Page 73 of These Monstrous Ties
How he saved me, maybe without even knowing it.
But I remember other things, too. How he passed me drink after drink. How he poured it down both of our throats when he laid on top of me in the underground asylum. I remember his last words to me. The last ones I remember anyway.With you by my side, we’ll figure that out, Lilith.
I remember some of my last words to him, too.I’d do anything with you.
“What happened, Lucifer?”
Lucifer’s eyes are angry.Heis angry.
But I don’t look away from him.
Someone is going to fucking tell me what all nine of these men are holding their breaths about. Someone is going to tell me what I need to know.
Lucifer’s face actually crumples. He frowns, squeezes his eyes shut and runs his free hand over his jaw, then presses the palm of his hand against his eyes.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he whispers, lowering his hand but not meeting my gaze. “I’ve been looking for the past year. I’ve been looking fucking everywhere for you, Sid.” I watch the vein in his neck move as he swallows. “But I never got your name. I fucking never got it.”
“Because you left me.”
Atlas scoffs, and Mayhem snarls behind me, but they don’t say anything.
“That’s right,” my brother chimes in from the floor behind Lucifer. He’s leaning against the door, Nicolas and Trey still crouched around him. But his voice is gaining strength. Before, he had seemed hesitant. But now he’s back in command. “He left you. He fucked you over. I took you in. Step back, Sid. Come to your brother, so I can put a bullet in this motherfucker’s brain.”
Lucifer’s eyes snap up to mine. I notice, even in the darkness, that I can see them shining. “He’s lying,” he chokes out. He shakes his head, bites his lip. I realize Cain’s gun is not pressing against my head anymore.
Whatever Lucifer is about to say, he doesn’t want to. I feel like I might faint. “He’s lying. I never left you, Sid. I would have never fucking left you. That night, when I saw you at that crosswalk, fuck. I saw the gun on your thigh. I knew it was real. When I spoke to you, I had an idea of what you meant to do. And I couldn’t. I didn’t know you. You didn’t know me. But I couldn’t have let you do it. And I would have never left you.”
“That’s enough bullshit,” Jeremiah’s voice rings out in the quiet house. He’s pissed. He makes to stand up, but Nicolas and Trey hold him down.
Atlas aims his gun at my brother, one arm still slung around Ezra.
“If you shoot me,” Jeremiah tells Atlas calmly, “you will die. You do understand that, don’t you? You’re not actually as dumb as you look?”
Atlas smiles. For the first time, I see the coldblooded monster in him. The same that’s in Lucifer. In my brother. Kristof. Ezra. Mayhem. Cain.
Me.
“I will,” Atlas agrees. “But you’ll be dead too, asshole. That’ll be enough for me.”
My eyes are locked on Lucifer’s. I don’t care about the pissing match between Jeremiah and Atlas. I don’t care about Mayhem’s arms around me. I actually need him there, because I feel suddenly far too weak.
“I woke up,” I say, my lip trembling. “I woke up and you were…you were gone. I was…” I choke back a sob. I take a breath in through my nose. Out through my mouth. I feel like I’m falling. I feel like I’m falling, and no one is going to catch me. Not this time. “My clothes…”
Lucifer’s jaw tightens again. So does Mayhem’s grip, although it doesn’t feel menacing. “I’m so sorry, Sid. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m so fucking sorry.” Lucifer nearly sobs the words out.
“What. Happened?!” I scream the words. Lucifer actually flinches. No one moves. It feels like no one is breathing.
“It won’t change anything,” Jeremiah says coldly. “It won’t make this better. You do understand that, don’t you? We can settle this between us. But you won’t make her love you.”
“It wasn’t me, Lilith.” Lucifer looks equal parts anguished and angry.
I need to know what the fuck happened that night before I decide how I’m going to change this.
“It wasn’t me. It washim.” His eyes flick to Jeremiah at his back, narrowing into slits as he turns his head. With an effort, he tears his gaze away from him, focuses back on me. “He found you. At the merry-go-round.” I remember. “But he didn’t know, then, I don’t think, who you were. He just wanted you. We never trusted him, but we tried. God we fucking tried. He would’ve been the only one that could’ve fucked us on Unsaints’ Night. The only fucking one.” He cradles his head in his hands for a second. Then he looks up.
He bites his lip. I see blood gleaming on it when he starts to speak again. “He should have fucking killed me. My God.” He covers his mouth with his hand, smearing the blood. Then he lowers it. “He…he tried to hurt you, Sid.” He shakes his head and his voice trembles. “He came back. He tried to hurt you.” The last words come out as a growl. “He made me watch it happen. You…you were barely conscious. Barely awake. But you thought he was me. You let him, because you didn’t know. Oh my God, you didn’t know. He made me watch. I couldn’t move. He had drugged all of us. Fucking all of us.” I remember the table with drinks in the foyer of the rundown asylum. “Then he smashes a bottle over my head and tied me to a goddamn concrete pole. He waited until I was awake.”
His chest rises and falls, faster and faster. He swipes his face again, as if he can get the memory out of his head. “He waited. I tried to get to you.” He lifts his shirt, and I see scars along his perfect abs, thick and silver. The shape of something that looks like rope.
