He snorts but doesn’t look at me. “You killed Pammie.” His change of subjects is giving me whiplash.
I rub my temples. “Yes.”
“You took Sid with you.”
I sigh. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t think maybe you should fucking tell me?”
That one’s easy. “No. But maybe you should say ‘thank you’? She deserved to die. We both know that—”
His hands are suddenly on my shoulders as my eyes fly open and he pushes me back in my chair. “Sid could’ve gotten hurt!” he yells at me, his eyes wild. “She could’ve gotten fucking killed!”
I knock his hands off of me, bringing my own underneath his forearms. I push to my feet, step toward him until he concedes a step, and then another, his back against the railing.
“She didn’t get killed. I would’ve never let her get hurt. I planned this out, we had backup. She was never in any danger, and she wanted to do this for your sorry ass.” I press my finger to his chest and his eyes light with anger, that vein in his neck fucking throbbing. “You keep trying to control her like Jeremiah fucking Rain, and guess what, bro?” I lean in close, my mouth over his. “She’s gonna fucking leave you for him. Especially if you’re getting your dick hard letting naked girls into your room that aren’t her.”
“It was a mistake. Ezra gave me something, brought her up. I didn’t touch her.”
I bite back a laugh. “Wow, you didn’t touch her. What a fucking relief.” I step back from him, my chest heaving. I run a hand through my hair while he stares at me like he wishes I was dead. Yeah, well, the feeling is currently mutual.
“Right now, I don’t have time to deal with this.” I put my hands on my head and turn away from him, pacing the length of the balcony. “Tomorrow we have Council. We need to focus on that.”
Some of the anger towards me seems to dissipate from Luce’s face. He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. We do.”
I drop my hands and shake my head. “Elijah tell you my dad is gonna be there?”
His voice is a growl. “Yes.”
I run my hand down my jaw. “What do you want me to do?”
“Why is that a question?”
“Elijah wants to…discuss it.” I grit my teeth. “He said we can’t kill everyone that upsets us, apparently.”
Lucifer looks like he wants to put his finger through my eye, but he doesn’t say anything.
I blow out a breath. “Maybe we should hear him out. We don’t know what he knew about Sid.”
“I don’t fucking care what he knew. He knew she existed and did nothing.”
I tip my head up to glance at the sliver of the moon dangling in the sky. “Noctem is coming soon. Eight weeks, and we’ll have to deal with all of our sins.”
“And letting your father live shouldn’t be one of yours.”
I don’t say anything.
Lucifer scowls. “If you don’t kill him, I—”
“Have you asked Sid about it?” I press him, turning my gaze to his. “Have you asked her what the fuck she thinks about this? Asked her if she wants to deal with him? If she wants to know about her mother?”
His eyes darken.
“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” I shake my head. “You’re obsessed with her, but I’m not sure if you understand a fucking thing about love.”
I haven’t spoken to my father since Sacrificium, when I tried, and failed, to kill him. But now, I’m not sure how I feel about him. About what I want to do. He hasn’t been invited to any Council meetings, a rare show of solidarity between us and the 6. But even though Elijah is not Lazar, some things will never change. We’re still meeting at Sanctum, even though Elijah promised to burn the building to the ground. Should I kill my father—Sid’s and Brooklin’s, too—when really, they all deserve to die?
But if I don’t kill him tomorrow, Lucifer might. It’s not looking too good for Maddox Astor.
I bring my knuckles to my mouth, bite the skin. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as I wish it did. Now that the high has worn off from all that violent fucking, I’m feeling really fucking low again.
Lucifer frowns, folds his arms across his chest. “I need to get back to Sid, but we’re not done. You know that, right?”
Oh, I know we’re fucking not. “We are for tonight.”
He gives me a tight nod, then he slides open the glass door. I follow him, not wanting him to be alone with Ella. He’s obsessed with Sid, but Lucifer has always had wandering eyes.
And before Sid, wandering hands, too.
I close the door at my back, watch him walk down the narrow hallway that leads to the bedroom. He glances at the girl and I tense, but he keeps walking, then slams the fucking bedroom door as hard as he can behind him.
Dick.
Chapter Four
My stomach growls.
It’s a quiet sound, just a few seconds, but my entire body goes rigid, eyes still closed. I wait.
Holding my breath, I wait for it.
The screaming.
But it’s silent.
No. Not silent.
Someone is breathing beside me.
I taste blood in my mouth. And then everything comes back at once.
My eyes fly open, and I’m staring at a ceiling fan spinning overhead. It’s dark, and I shift my gaze, seeing a hallway. At the end of it, curtains are drawn closed.
The bed is soft, and my body is sore, stomach hollow, but still...
No one is screaming.
I turn over, as slow as I can, my back aching, thighs sore.
I see him beside me. My breath threatens to come out in a gasp, but I press my palm over my mouth, holding it back.
The boy with the face tattoo. An inverted cross beside his eyes. His brow is furrowed, as if even in sleep, he’s angry.
His hands are tucked under his head, his lips slightly parted as he breathes so softly, steadily. The covers are pulled up to his chin, but I can see tattoos on his neck. On his fingers. His hands.
There’s one on the side of his palm, in script that I can’t read in the dark. I noticed it when he first approached me in the forest.
I wonder what it says.
I need to leave. My mom won’t be expecting me home—she probably won’t even be there herself after our last blow-up—but I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know this boy. Anyone in this house.
Natalie invited me because she pitied me. I came because I didn’t want to be home in case Mom and her current boyfriend got blood on the walls again.
New Year’s Eve can do that sometimes. With my mother, it’s already a 50/50 shot.
She made sure to remind me of that when I was leaving and she realized I ate the last piece of bread. An end piece. It’s all I’ve eaten in the past forty-eight hours. This party had lots of alcohol. No food I could find.
What a waste of time.
But the Xanax helped me sleep. I didn’t take as much as I told him I did, but I didn’t want to talk to him, and it was enough to knock me out for however long I’ve been sleeping in here.
Slowly, I slide to the edge of the bed. I realize it’s fucking huge and I have no idea why he’s so close to me. I don’t even know why he slept with me. He could’ve left me in the woods.