Prologue #4
I roll my head to the side, and my cheek smacks the “play” button. The clicking and whirring are weaker this time, the memories on the backs of my eyelids little more than flickering shadows and whispers.
Eighteen, no candles. My father honks his horn outside my window for the last time, and so begins the long drive to hell.
A pile of dead friends. I stacked the bodies high enough to climb on top and claw myself out.
My brothers glancing at me over the dinner table.
My mother crying a year’s worth of tears.
“Where have you been?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Gabriel. Gabriel. Gabriel.”
“Hey.” Warm fingers grip my jaw and tilt my head back to the sky. “Talk to me.”
“Can’t.”
“Then what are you doing right now, silly?” When I don’t reply, she pokes me square in the chest, and her huff skitters along my jaw. “All right. Listen, then.”
Something foreign probes at my ear.
“No—”
“Shh.”
My protest melts under the palm on my cheek. I swear, all the good in the world is behind it. It seeps through my skin and churns my blood into butter. Then it clots at the base of my throat because it’s not right. It’s too soft, too kind.
I’ve done nothing in this lifetime to deserve it.
I realize the thing in my ear is an earbud when a familiar piano run fissures out of it. Forcing my eyes open, I wait for my vision to sharpen, and find her at the heart of it, grinning.
She adjusts her own earbud. “It’s ‘Dancing Queen,’ by ABBA,” she says proudly, as if she wrote the fucking song herself.
“Get it out,” I grunt.
“No, it’ll make you feel better.” When met with my glare, she adds, “Seriously, it’s scientifically proven that ABBA songs make you happy.
With ‘Dancing Queen,’ it’s because both Agnetha and Anni-Frid are singing the same key—which literally never happens in a duet, by the way—and at a really high register.
When you hear it, your brain signals to your body to produce adrenaline, which, in turn, reduces the feeling of pain.
” She glances down at my blood seeping out from beneath her thighs.
“I’d say Google it, but there’s no signal.
And well, you know …” She gestures down at me as if the sweep of her hand will finish her sentence.
But I’m too busy staring at her mouth to register the nonsense seeping out of it.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Guess death softens your insides, and liquid shit is coming out of my mouth too.
Her wings flutter beneath the light as she cocks her head and flashes me a broad smile. It’s like looking at the fucking sun.
A bitter amusement filters through me. “You hear that all the time.”
“Yes, but tell me again.”
My laugh comes out in a weak choke. The chorus in my ear drowns it out, and when her fingers smooth over the curve of my cheek again, I suddenly can’t even feel its burn.
She changes path, tracing a line from my brow down to my chin. “How’d you get this scar?”
I swallow. “My barber was a drinker.”
Her laugh is warmer than the wind. It’d feel good in a different timeline; tonight, it feels bittersweet. “How’d you get those wings?”
“Eh, I just bought them off ,” she chirps, eyes holding a sparkle.
I shake my head, humor playing on my lips. I can still see her eyes when I close my own.
With ABBA in my ears and her touch dancing on my skin, an odd sense of calm drifts over me. Turns out, there’s peace in purgatory. Never felt it in my life, and I sure as hell won’t feel it in the afterworld, either.
So I lay in limbo for a while. The flames of hell brushing my back, the touch of an angel caressing my face. She’s heaven-sent, I’m hell-bound, and here we are, crossing paths in the middle.
When the music cuts out mid-verse, I open my eyes again.
Something in her expression has shifted. A storm shaking the calm in her gaze.
She breathes out on a shaky whisper, “You’re actually going to die, aren’t you?”
“I will with that attitude.”
Humor flickers across her face, but it doesn’t meet her eyes. They’re too full of something else, something dark and heavy. Her hand slides down from my face and fists the fabric of my shirt.
She leans in. So fucking close that she steals one of my last breaths from me. An inch more, and I’d feel those lips on mine and taste the strawberry scent of her gloss. “Can I tell you a secret?”
What?
My thoughts fizzle and my gut twists. A secret. The mere idea of a secret breathes new life into me, but then my father’s voice blows it away.
Rule eight: a secret is The Villain’s most powerful weapon.
“No,” I grit out, twisting my head out of her grip. She only tightens her hold and pulls me back. A weak spark lights in my core as her nose brushes mine.
“Please,” she whispers, urgency tugging at her tone. “You’re dying. I just need to tell someone. You’ll take it to the grave.”
The darkness rears its ugly head.
If we’d met on a different night, under different circumstances, I’d reach down her throat and yank out her secret with my bare hands.
I’d have her researched and studied. I’d find her name, age, address.
Her fucking star sign. I’d climb her family tree and shake all the secrets from its branches too.
That’s what I do. I take secrets and turn them into weapons.
But for once in my goddamn life, I don’t want to know. The moment’s too perfect, she’s too perfect. I ruin everything I fucking touch, and I don’t want to ruin her.
I shake my head, but she decides to tell me anyway.
Her secret bobs in her throat and rolls over her tongue. It passes her teeth, then dies on her lips.
Her gaze slides upward, following the sound of a slow-moving roar. It draws closer, ruffling her hair and fluttering her wings.
She leaps to her feet and starts to scream.
For the briefest of moments, I think it’s God coming to get her. I glare at the sky and consider the consequences of stealing from Him. Then the chopper cuts across my eye line and amusement bleeds through me.
It’s not God. It’s Denis.
Fucking Denis.
Rule nine: The Villain must learn that trust is a weakness, not an ally.
My father couldn’t have been more wrong.
The girl drops to her knees, relief pouring out of her like a sunbeam. “See! I told you someone would pass by soon.”
The hands that grip me beneath my armpits are strong and familiar. But somehow, the hand curling around my bicep feels more inviting.
“Wait,” she yells, over the whir of the blades. “I didn’t get your name!”
For the first time since Mama died, all three syllables bubble up my throat. “Gabriel.”
She shields her eyes with her hands and smiles. “Gabriel, like the angel?”
I laugh. She laughs. “I’m Wren.”
Wren.
Denis drags me backward, and that familiar piano run bursts into my ear again. This time, at max volume. Wren grows smaller and smaller, the gold aura around her burning away the dark.
I watch her through the window. Even when the doors slam shut. Even when Denis rips away at the fabric stuck to my torso. Even when the ground disappears beneath us and she becomes a pink speck of light, I can’t take my eyes off her.
Wren.
Her name carves into my heart and etches into my skin. I hope the Devil allows keepsakes in hell, because fuck, I’m taking it with me.
We climb above the treetops, and she disappears from view. The earbud crackles with static until “Dancing Queen” comes to an abrupt stop mid-lyric.
The roar of the wind. The low hum of urgency.
And then my father’s voice.
Rule ten: The Villain never ever gets the girl.