Chapter 26 #4
“Sterling and your father came in,” Layla muttered, her mind still locked into the past.
Elise shook her head. “You would not have needed more than a few seconds, but you hesitated—”
“Do you want me to tell you it’s because I remembered our friendship and suddenly could not follow through on my anger-induced promise?
Because that’s not the case,” Layla said sharply.
She already regretted her tone, but seeing the images of Elise bloody and dying by her hand made her lose touch with her warmth.
Coldness swept through her body, and Layla considered pulling away, but Elise kept a firm grip on her. “Elise.”
“You deserved to be angry, Layla. I don’t want to take that away from you or change the narrative,” Elise said.
If she was hurt by Layla’s sudden switch in tone, she did not show it.
Instead, she spoke with a strong sureness that only made Layla want to stay close.
“That night was a tragedy for both of us, and I want to understand why you did not put an end to the bringer of your suffering. I want to understand why I’m still here and no one else is. ”
Layla’s breath caught. Her chest stilled against Elise’s, and the sight of burning tears in Elise’s eyes nearly did her in.
She thought back to the night she had intended to kill Elise, when her hands had moved between her throat and her chest, Layla’s eyes, which had gone red with blood and fury, could not focus on a single part of the bruised and broken body before her.
“I could not decide which part of you to hurt first. There was so much pain, I could not make a decision. Before I figured out what I wanted to do, Sterling was pulling me off you.”
“And what was that decision?” Elise asked in a soft whisper. By now the noise of the crowd had fallen away as they locked in on each other’s every word and expression.
Layla swallowed. “I wanted to turn you. I realized death was too easy for you. I wanted you to suffer in damnation with me.” She remembered her hand closing over Sterling’s gun in his holster before breaking out of his arms and leaping from the window.
The Saint bullets, she believed, would have put an end to all her misery.
To be a reaper, stuck in a sort of torturous purgatory for an eternity, without the chance for relief—there had never been a more terrifying fate for Layla then.
Maybe dragging Elise with her might have at least lessened some of her pain or given her something to hold, even if her hands grew talons and made her bleed.
Elise owed her that much. To bleed for her, to become ruined by darkness.
For so long, Layla wondered what her place in the world was as a reaper.
Confined to the darkest parts of society without descending into hell itself or having a chance to ascend above.
Death forever chasing her but never taking a lethal bite.
It was clear she was no creature of God, but an abominable thing not worthy of even hell.
Reapers wandered like purveyors of death, their rich feasts and bloody tendencies as immortal as their lives.
While others thought themselves gods and killed indiscriminately, Layla fell into an in-between pit of despair that brought with it more moral confusion than she had ever been able to understand.
She came to realize that there was no philosophy or moral truth in suffering.
Only loneliness had made itself her companion during it all and become the sole promise of reaperhood.
“Neither of us would have stood a chance. Not if we were together as reapers,” Layla said.
Elise shook her head. A dark sadness had deepened her expression, but only certainty rode her words. “Even the most monstrous beings find love in the darkest depths of hell.”
Layla clenched her jaw. “Love does not guarantee anything, nor does it solve anything.”
“No, but it brings light to the darkness.” Elise’s arms tightened around Layla.
“I already told you, I love your darkness as much as I love your light. Every part of you that craves blood and seeks carnage has found its way to my heart. If you must be monstrous, then you should be. There are far worse monsters in the world that do not suffer from a centuries-old affliction that leads everyone on an inevitable path of damnation. You are not the worst creation out there. Men who think themselves gods and act as monsters without reaperhood in their blood—they are the worst.”
This time, true laughter broke past Layla’s dismay.
She leaned her face into the crook of Elise’s neck and inhaled, the familiar intoxicating scent of her returning Layla’s messy nerves to a state of calmness.
Her heart beat so hard, Layla believed at first that she felt it in her toes.
But the music had died down, and Layla knew it had to be something else causing the bumping beneath her feet.
She pulled away from Elise and looked down, watching the floorboards jump every few seconds.
Now that Elise’s perfume had cleared the heady scent of food from her senses, Layla could smell fresh blood.
The banging stopped briefly, then started up again, as if someone were beneath the floorboards, desperate to claw their way out.
“Do you hear that?” Layla asked as she straightened.
Elise looked confused. “No? What is it?”
Layla tried to glance between the floorboards, but she saw only darkness. “I cannot be positive. But I think the blood rooms are beneath us.” She tried to walk to the edge of the room, but Elise held her wrist to stop her.
“We should go. Find someone to talk to about karma.” Elise led her through the throng of people.
The next room over was not as packed with people, and Elise quickly found a booth with space beside two reapers.
They eyed her with curiosity, then hungry desire.
“May we join you gentlemen tonight?” Elise asked.
Layla tightened her hand on Elise’s, not liking the predatory look these reapers maintained on her. “Elise…”
One reaper nodded and patted the open space next to him. “Always for a Saint.”
A rush of hot blood flushing Elise’s cheeks had Layla shaking her head. She tried to pull the Saint back, but she settled in the seat anyway, dropping her hand. “Can you tell us where we can find karma?”
As the other reaper leaned over the edge of the booth to whisper to someone out of sight, Layla wanted to grab Elise and remind her of the dangers that came with not sticking to a plan.
But the Saint heiress looked perfectly comfortable flying by the seat of her pants; Layla couldn’t help but wonder how long her luck would last, if it did at all.
“Karma will be all around us soon. This is the room where the magic happens.” One of the reapers winked.
As if on cue, all doors that served as exits and entrances to the room slammed shut.
Elise jumped in her seat and looked around as bouncers stepped in front of the doors for extra assurance that no one could come or go.
She leaned in to whisper to Layla and nodded toward the stage.
“Your turn. See if you can get a better look at everything from there. I’ll continue talking. ”
Layla complied, albeit with hesitation. She made her way toward the stage and tried not to think of any of the reapers getting too close to Elise.
Soon all Layla could think about was the state of the blood rooms beneath them.
If the scent was this strong through the floor, Layla could only imagine how depraved it was in the actual rooms. She pushed past a group of people at the bottom of the staircase and hurried upstairs.
Eventually she made it into the backstage area, where dancers lined up and rehearsed behind the curtain.
They ranged from middle-aged women to girls younger than Layla.
Some stretched their long limbs by the wall, brown skin glistening with stage makeup even in the low lighting of the small space.
Others paced by the curtain, muttering eight counts beneath their breath as they blocked their routines.
It had been so long since Layla had been in the presence of other dancers just before a show, and she relished in the buzz of their energy.
She wanted to pretend, just for the night, that she was one of them, that she was destined to end up on the stage and maybe even catch the eye of a scout who wanted to hire her to dance forever.
But for now, all Layla could do was watch and hope.
As a reaper, she was no more destined for a better future than an illness the entire world wanted to eradicate.
To distract herself from the bitter emotions, Layla poked her head out of the side of the curtain and began surveying the crowd beyond.
Her gaze found Elise in the booth with the reapers, who all looked at Elise with an interest that bordered on predatory.
The sight made Layla’s eye twitch, and she found herself almost moving out from behind the curtains.
Every part of her craved to be near Elise now, her heart picking up the pace and skin lighting on fire as she thought of another being—specifically a reaper—laying a hand on her.
Until Layla sensed the presence of other reapers, this time closer to her. She turned. Even with all the costumed performers pressing in around her and the scent of powdered makeup in the air, she smelled the ancient blood twisting among the youthful human essence of the younger dancers.
A spotlight lit the stage, and a young man stepped out to face the audience. “Thank you all for attending tonight. As you may have heard, this show is far from ordinary. You will become absolutely bewitched. May I welcome to the stage a volunteer who wishes to be the first to partake?”