Chapter 33
Sable
Dried tears cake my cheeks. It doesn’t end. Over and over, I’m thrust into memories that hurt more than a broken neck. I can’t do anything to make it stop.
I’m unlocking our apartment door again. Making dinner. Checking Ella’s medication. Yelling at her. Finding her dead.
Then the cycle repeats.
Again.
Tick.
And again.
Tick.
And again.
Tick.
I can feel myself screaming at the back of my mind, but I’m stuck, forced to watch the scenes play out as if I don’t know what’s about to happen, so I feel that same raw, horrific sorrow each time I get to the end.
By the time it restarts, I’m in the same headspace as I was when I walked through the front door all those years ago.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t… what is…
That night plays again. The clock tick, tick, ticks in the background.
I look down at the pill container, and rage bubbles through me.
After everything I’ve done for her, everything I’ve sacrificed, the hours I’ve worked, she can’t even take her fucking medication? That spoiled brat. God, how dare she—
The skin at the back of my neck prickles. Something distant tugs at my mind. It’s… strange and unfamiliar, yet… sobering somehow. The unsettling stage of consciousness between sleep and waking. It comes with the awareness that something isn’t right.
Slowly, I turn toward the source and choke on my scream. The sound refuses to come out, caught in my throat like it’s trying to suffocate me. I can’t move, or run, or cry for help. I’m locked in a perpetual state of fear-induced agony.
This isn’t me watching from the recesses of my mind.
I’m trapped in my own body like it’s no longer mine.
Forced to stare at the creature with flames licking up its body and out the holes of Its rotting flesh.
Crimson drips from black fangs, down Its naked chest of decaying fur, matting the dark tufts all the way to Its taloned paws.
But let’s face it… this is the type of darkness that no light could break through. The shadows flicker and swirl around Its sharp bloodstained teeth and glowing red eyes.
“You have caused much trouble.”
Its voice shakes the walls, a full-fledged vibration that makes the dishware in the kitchen sink clink and the ground tremble beneath my feet. Terror rains down on me, and every single one of my instincts tells me to run, but I still can’t move.
My body curls of its own accord, shoulders hunching like I’m cowering away, head dipping in submission.
The most I manage to accomplish on my own is to squeak, “Who—”
“Silence,” It booms.
The windows explode from the force of the single word; shards of glass fly across the living room, slicing through skin and catching in my hair.
I whimper before I can stop myself, squeezing my eyes shut as I wait for a blow that never comes. My frozen body is still capable of trembling, I realize as It steps forward, growing in size until Its horns scrape the ceiling that’s rising at the same time.
“I am a being of many names. I have taken many forms. I see. I hear. I listen. I take. I am merciful, despite what you humans believe. The scales of justice may not be in my hands, but it is I who tip them.”
It tilts Its head to the side, studying me like I’m a pitiful thing.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“No, you still do not know who and what I am, child?”
My head shakes—the barest movement that It might miss if It wasn’t paying attention.
“I am the first hunger. The clawed hands beneath creation. The unmaker. The wound the heavens pretend has healed. I am the sin before sin existed. I was there when you first learned fear, curled around your heart like the flames of dying candles.”
“Satan,” I whisper.
It makes a monstrous, rumbling sound of confirmation.
“Does your soul tremble at the sound of my name?” My knees slam onto the ground of their own accord, forcing me to bow before It.
“My son and I have spoken about what the future holds; the fate of the likes of you, his soul, and the honeyed illusion of freedom.”
In a blink, the blinds over my mind lift, and the memories come flooding in like they happened only moments ago. Lynx stormed out after I accidentally stabbed him. I stood there for what had to be minutes, too shocked by what had happened to run after him and try to get him to listen.
The Tor’Oth came before I made it to the stairs. It grabbed me before I could scream, and the next thing I knew, I was here, in this apartment.
But if the Devil spoke to Lynx, that means the soul sucker got him as well. He’s probably being tortured too. Panic squeezes my chest, and Its bloodied lips pull into a maniacal grin full of razor-sharp teeth.
“I see what you desire—to parley with a spirit beyond the veil.”
Ella, I think.
“Yes, your sister.”
My eyes round. Can It hear what I’m thinking?
The need to talk to her hits me with full force now that I’ve relived that night a thousand times. She has to know I love her, and I’m sorry, and I didn’t mean what I said. I’d do anything to make it right. I have to tell her.
It—if It’s the Devil, then It has the power to take me to see her, right?
“A soul for a soul. That is my price, I told him. He paid with yours.”
I suck in a sharp breath. Lynx sacrificed my soul for his freedom? He condemned me to an eternity of torture? After everything we’ve been through? All the shit he said?
I thought—he said he cared about me and never wanted to leave. And yet he met with the Devil and bartered my soul for his when he was the one who killed me.
The betrayal tastes like acid, but it’s not as bitter as the realization that it’s my fault.
I was the one who was stupid enough to play with magic.
I should’ve remembered the dagger sooner and made the connection so that he could’ve been free, and maybe then the soul sucker wouldn’t have come for me.
Tears gather along my lashes as I remember the hurt on his face when he discovered it was my bloodline who condemned him; that it could be my own family who ended up being the death of his. I can’t fault him for hating me.
I’d hate me too.
I can feel It watching me, but I don’t dare look up in case It sees into me.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“My mercy bends but does not break. So, I offer you a different price. Commune with the dead, and his soul is mine for eternity, and yours free.” It pauses, making the ground shake as It takes a step closer.
“Or remain here for eternity, and he rises until his mortal flesh hits the dirt, when he will return for one hundred years.”
Lynx… He chose to free himself, and now the Devil is giving me a chance to free myself and talk to my sister. The decision used to be so easy, and now…
“You sought an audience when you stared, tortured, at the edge of the abyss? Here I stand. Speak, little spark. If your words entertain the darkness, your soul may be spared. So speak before I extinguish you with a sigh.”
It’s hard to see through the tears. I can finally speak to Ella to tell her everything I never said, and I can stop being tormented by memories I’m being forced to relive.
But I… It should never have been me who lived. Talking to her won’t change the fact that she died and I failed her. Lynx has the chance to finally live. Explore the world. Find out what happened to his brother and if he has any family left.
I already know all of mine, and I wish them the worst. There’s nothing left for me up there. I’d waste my second chance and hate my life even more than I did before because Lynx won’t be there, and live with the guilt of knowing I had the chance to free him and chose myself instead.
And I… I love him. He’s suffered down here for long enough. I don’t mind getting tortured for an eternity as long as he gets the chance to be free. I’m not going to sacrifice him for the sake of my own peace of mind.
“Let him go,” I croak, batting the tears away. “You can have me. Just let him be free.”
I swallow a cry when heat detonates through the room. It holds the taste of fury and death. It clings to the back of my throat and spears my mind, cracking it into a thousand splinters as everything shakes.
Its anger is an entity in itself.
Before I can beg for it to stop, It says two words. “Very well.”
Then everything goes dark.
The musty air fills my lungs with every inhale. I lift my hand to my face, turning it over to inspect it. My skin feels different. I can’t put a finger on why.
I slowly lower it back to my side and lift my gaze to the ceiling. There’s a crack in the foyer that I don’t remember being there. Or maybe it’s been there this whole time I’ve been haunting the manor and never noticed.
I shiver from the cold and look down. I’m wearing the same clothes as when I died.
When did I take my jacket off? It’s always so fucking cold in here.
Somewhere at the back of my head, alarm bells are going off. Wasn’t I just in…? Is this a dream?
Another violent shudder works down my spine, and my teeth begin to chatter. Wrapping my arms around myself, I keep walking then hesitate in front of the door, debating whether I have the energy to be civilized and use the handle.
This is Hell. This must be the new form of torture Satan had in mind for me. But… it doesn’t feel like a memory. I don’t feel like smoke or weightless.
I try the handle, and it gives way on the first try. My forehead pinches. I can feel the weight of the door as it opens. Odd. This version of Hell is different.
I stop at the edge of the porch. In the middle of the field is Lynx, staring up at the raging sky, painted in blotches of gray and white. The wind whips at his clothes as he stands there, still, eyes creased in confusion.
Pebbles crunch underfoot as I dare to move closer to him, scared for whatever the Devil has in store for me. I fist my hands at my sides, willing myself not to cry before it even begins.
“Lynx,” I choke.
His attention snaps toward me, and his guard goes up. “Sable,” he says cautiously.