrifying bit of hope in her eyes.
“Charlotte,” Lucifer growls, as if to sayLet me handle this.
But I’m not about to let him make her cry once more.
“I won’t agree to him keeping you from your grandchildren.”
I meet Lilith’s eyes, and for the first time, I see what connects her to me.
Her subjugation. The abuse.
I know what it’s like to feel as if your power has been stolen from you completely.
“I understand why you did it. Played Michael and Lucifer. Why you want vengeance against God. Truly I do.” I nod as she slowly facesme. “You want what’s best for your son, for your children, and He took that from you. Made you feel powerless.”
“Yes,” she whispers, her eyes clouding with white, a bit of her divine form unleashed. Though her expression is full of adoration, like she couldn’t be prouder of what she created, and it ...
Terrifies me.
My pulse thrashes in my ears.
But I am no one’s celestial plaything.
Not even Lilith’s.
“But I can’t allow you to end humanity like this.”
“We can restart,” she says, reaching out as if to take my hands in hers. “You, me, Lucifer. Build anew.”
And, for a moment, the offer is ... strangely tempting.
I’ve spent so much of my life seeing the brokenness of this world. The worst humanity has to offer.
But I have to believe there’s beauty to be found in it all too.
Beneath the rubble.
“I can’t let you do that.”
She smiles softly. “My prophecy says otherwise.”
“About that,” Lucifer interrupts as if he intends to tell his motherexactlyhow he feels about her “quaint little prophecy.”
But I won’t risk him upsetting her again.
