He puts his hand over my mouth, leans in close. “Don’t be fucking stupid, Ella. I love you, for fuck’s sake.”
My eyes widen, my pulse pounding beneath his hand.
“I fucking love you and I didn’t see you coming. I never saw this coming, okay? But I love you and your fucking red hair and your freckles and how you could eat everything in my goddamn house and still want more. I love how you beg me, how you want me to hurt you, how you kiss me. How you’ve defended me more than anyone else has in my life.”
I realize I’m not breathing, and I don’t want him to stop talking. My heart swells with his words. Words I’ve never heard from anyone in my life. Words I never thought I deserved.
“I love you, goddammit, and I need you to tell me now if you’ve changed your mind. If you don’t feel the same way.”
Slowly, he trails his hand down my mouth, over my throat, one hand still against my chest.
I swallow back the tears. “I love you, too,” I gasp. I grip his shirt, and his eyes soften, relief flooding his features. “I don’t understand everything. What you do. What your brothers do. I don’t get it. But I don’t care. I never have.” I yank him closer and my lips brush his. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiles and it’s so fucking beautiful I want to cry all over again.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mavy, as long as you keep feeding me.”
He tips his head back and bursts into laughter and my heart feels like it might burst with him on the side of this stupid, lonely road.
I uncurl my hand, letting go of his shirt, and he grabs my wrist, lifting up my palm. Watching me, he runs his tongue diagonally down my skin, heat in his gaze.
It burns, his mouth on the cut.
It burns, but I’d let him cut me open and tear me apart over and over again. And I did, just the other night. I paid him back, too, in his own blood, on his hand.
Coagula.
To bind.
We’ve been bound since he first left a mark on me, the very first night I met him.
“I love you,” he says again, his lips brushing my palm. “We aren’t them,” he reminds me, seeing something in my gaze. “We’re us.”
I nod. Us. I’m not sure us is any better than them, but what is there to do about that?
Let it go.
I do.
I let it go, and I let Maverick toss me back in the passenger seat, do up my seatbelt. I let him drive me to his house, where the boys are probably still sleeping and where there’s more cookie dough in the fridge.
I don’t know what I’m going to do now. The world seems full of possibilities, and it’s not just the money or the house or the new people in my life.
It’s him.
He set my heart on fire when I wasn’t sure I could feel a fucking thing anymore. But I feel him, burning in me, and I know that flame will never go out.
He’s not any less damaged than when we first met, and neither am I. It’s not even that our broken pieces fit well together; they don’t.
It’s that we’re willing to step in the glass, bleed a little for each other; that’s what matters. That’s what our love is. Broken, bloody, and perfect.
“Would you really have let me leave?” I ask him after a few minutes of silence.
He laughs. “Of course not, Ella. Not ever.”
A Letter
Mav,
Thank you for this. I know it probably isn’t easy, keeping a secret from your brother. But I have to talk to someone, or I’m going to lose my mind.
He’s become nearly unbearable. The drugs, the music, the way he loses himself for hours at a time upstairs in our bedroom. He’s never hurt me, and he wouldn’t. I know that. But he’s not himself. Or maybe he’s exactly himself, and I’m only just now seeing what that is.
Or maybe it’s me.
I think I’ve made him this way.
This is likely my fault, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’d fall apart without him, and I think he would do the same, without me.
And yet…
I spoke to Jeremiah.
Through a letter, so just relax, okay?
I had to. I had to know how he was, and Lucifer flies into a rage if I so much as mention him.
Jeremiah is okay, which I’m sure you don’t really care about. Or, maybe you do… Either way, he’s okay. Brooklin is great, he says, and yeah, yeah, I know that could be a lie. But I don’t think it is.
He likes her. He would probably love her, if he knew how to do that.
He’s been keeping tabs on me, which is how he knew where we were. I’m sorry things got out of hand, and even still…something he said, something he asked me when he was all over Ella (be nice to her, okay?), it kind of got to me. I don’t want to rehash it, but…anyway.
He cares about me, and I think that’s the worst part. If I could pretend I was just an object to him, just something for him to own, it would make this easier. This separation. But he cares.
He knows I’m pregnant, and he still cares, which is saying something, considering this is Jeremiah Rain we’re talking about.
But back to what matters.
Lucifer is lost, Mav. His father’s death, all he did for me…it hurt him more than he wants to admit. He needs help, and the longer I stay here, the longer he feels he has to keep me caged here, the worse he gets. The more lost he becomes, inside his own mind.
I thought Pammie’s death would help, but it made him angrier. Maybe he wanted to play a role in that, too. I just thought we could pay him back for all he did for me, but…
I’m sorry I’m ranting. I’m sorry this is all about me, but I feel like I’m going to explode, Mav.
I told him I’d keep the baby. For him, I’d do anything.
That includes giving him space. Time to heal.
I’d do that, too. He might not do the same for me, but I would. For him. It would kill me, being apart from him. It would kill me, too, because I know the only safe place I could go would be back into Jeremiah’s arms.
But it would only be for a little while. For Lucifer and me to breathe.
Is that so wrong? To want for us to heal?
Tell me what you think and don’t hold back (not that you ever do).
I love you.
Love,
Angel
Epilogue
After Noctem
“You actually thought I’d let you go so easily?”
“It wasn’t easy, Jeremiah.” I missed you.
He nods, tightens the cuffs. “No. It was impossible. I can’t live without you, and I don’t really care to die anytime soon.”
“So you’re going to keep me here?” I don’t bother trying to get up from the bed. I’m too tired. “You promised—”
“Shh, Sid.” He sits down at my side, brushes my hair from my face and leans down close, planting a kiss on my forehead. He stays there a moment, and when he speaks, it’s against my skin. “I promised you freedom,” he agrees, hand still on my head. “But I promised him I’d protect you.” He pulls back, smirks down at me. “And I know how much you like to run.”
I frown, confused. “Him?” Lucifer would never let me go. Ever. It’s why I had to get out. And when the 6 came for us, even though I’m one of them, when they came for me and Ella, I knew we had to leave.