Chapter 28
28
I didn’t remember closing my eyes, not even blinking. Yet somehow I was no longer lying on the cold ground in Rock Creek Park, but standing instead, and it was the park—but not during the night, or during the winter. Sunlight beat down through the leafy limbs and a warm breeze toyed with the hairs around my face.
What in the what?
My gaze dropped to the ground, and the Lilin wasn’t there. Confusion pounded through me as I stared at the empty spot before me and then down at the front of my sweater. It was bloodied, as expected, but there was no pain in my chest. And this was the park in DC, but it also wasn’t.
Something seemed wrong. Fragile. Thin . As I walked closer to a tree, I brushed my fingertips along its bark. Bits of it flecked off, turning to ash. I jerked my hand back.
“What have you done?”
Spinning toward the sound of the voice I’d only heard once before, I couldn’t suppress the weird shudder at the sight of her—of Lilith. Dressed in the same barely there white gown I’d seen her in last time, she looked different. Mainly because there was a splash of red coursing down the front of her dress, matching mine.
“How…how are you here?” I asked, glancing around. “Are you free?”
“Free?” Her pale eyes widened. “I will never be free because of you—because of what you’ve done. You’ve killed my son—you’ve killed me!”
Maybe dying made me a little slow on the uptake, but her response didn’t answer my question. “I don’t understand.”
“How can you not?” She drifted toward me, her bare feet snapping out from under the long gown. “You killed him, knowing that would be the death of you—the death of me.”
Okay. I had no idea that my actions would kill her. Nope. No one had filled me in on that. I’d assumed she was like a Twinkie, would survive a nuclear fallout.
“Where are we?”
Her blood-red lip curled up. “In the in-between.”
“The what?”
“Are you pleased with yourself?” she ranted, ignoring my question. Her cheeks leached of all color. “You think killing him—killing me—will change anything? Evil will still be evil. Hell will not cease to exist. Dark deeds will still be carried out.”
“But it will…it will stop Armageddon,” I said, blinking.
She scoffed. “For a while, but, child, do you know how many times the world has come close to being obliterated? The end is inevitable.”
I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling woozy. “But it won’t happen now.”
“I’ve never been more disappointed in that which I created,” she seethed, and when I opened my eyes, she was directly in front of me, a tall and terrible, beautiful apparition. “Does any of my blood course through your veins?”
“Yes.” I swallowed, but it did nothing to easy the nausea.
Her eyes, the same color as mine, rolled. “Doubtful. I would have bred something more intelligent, with greater cunning and actual survival instincts.”
I stepped back from her, forcing air into my lungs, but it felt like I was only getting a sliver of what I needed.
“To think that I have survived thousands of years, overcoming so much, to be taken out by the hand of my own daughter.” She huffed. “And in so cowardly a way. But my son—he honored me . He worshipped me , as he should, but you ended him. You are no child of mine.”
“I’m your daughter,” I gritted out, focusing on her. “The daughter you left at birth. What in the Hell do you expect from me?”
“Loyalty?” she returned.
I stared at her, wanting to laugh in her face, but my lips felt strange. Numb. Cold. “You left me with the man who wanted to kill me.”
“But he didn’t, did he? Obviously not.”
Shaking my head, I immediately regretted doing so. The world spun a little. “I had to stop the Lilin. There were too many people’s lives at stake. Maybe you don’t care about that. Maybe you’ve never cared about any of that, but that’s where we’re different.” Legs weak, I leaned against the tree, but the moment my weight touched the trunk, it gave way.
Staggering to the side, I watched the great oak cave into itself, breaking apart in chunks that disintegrated into flakes. It crumbled soundlessly. One minute the tree was a solid part of this world and the next it was gone.
“What’s…happening?” I turned wide eyes on Lilith.
She pursed her lips as she eyed me with her chin raised. “You’re dying. That is what is happening.”
“I’m not dead now?”
“Yes and no. Your body has already grown cold, has it not? But you’re not all the way dead. Not yet, but you will be soon.” She waved her hands, gesturing at the trees. “As I’ve said, you’re in the in-between. When you entered, the bond between us drew me here. When you perish, so will I. Creating you was the risk I took. We were joined, and you were destined for greatness. I thought you would be like me .”
Now some of what Grim had said made sense, about the danger Lilith created for herself when she created me…naturally. But where was the Lilin? Why wasn’t he here with us?
Then it occurred to me as I stared at my mother. I had a soul. She had a soul. The Lilin didn’t. When it died, it ceased to exist. Not so for us.
I guessed none of that really mattered now.
“Destiny is bull,” I said, my hands icy as I curled them against my palm. I couldn’t feel them. “No one is destined for anything. We control our own fates.”
“Obviously,” she muttered with another roll of her eyes. “But look at you now, the road you’ve chosen. What do you know of life? Your entire existence was pointless.”
Behind her, another tree gave way, falling into itself, breaking apart in a plume of dust, and then another and another.
“Not true.” My legs shook, and I wasn’t sure how long I could remain standing. “I know of friendship. I know of…of love. You know nothing of those things.”
Lilith flinched and for a long moment she was silent. “That is not true. I did know of love, the purest kind.”
“Is that so?” I whispered. The sun was gone now, the sky a mottled shade of violet and the grass a crispy brown.
“Yes.” Her voice was quiet, faraway, and I realized then that I was no longer standing. I was on the ground, and I wasn’t sure I was even there anymore. I knew I was slipping away, for real this time, into nothing and my eyes drifted shut. The last thing I heard was, “When I held you in my arms and you stared up at me, only a few minutes old, I knew the purest brand of love.”