I just want silence.
But before I can demand anything, before I can ask anyone where the hell we are—an empty basement it looks like, with concrete floors and apparently, speakers in the wall, a dim light on overhead—Lucifer appears from the shadows, rushing over to me.
He’s got something in his hand, his fist clenched around the papers so hard he’s torn them.
My blood runs cold.
How did he get those?
His jaw is set, his blue eyes flashing as he charges toward me.
I shove Ella behind me, drop her hand, and I take a step toward him. But he stops. Inches from my face, he stops, breathing hard.
Circles line his eyes, dirt on his face like I’m sure it’s on mine. His eyes are streaked with red veins, and he’s only wearing a black t-shirt and dark jeans, his hoodie gone.
He wipes the back of his hand over his nose, which I realize is running.
“Did she leave?” he asks me, his voice tight with barely restrained rage. He’s still panting, his chest heaving, and he doesn’t give me time to answer before he asks it again, angrier this time: “Did she leave?”
He drops the papers to the ground where they scatter, spreading in every direction. He fists my shirt in his hand, yanking me toward him until we’re nose-to-nose.
Ella is silent at my back, but Lucifer should be careful. I wouldn’t put it past her to hit him for me.
“You know the answer to that.” I grab his wrist, but don’t try to throw him off of me. For a moment, we just stand there, breathing hard.
He takes a deep breath in. Closes his eyes. I can smell his sweat, and mine too. I wonder if he’d rather be breathing in the scent of my blood, instead.
“Did she choose it?” he asks, his tone quieter. “Don’t lie to me,” he says quickly, eyes still closed, fist still clenched around my shirt. “Did she choose…him?”
I can’t watch it. I can’t watch the pain on his face. Even though I played a role in it—or maybe because of that—I can’t watch.
I swallow, try to wet my lips so I can get the words out as I close my own eyes. He deserves to know the truth. He’s already seen it, if the letters he dropped to the ground are any indication.
“Yes.” The word is hoarse, and I don’t even know if I’ve said it loud enough for him to hear. But I can’t hear him breathing anymore.
I can’t open my eyes either.
He yanks me closer, his other hand coming up and I think he’s going to hit me, and I think I’m going to let him, but then he just pulls me into a hug with both arms wrapped around me, his head on my shoulder.
I don’t hesitate. I hug him back. Holding him.
“I never told her.” His words are strained. “I never told her. And I never told you.” He swallows, hard. “Thank you. For Pammie. For getting rid of one of my worst nightmares. Thank you, and god, Sid, thank you, too, baby girl.”
His body heaves in my arms, and he collapses, all of his weight against me. I’m holding him up, his heart breaking in my arms. Linger starts up again and I don’t know if he’s doing this to himself or if they’re doing it to torture him.
I don’t know, but as his heart shatters, mine does, too. For him.
Because now I know. I know what it would be like to feel this pain. To know Ella chose to walk away. I know how it would taste a lot like something I deserve, knowing that any person in their right mind would do what Sid did.
They wouldn’t walk away.
They’d run.
So fucking far that the 6 couldn’t get to them. Couldn’t hurt them anymore. And Jeremiah Rain is the only hope she has for that kind of protection.
And I know just how much that fucking guts Lucifer.
He buries his head in my neck and I feel the warmth of his tears, and when a cry leaves his throat, it’s a strangled sound. Something a wild animal might make.
His fingers dig into my back as he struggles to stay upright and I wince with the pain, but I don’t dare let go of him.
No matter what he’s done, no matter that Sid did what she thought was best, I won’t let go of him. Not until he’s ready.
His choked sobs rip through my own heart, the warmth on my neck growing hotter as his tears fall against my skin. I squeeze him as close as I can, and he trembles in my arms for a long, long time.
I don’t know how much time passes, but his muffled whimpers grow quieter, and then I feel Ella’s arm around me, and Lucifer slowly pulls away.
When I look up, he’s not looking at me.
He’s looking at her, and she at him.
He opens his arm, one still around my shoulder, and she sinks into him, and I sink into them, the three of us holding one another.
Her head is against his chest, and his eyes are closed as silent tears still fall, his eyes swollen and puffy even closed.
He calls Sid’s name over and over, like a broken plea.
And when he picks his head up from her chest and his mouth comes to mine, Ella between us, I know something I didn’t before.
As I taste his tears on my tongue, I realize that love is strange.
It can be mad, and it can be a cruel sort of chaos. It can be violent and terrible and damaging.
That part I’ve understood, since I was a kid.
What I didn’t get was that…it’s okay.
It doesn’t matter how awful it is.
There is no right way to love. There’s no wrong way, either, not really. It’s out of our hands.
Love is love, and it meets people exactly where they’re at. Ella met me, and I her. And the both of us met my brother, and I know that Jeremiah and Sid met one another, too.
As much as I might hate that, I can’t fight it.
Neither can they.
Let it go.
Lucifer’s mouth is warm and wet against mine, and he chokes on a sob as I let him take what he wants from me, Ella holding onto both of us.
Let it go.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Spring comes early to Alexandria.
Maverick sits on the back porch, staring off at the fountain, the morning sun barely risen. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and grey sweats, his elbows on his knees.
I glance at him from the back door, then turn to take in the state of the living room. Cain is passed out on the couch, one arm flung over his eyes, his bare chest rising and falling softly. He’s got bruises on his torso and I’m not sure if they’re from sex or his fights in the ring, but they seem almost as permanent a part of him as birthmarks or freckles.
Ezra is asleep upstairs.
So is Brooklin Astor.
She’s a lot like Maverick. Full of fight and guts and she’s so beautiful and still…healing.
A lot like Maverick.
I glance again at him. He’s still staring into the distance, lost in his own thoughts.
When I turn back, it’s not Cain I look at.
It’s Lucifer.
He’s on the floor, the coffee table dragged over to the opposite wall of the couch Cain is sleeping on. Lucifer’s got a pile of blankets underneath him, his arms folded under his pillow, head twisted to the side, his lips slightly parted, eyes closed as he sleeps.
He looks tortured, just as he does when he’s awake. There’s a crease between his dark brows, and I see his bare shoulders, the blanket tugged down to the middle of his back. Every muscle in his lean body is tense.