Page 95 of Pray for Scars
I always thought, eventually, I’d get to dance some more in theirs.
Lazar turns back to whoever is at my back. But when I inhale a shaky breath, my lips parted, the side of my mouth brushing against the stiff red carpet, I know who’s behind me.
I smell him.
Cigarettes and pine.
“I’ve already had her,” Lucifer says coldly, echoing my own thought, finally answering his father’s question.
I flutter my eyes closed. At least we won’t dothatagain. At least it’ll be quick.
Lazar nods, puts his hands on his thighs, his robe brushed aside. “Then you know what to do,Lucifer.”Lazar stands to his feet, and I wait.
In silence.
Silence, and then a hard chest is at my back, a cool knife pressed to my throat as Lucifer’s fingers thread through my hair, yank my head up. And he whispers in my ear, “Do you want to die, Lilith?”
I keep my eyes closed, no longer able to feel that ice cold fear. Instead, it’s been replaced with something far worse: Numbness.
The knife presses further against my skin, and I feel a sharp sting. I hear Lazar murmuring his approval, encouraging his sick son to kill me.
“I asked you a question,” Lucifer bites out. His words are so quiet, I’m not sure if, even in the silence, anyone else can hear him. He nudges the tip of his nose against my neck, and the numbness is obliterated.
Into something much worse.
Arousal. And not just for him. For my brother. For myself. For…living.
Not again,I think desperately, running my dry tongue over my teeth.Not again. Not another flinch. Let this be it.
Slowly, I shake my head, feeling the sting of the knife cut deeper. We’re still down low, I’m still on my knees, my back pressed against his chest, and I swear I can feel every muscle in his body coil with my answer.
“You’re going to, Sid,” Lucifer says coldly, his words against the back of my neck. “Memento mori.” He pronounces the words so elegantly. “You’re going to die, baby girl.” He tenses again, his fingers loosening in my hair.“But not today.”
Then he shoves me aside, swipes the blade through my zip ties, and I catch myself on my palms, scrambling to a sitting position. He glances at me, and I see he’s wearing his skeleton bandana, but his brows are pulled together in a scowl and I bring a hand to my swollen face, realizing he must see where the guard hit me.
He turns away from me, charging toward his father with the knife in his hand.
Lazar backs up onto the altar, far left from my brother. “Don’t be an idiot, Lucifer,” Lazar hisses coldly. He doesn’t look scared, even as his own son is taller than him, stalking toward him slowly, his jaw clenched.
I don’t look at Jeremiah, but I see, out of the corner of my eye, the flames from the candles flicker, as if Satan has just showed up for the offering.
When Lucifer balls his father’s robe in his fist, presses the blade beneath Lazar’s eye, drawing blood, it feels as if everyone in this sanctuary is holding a collective breath.
I turn.
See nine people in black hoods seated on the first row of pews, their faces turned toward the Malikovs.
And I see the Unsaints, too, dressed in all black like Lucifer, the skeleton bandanas pulled over their faces. They’re in a row, standing at the foot of the altar.
And their eyes are on me.
“Lucifer!” the man called Maddox calls out, finally snapping into action, standing to his feet. But Mayhem laughs, his baby blue eyes lighting up, and he pulls a gun from his waistband.
He aims it at the man standing, the hood still over his head.
Lazar is scolding his son, still keeping his voice calm, but Lucifer is carving a line around his father’s eye, in a circle. A strange, twisted bullseye.
And then Maddox brushes his hood from his head. His eyes are so like his son’s, and they turn their now, hard on Mayhem.
