Chapter 74
Alexa, play ‘We Go Down Together (with Khalid),’ by Dove Cameron, Khalid
“Now you’re in the sunken place.”
—MISSY ARMITAGE, GET OUT
I felt like I was underwater. I drifted into the bedroom, closing the door softly behind me.
Mike was dead.
I hadn’t even known he was an angel. Tears welled as I found myself slipping back in time to that night in my apartment, celebrating alone with the brownie he had given me. I remembered how his kind gray eyes crinkled in pride when he handed me the little to-go box.
It had made me wonder for a minute if that was what it felt like to have parents. Was that what it was like to have someone in your corner? Someone who was rooting for you?
Now, I would never know because Mike was dead. All because he had been trying to help me.
A hot tear slid down my cheek, and I took a deep breath. My fingers brushed against the hilt of the blade Ramel had gifted me. The familiar impulse to cut myself pulsed through my veins.
It was like a steady build of pressure. A painful, anxious swell of emotion that I knew could only be released in the form of blood through a slit in my skin.
I took a deep breath, working as hard as I could to force the impulse down.
Cutting myself was against the rules.
I eyed the chains that remained fastened to the large four-poster bed and shuddered. I didn’t want to be a prisoner again. If I gave in to the impulse, Ramel and Shem would definitely put the collar back on me and tie me up.
I shook my head, trying to ignore the building pressure, and made my way to the wardrobe I knew Ramel kept my belongings in. I resolved to take a shower, change into something comfortable, and crawl into bed.
With shaking fingers, I pulled open the door to the wardrobe and found that all the clothes I had packed the night I had tried to run were hung up neatly in a row. My gaze flitted to the top shelf, and my attention snagged on a small cardboard box.
My heart sank.
Holding my breath, I reached up and pulled the tiny package down. I choked on a sob when I realized what it was. Pulling back the packing tape, I opened the box and pulled out a tiny silver spoon that said ‘Best Chef’ on it.
All thoughts of fighting off the urge to cut myself flew from my mind. I collapsed, dropping the tiny spoon with a harrowing wail.
My heart felt like it was literally breaking in my chest. I lost minutes as my mind disassociated. The trauma from living through so much death and suffering so much loss hammered through me, and I suddenly found myself on the ground, leaning against the wardrobe in nothing but my sweater and my thong.
Ramel’s dagger was clutched in my right hand. I couldn’t remember unsheathing it, but that didn’t matter. The bare blade glinted green in the firelight, and I felt my body move as if it were stuck on autopilot.
Pressing the edge of the knife against my thigh, I slid it across my flesh, shivering as my skin parted and crimson blood exploded from the split seam.
Normally, the pain helped, but I couldn’t even feel the cuts as I continued to drag the blade across my thigh. I frowned at the wounds. Typically, I didn’t bleed this much ; Maybe I was cutting too deep.
It was hard to tell. I was so numb. Too numb… Why couldn’t I feel anything?
“Lilith!” A voice roared as if from miles away. I blinked slowly and looked up just as Ramel exploded into the room in his Reaper form.
The door slammed against the wall, the thick black wood cracking with the force of the impact. I met Ramel’s panic-filled eyes and was barely able to process what was happening. He vanished from where he stood at the door, only to reappear on his knees before me. With an ink-black hand, he tore the blade away from me. Blood sprayed off the edge of the knife, splattering us both with scarlet rain. I blinked again, looking down at the alarming amount of blood that was still streaming from my thighs.
I had cut too deep… way too deep.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” he shouted, though he didn’t sound angry, he sounded terrified.
I looked up at him, my lower lip trembling. Swallowing past the painful lump in my throat, I tried to answer him, but my voice came out as a whisper.
“Mike… he’s dead… because of me…” I choked on a sob and curled my bloody legs up into my chest, burying my face in my hands as my grief consumed me. “Everyone who tries to help me dies. It’s my fault,” I sobbed. “It’s all my fault.”
Gentle hands wrapped around my wrists, pulling my hands away from my face. Ramel was looking at me with such a tortured expression that I wondered for a moment if he was in physical pain.
I stared at his inky hands on my wrists and sighed, moving to stand up. He tightened his hold on me and growled.
“Where are you going?”
I glanced at him in surprise. “To the bed. I broke the rules. You’re going to punish me.” The words came out slowly and it felt like someone else was speaking them. There was still an echoing numbness ringing through my head. He could do anything he wanted to me. I didn’t care anymore.
I deserved to be punished.
“I’m not going to punish you, Lilith,” he said, his voice cracking. “And it’s not your fault Mike was unmade. It’s not your fault anyone died.”
I frowned at him, watching in confusion as he pulled my hands to his mouth, kissing my knuckles softly. His hazel eyes were swimming with emotion.
“Stop blaming yourself for things you didn’t do. Stop blaming yourself for things outside of your control.”
“If they hadn’t tried to care for me, they would still be alive,” I whispered. I wasn’t just talking about Mike anymore. It was everyone I had ever known. So many deaths. All because of me. If I hadn’t existed, they all would still be alive. The guilt of it all had finally reached a breaking point, and I was drowning in it.
Ramel let out a frustrated growl, snatching up my chin.
“They died because I killed them, Lilith . Place the blame where it belongs. Blame me. ” He sounded like he was begging me, and I couldn’t reconcile this version of Ramel with the monster I had always known.
“If you want to punish someone, punish me,” he demanded softly. I watched as he shifted out of his Reaper form. He tore open his black shirt. The buttons bounced off the floor around us. Grabbing my hand, he pressed the hilt of the knife back into my palm, guiding it up to rest against his tattooed chest.
He maintained eye contact the whole time, and I felt a surge of panic as he used my hand to increase the pressure of the blade on his skin .
“If you want to hate someone, hate me. ” The intensity of his gaze was making it impossible for me to look away. “Who was the first person I killed, Lilith?” His voice was so soft it brushed against my ears like the soft down of angel feathers.
“My mother,” I answered, my voice just as quiet.
He nodded and increased the pressure on my hand, cutting a deep line down his right pec. I watched as a thick line of blood spilled out from the wound we had carved into his chest together. “That’s right. I killed her,” He affirmed.
He reached out with the hand that wasn’t forcing me to press the blade against him, and he wiped a tear away with his thumb.
“Who did I kill next?”
“My father. You killed my father next,” I whispered, and he nodded, moving my hand up to carve another slice above the mark that symbolized the death of my mother. I watched the wound bleed, but he just watched me.
“Who was next, Lilith?”
We carried on like this until his chest was covered in as many cuts as my thighs. He even left cuts for the foster parents who didn’t deserve them, just to ensure the point was driven home.
It wasn’t my fault he had killed them. I wasn’t to blame.
When we were done, he tossed the knife away. He knelt in a pool of our combined blood and pulled me into him, kissing the side of my head and rocking me softly back and forth.
“I’m sorry, Lilith. I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered, and I shook in his arms. I had no more tears to give him, but my body quivered beneath the weight of my grief.
He hooked an arm under the bend of my knees and cradled me against his bleeding chest. Standing effortlessly, he took me to the bathroom, setting me down carefully on the outcropping in the frameless shower.
“Arms up, deathtrap,” he ordered, and I obeyed. He tugged my sweater up and over my head, then tossed it to the side. I shivered in my bra and thong as he turned on the shower, making sure the water was warm before turning any of the nozzles to face me. Using a handheld faucet, he gently wet a washcloth and got to his knees before me, not seeming to care that his black slacks were getting soaked.
So carefully that I barely felt it, he began to clean the wounds I had carved into myself. The warm water blended with the blood, turning it pink as he gently washed it from my skin. He was staring at the fresh cuts like the sight of them made him feel ill. He didn’t bother cleaning his own wounds.
He left the forty-three cuts we had made across his chest open and bleeding, crimson rivulets streaming over the black ink tattooed into his skin. A part of me was happy to see him bleed for his sins. The other part of me hated it.
We sat in silence for several minutes. Ramel was so focused on his task I could feel his gaze burning a trail across my lacerated thighs .
Once the wounds were clean, he manifested a first-aid kit and went to work applying an antiseptic. He then wrapped each of my thighs in soft white bandages, his fingers featherlight against my skin.
“I would get a healer in here, but you used the Aetherium blade. We have no choice but to let these heal naturally,” he said, his voice solemn. He didn’t seem angry, he seemed… devastated. He tore his eyes away from my bandaged thighs and met my gaze, that strange muscle in his jaw flexing in agitation.
“You could have really hurt yourself, Lilith. That blade is powerful enough to carve up immortals.” He gestured to his still-bleeding chest. “You’re still human. I’m glad I got here when I did. You could have bled out.” His expression was tight with worry and concern. Suddenly, I understood why I had bled so much more than usual. It was the magic of the blade.
“I will never understand why you feel the need to cut yourself, Lilith,” he said softly. He reached up to tuck my now wet hair behind my ear. Sliding his hand lightly down my shoulder, he traced down my arm and wrapped his hand around my wrist. He took my hand and pressed my palm flat against his bleeding chest. I could feel the edges of his wounds beneath my fingers, but he didn’t so much as wince at the contact.
“From now on, if you bleed, I bleed,” he promised, pressing my fingers more firmly into one of the gashes. I moved to jerk my hand away, not wanting to hurt him any more than I already had.
“Ramel.”
“No, Lilith. Listen to me,” he said firmly, leaning into my touch as if he wanted to make it hurt as much as possible.
I hesitated.
He needed me to hear him, and I didn’t have the strength to fight. When he was sure I wasn’t going to try to pull away again, he continued. “I can’t take back what I did to you, but I can promise that I will never hurt someone you love again.”
I could feel his pulse through the wound he had pressed my fingers against, and a tear slid down my cheek at his words.
“I promise that unless they hurt you first, I will never kill another person you have not asked me to kill.” He searched my eyes, and I could see that he meant it. I believed him. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”
“You told me you would always hurt me,” I whispered. My gaze was tethered to his, and the air around us nearly crackled with electric tension.
“Not like this,” he responded, gently rubbing a thumb over my bandaged thigh. “Never like this. Not anymore. I love you, Lilith.”
I frowned, still feeling like I was having trouble breathing past the massive pit of despair that had infected my heart. I shook my head.
“You don’t love me, Ramel. You loved whoever I was before I was reborn as a human.” I knew this because the other Lilith lived in my mind. While we were the same person, we were also different. We were close but not identical. He loved a person who didn’t exist anymore. He didn’t love me.
No one loved me.
The aching loneliness I had felt my whole life roared in my ears, and I felt another rush of anxiety pool in my arteries. I closed my eyes against the sting of emotion, feeling more tears slide down my cheeks through my lashes.
“You don’t even know me,” I whispered. I felt him touch my chin gently.
“Look at me, Lilith,” he ordered, though his voice was soft. I looked down at him nestled between my knees, and bit back another sob. How could I feel so alone when he was right here in front of me?
“I do know you, deathtrap.” He rubbed his thumb gently over my bottom lip, pulling it out from between my teeth. I hadn’t even realized I had been biting it. “Do you need me to tell you all the things I love about you? Because I will.”
I stared at him, unable to respond. The corner of his lip lifted, though his eyes remained sad.
“Well, for one, I love how much you like to cook. Especially from scratch. You like to set up little stations and make perfect little pasta because it gives you something to do with your hands and allows you to escape the thoughts in your mind.” He reached up and stroked the side of my face tenderly, brushing a thumb over the gentle swell of my tear-stained cheek.
“I love how hard you work. When you put your mind to something, you don’t quit until you’ve accomplished it. I saw it at Voodoo. You had nothing when you started there. I watched from the shadows as you ruthlessly overcame every obstacle you found in your way. You got yourself an apartment at eighteen with no one to help you.”
Another hot tear slid down my cheek, and he wiped that one away too.
“I love how easy it is to tell when you’re nervous because you always chew on your thumb.” He ran a finger over the thumbnail on my left hand, which was quite a bit shorter than the one on my right. I frowned; he was right. I hadn’t even noticed that I did that.
“I love how when we worked together, you never let me work the service bar.”
I surprised myself by letting out a tear-soaked laugh, and his smile widened. “What? You thought I didn’t notice you always stuck me with the bar?” He grinned at me. “You loved working service, which makes sense. You’re a natural problem solver, so working out which drinks to make at which time makes you feel like you’re solving a puzzle. You always used to get a little satisfied look on your face when you crushed a rush of orders in record time.”
I sniffed, unable to fight off the small smile that was beginning to tug at my own lips. “You were too slow. It just made sense for me to work service.”
He let out a low chuckle and rolled his eyes. “Sure, deathtrap. I’m a wizard on service, and you know it.”
I stuck my tongue out at him, and he laughed softly. “Put that tongue away. You’ll distract me, and I’m not done.” He stood up and hosed the blood off his chest, then turned off the shower. Scooping me up into his arms again, he continued with his list of reasons he loved me as he carried me to the bed.
“I love that you like scary movies and TV shows. You like the classics, but your favorite director is Mike Flanagan. You’ve seen all of his Halloween specials multiple times, and you love working out the underlying messages hidden beneath all the horror. You do this because you believe there’s a lesson to be learned, no matter how bad things get. You fiercely believe that if you look hard enough for a positive, you’ll find it there staring you straight in the face.” He placed me gently on the edge of the bed and reached behind me to undo the clasp of my bra. He pulled the wet fabric off and gestured for me to lift my hips so he could slide off my now blood-stained panties.
He didn’t so much as touch my naked body. I watched him make his way to the wardrobe and pull out one of my old cotton band T-shirts and a pair of cozy sweats. Returning to the bed, he helped me into the sweats and tugged the T-shirt over my head.
When I was dressed in the dry, soft clothes, he gestured for me to lie down. He quickly changed into a pair of black sweats and lay down next to me, tucking me into the crook of his arm.
He dropped a kiss on my head and tilted my chin up so he could meet my eyes once more.
“I love how fucking smart you are. You found a way to gain an advantage against Yahweh without any background knowledge in a matter of days. Your mind is incredible,” he murmured, placing a tender kiss on my lips.
“Mmm,” I hummed against him, and I felt his mouth curl into a smile.
“I love it when you make that sound,” he whispered against me. “And I love the sounds you make when you’re about to come.”
I felt my cheeks flush at his words, which was ridiculous because he had seen every single nook and cranny that existed on my body in full technicolor. The fact that he could still make me blush like a schoolgirl was comical.
“You make these beautiful breathy moans. It’s why I love edging you so much. I wish I could keep you balanced on that knife’s edge for eternity just to hear you make those sounds.” He smirked down at me and ran his knuckles over my blushing cheek before his smile slipped away, and his expression turned serious again.
“But the thing that I love about you most, Lilith, is that no matter the bullshit I put you through, you always find a way to bounce back. You always find a way to keep pressing forward and hope for a better future. Your resilience is fucking inspiring. ”
I frowned at him. “I didn’t bounce back though. I gave up so many times. I tried to kill myself more than once,” I whispered, and a pained look flashed across his face.
“You just spent the day leading me through a cemetery filled with gods, Lilith. Even the strongest fall if they don’t have anyone waiting to catch them.”
My already shattered heart cracked as he pulled me in tighter to him. “You’ve never had anyone to catch you,” he whispered against the shell of my ear. “That ends now.”
He kissed me on my temple and rested his head against me, tracing little circles beneath the sleeve of my T-shirt.
“From now on, if you fall, we fall together. If you bleed, I bleed.” He took my hand and pressed it against his shredded skin. The wounds had already started to scab, and his blood felt tacky beneath my fingers.
“Say it, Lilith. Say it so I know you heard me,” he whispered, his lips inches from mine. I swallowed the peppermint on his breath and gave him a tiny nod.
“If I bleed, you bleed,” I repeated, my voice barely a whisper. Despite everything he had done to me, I believed him. No one had ever looked at me the way he was looking at me now. Like he would move planets and reduce entire galaxies to stardust if I asked him to. I used to fear him more than life itself, but now, the burn of his skin against mine felt like a promise.
It felt like forever.
He closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms tightly around me, pressing me so close I felt we might fuse into one. He ran his tongue across the seam of my lips, and I opened for him, allowing him to kiss away my pain and my grief.
He clung to me like I was an anchor, and he was a ship battling the swells of an angry storm.
Don’t leave me, don’t leave me.
I couldn’t tell if he had said the words out loud or in my mind, but I could nearly taste the fear on his breath. I had frightened him. He had been worried I finally found a way to escape not just him but all the pain and suffering that came with the burden of living. He kissed me, and I knew it was a plea.
A plea to stay here with him.
It no longer mattered who was responsible for the wounds I bore. I knew he would bear the weight of the blame for me. I just needed to forgive myself enough to let him do it.