Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
Endor
“For fuck’s sake!” I cursed, as the soul energy encompassed them both.
Valory crashed into me as the light pushed us back, and then they were gone.
Mercy and Miles were just... gone.
“Fuck!” I hissed, my wings popping with alarm.
“Calm down, Endor,” Valory said, her voice anything but panicked.
Not like mine.
“Do not tell me to calm down!” I yelled. “This is bad... We don’t even know where she’s gone... with him...” I bit my fist. “She needs to find her body, not run off on some Romeo & Juliet trip to Hell!”
“Endor...”
I wanted to punch something. Anything.
I had one job. One fucking job, and I failed. Twice now, I’d lost Mercy.
“And you...” I snarled, directing my anger at the one person I could at the moment, because Mercy was gone.
How could Valory be so bloody calm?
“You fill her head with falsehoods. Telling her you can save him.”
“I can,” she said, stepping up to me. Her wings flapped, making mine vibrate.
The sun beat down on both of us like a vicious spotlight.
“You can’t,” I pleaded, shaking my head. “I won’t let you.” The words were solid as they took form.
I would not let her transfer her grace to the boy.
I could not let her die a second time.
For when an angel gave up their grace, they ceased to exist.
God, if I had never met this insufferable angel, I would have been fine.
Still pushing papers in HAD, fighting off my succubus boss, and scrubbing off dicks drawn all over my desk.
Ignorant to the desire, the temptation, and the euphoria I felt in the presence of this pain in the ass angel.
I’d be oblivious to knowing what it felt like to love.
And perhaps I could have lived the rest of my doom-filled days in blissful ignorance.
But I couldn’t do that anymore.
Not now that I’d felt love.
For Mercy.
For Valory.
I could not let her leave this plane of existence.
Perhaps that was the real difference between angels and demons.
My disposition made me amenable to selfishness.
I didn’t want to let her go. I would do anything to keep her, even if it meant I could not keep her with me.
Valory’s gaze held mine. “It is not your choice.”
Her words were sharper than any sword.
If I had a soul to give, I’d have given it.
I’d have given it to that poor boy so she wouldn’t.
I’d have traded it like Miles did, just to have one perfect day with my girls.
Where we would not be running or hiding. Where we could just... be. Together.
The vial in my pocket warmed, likely from my body heat. It drew my attention, and suddenly, I realized that I had a choice.
I grabbed her throat, applying the slightest pressure. She did not startle or push, only looked up at me with the valor which was pertinent to her namesake.
This angel would be the fucking death of me. I knew that then.
Because we always had a choice, and I had made mine.
I broke away.
“The hospital,” I said, steeling my voice to betray no hint of what I truly wished to do.
If this was to work, I couldn’t let her know.
“What?”
“The hospital is where they went.”
Of course, being so close to her body, it must have taken quite a toll on her.
Alive, it would have called her like a moth to a flame, and she would not bear to leave her boyfriend behind.
I pulled Valory close to my chest and she wrapped her arms around my waist.
“We must go,” I told her, not waiting for her reply.
Three days.
That was all we’d been promised, which meant it was now or never.
If Mercy had gone to find her body...
Well, it seemed that we all had choices to make.
When we landed in the hospital, Valory tensed.
“Are you alright?” I asked, even though I knew it was moot to ask, given the circumstances. If she was all right, I’d have been insanely worried about her mental health.
She stepped away from me, and I hated the emptiness.
But I would not have to endure it much longer, given what I was about to do.
We walked in silence through the halls, until I stopped in front of a vending machine. The power in my grasp wasn’t much, but it would be enough to jolt the machine to give me two bottles of water.
Valory shot me a glare.
“What? I can not be thirsty?”
She pursed her lips but said nothing.
She was angry with me, which made me feel like shit.
It took everything I had not to soothe her, not to apologize.
But I wouldn’t apologize for saving Mercy, Miles, and her.
She could be angry with me all she wanted, as long as she got to live.
When we turned the corner, I saw them.
Mercy and Miles, in the doorway.
Valory went to them immediately, and I knew I’d been given my chance.
I looked up to the sky, Valory’s words heavy on my heart. Have faith.
I prayed that the fates would not intervene.
I spilled the contents of the vial in one bottle of water. There was no coloring, no fizz. Nothing to indicate it had been poisoned.
The poison Roche had given me was to landlock an angel. To prevent Valory from using her powers and returning to Heaven.
It was a long shot that it would work on a soul bound for Hell, but something told me it would.
At the core of our design, we were created from the same magic.
We were celestial beings, and somewhere deep inside of each and every one us, we were the same.
It was not genetics or magic that divided us.
It was power. Each and every one of us strived for it.
Valory strived to be the perfect angel.
Mercy strived for peace from grief and pain.
Miles strived for the power of love, to feel it in its deepest form.
And me?
I strived once to be a contractor demon. To have the power to hold life in the palm of my hand.
And that was exactly what I was doing right then.
I was holding life in my hand, and I was making a choice to let it live.
“You look like you need this,” I said to Miles as I handed him the tainted bottle of water.
I gave the other to Mercy, not to be suspicious.
She took it with a soft smile, thanking me. Miles opened it immediately, as I knew he would.
I knew I should have felt panic, because as soon as the deal was severed, they would come for me.
I was breaking a cardinal law of Hell by breaking a sacred bond.
But there was no panic.
No anxiety.
All I felt... was peace.
I slid my hands in my pockets, and the faintest sound echoed in the room.
Glass hitting the floor.
Valory and I both knelt to pick it up, and her gaze caught mine.
“Endor, what?—”
“I told you I would take care of it.” I snatched the vial from her grasp.
And then Miles dropped to the floor.