Page 57 of These Monstrous Ties
He sighs and motions at the bar for another drink. I notice he only has water, but I don’t care. I can spiral out of control. Jeremiah can pick up the pieces or let me die. Either one is fine with me, so long as I can get out of my own goddamn head.
The bartender, a man I barely know, sets the drink down. I don’t usually come here. This is Jeremiah’s and Nicolas’s spot. Usually reserved for the men.
I take the drink without looking at the man, who walks away.
“Because he wants to let you have your vengeance.”
It takes all of the self-control I possess—which is already on short supply as it is—not to fling this drink against the wall.
“Fuck that,” I seethe. I take a sip, set it down, cross my arms on the table. “Fuck that. You and I both know that’s not why he’s doing it. He’s doing it to punish me. Because he thinks, for some reason, that there was something between Lucifer and me. But he has no fucking clue. None. There was nothing between us. So I’ll do this job,” I rake my bangs out of my eyes, “and I’ll kill whoever the fuck it is he wants me to kill. But don’t you dare fucking pretend this is forme.”
Nicolas watches me from hooded eyes. I’m breathing fast, the anger like a living thing in my blood. I’m not angry at Nicolas, not exactly. But if he actually thinks my brother—conniving, manipulative, fucking batshit crazy—is offering me these kills asvengeance, he’s lost his goddamn mind. He’s drank from the Kool-Aid for far too fucking long.
The longer he watches me, the angrier I get. Until I’m about to stand to my feet and walk out. But he must sense it, because he finally opens his mouth to respond to me.
“You forget so easily.” He runs his tongue over his teeth, and stares past me, as if he’s remembering. As if I had forgotten. As if I could forget. God, I want to. I want to forget it all. More than putting the pieces together, more thanrememberingthe holes from that night, I want to forget it all.
“You forget thatLuciferraped you.”
I flinch at those words.
“You forget he left you, naked, in a fucking insane asylum. You forget he didn’t give a shit about you, about what happened to you. He used you like a piece of fucking trash, Sid, and you don’t want to make him pay for that? Because I fucking do.”
I scoff. “You would’ve let Kristof rape me,” I counter, my hands curled into fists.
Nicolas shakes his head. “I knew Jeremiah wouldn’t let it happen,” he says firmly. As if he believes it. I sure as hell don’t. “He wouldn’t have, and if I had thought he would, I would have been there to stop it myself.”
I laugh, loud and low. “You’re an idiot.”
Nicolas slams his fist on the table. “And you’re a fucking stupid little girl,” he snarls at me, leaning across the table to get in my face. “He.Raped.You. Your brother saved you. All that you’ve been through, all that you had to do to survive, and you still act like nothing more than a child.”
I try to calm my temper. I try to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. I try to relax. “If you’re so fired up about this, about defending my honor, why don’tyoukill them?”
Nicolas’s fist uncurls and he shifts in his seat, holding my gaze steady, aiming. Ready to pierce my heart. “Because you need to grow the fuck up, Sid. Jeremiah won’t always be around to protect you. One day, you might lead the Order of Rain. One day, you’ll have to deal with the shit he goes through on a daily basis. One day,” he gestures around us, “this might be yours. And if you’re going to be in charge of something like this, you need to grow some fucking balls.”
“I don’t want this place, Nicolas. What don’t you get about this? I was ready to fucking die that night before my brother dragged me out of the asylum. I still am!” I stand to my feet, swipe my hand across the table, knocking my drink to the floor, the sound of shattering glass piercing the quiet of the nearly empty restaurant. “Did he tell you that?”
Nicolas is so angry, his hands are shaking. I know he probably wants to punch me in the face. I want to do the same to him. We’ve never physically fought, not since those two weeks I spent in a cell and he had to force food down my throat and fresh clothes on my body every day. But I’m ready for it now.
“You told us,” he spits, standing to his feet now too, staring down across the table at me. “You fucking told us. You screamed at me every fucking day in that cell that you wanted to die. That you had tried to die. That Lucifer had saved you and you didn’t want to be saved.”
My face burns with that memory. I’d conveniently forgotten it. Everything after that night had been a blur, for a long, long time.
“Lucifer fucked you over, Sid. In more ways than one. I know what Jeremiah asked you to do this morning isn’t easy, no matter what you might say to the contrary. He’s also not expecting you’ll follow through on all of it.”
My mouth drops open, some of the anger washing away. “What?” I hiss.
Nicolas shakes his head, pounds his fist against the table. “Obviously, I’m not supposed to tell you this shit. But kill all of the Unsaints? You, who have never killed anyone in your life? No, Sid, you’re not going to take all five of them. He knows it. But he wants you to get Julie before you get Lucifer. To let Lucifer panic. To let Lucifer get some of the payback he deserves.”
Despite myself, I can’t hide my smile at that.
“And who is going to help me kill all of them?”
Nicolas shrugs. “We will.”
I bite my lip, biting back against the pain. Pain Nicolas has no idea he’s causing me. Because I might not remember the rape, I might not remember the worst of that night, but I remember our promises. What Lucifer and Lilith had sworn to each other in the darkness.
But he’d broken those vows as soon as he made them. The Death Oath didn’t mean shit to the Unsaints.
