Lucille #2
“Enora. Blood-banded Archangel. I can sing you to sleep.” She twirled a loose strand of hair that had fallen from her tight bun, gazing at me like I was a peculiar insect she either wanted to squash or keep in a cage.
“Anyone? Do you have to be close for it to work?”
She crossed her arms, pressing her lips into a pucker. If I weren’t stress-sweating through my temperature-regulated uniform, I might’ve found her incredibly annoying.
“My limit is ten people at a time, and they’d need to be within a couple yards of me.
” She made it sound like she was top dog and everyone should be on her level.
I wouldn’t admit that I found her power unique and impressive.
Dusty and Matt were already stroking her ego enough with the desire in their faces.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. Now what? Direct them? I tried to take into consideration everyone’s powers, lack thereof, and who among our group would be more prey than predator.
“Zera, Valarus, and Ichi, I want you as our first round of offense. Dusty, Matt, and Enora, you’ll be our second, helping out the first. Rissa and Oliver, you’ll be the last.”
“You’re doing great, Luce,” Oliver murmured in my ear. “I think those were good choices.”
Like he knew. Oliver had never led anyone either.
Ronen called our squad into the ring, and my stomach couldn’t knot any tighter without rupturing something.
The only ones who seemed to acknowledge my orders were Ichi, Rissa, and Oliver.
Maybe. Now that I considered them, Ichi might be standing in front to act as my bodyguard more than an offensive line, and Oliver wouldn’t leave my side regardless, so that left Rissa with the half-skeletal face as the only one who actually listened.
“We’re screwed,” Oliver muttered, staring ahead at the demons.
I unsheathed two daggers, death-gripping them in my sweaty palms while I eyed our opponents.
They were grotesque things I never wanted to truly encounter, and the angels behind the illusion had powers I didn’t know.
But that was the point, wasn’t it? If we faced these creatures in the future, we wouldn’t know what we were up against; we’d need to kill first and question later.
The razor-wire male stared at Dusty and Matt with a creepy smile stretching the white lines painted over his black scales. I only remembered him because he was the only demon with an open ribcage in his disguise. Could Dusty and Matt face him and win? I didn’t know, and part of me didn’t care.
I should. A leader would care, would strategize, would do countless things I couldn’t think of. But Ronen fucked me. He gave me what? Minutes to figure out a plan with a squad I only half knew?
Oliver was right. We were screwed.
“Begin,” Ronen called out, and I swore something in his tone mocked me. Like he knew we’d fail.
Dusty and Matt sent a large ripple through the arena, making everyone stumble before erecting a wall of sand.
Matt luscelered through it, catching the razor-wire guy by surprise and stabbing him in the gut.
The razor-wire male shot out a coil of power, dropping to his knees and striking toward Dusty.
He missed. Matt kicked him in the head. The male fell back, unmoving.
Maybe we could win after all.
A battle cry pulled my attention to the far-right corner. Zera blasted demons back with her air onto the daggers Valarus had levitated behind them. Rissa and Enora charged ahead on their own, the latter singing a couple demons to sleep while the former sent a hard knee into a demon’s groin.
Oliver jerked me to the side and touched a demon rushing me. It dropped to the ground convulsing.
“Can’t lead if you’re dead, Luce,” Oliver mumbled around his hand, looking a little green.
“There’s no killing allowed.”
“Same difference,” he grumbled, swallowing before grimacing.
A demon luscelered toward my side, fire streaking in its hand.
My Infernus perked up, ice crackling in my ears and urging me to use it.
It’d be easy. My powers wanted to be used.
But before I could fall into the whispering song, Ichi’s water dragon swallowed the demon, its fire hissing and steaming around us.
Pushing my itches away, I placed myself at Oliver’s side, swiping out with my daggers, ducking, kicking, doing everything to keep them off us.
Sometimes I’d help Oliver eliminate the ones he stunned with fear, or the ones Ichi smothered with water.
Between the three of us, we could’ve made it to the other end and won, but it wasn’t just us.
Before I could finish off the next demon, Ronen’s voice rang out.
“The Devils won. Tormentors lost.”
The Devils?
“Did you see Aspen?” I asked Oliver, searching the demons as if I could distinguish which one was him. I never saw his blue flame. Did he fight? Was he hurt?
The manipulative bond stirred at the thought, but without visual confirmation or feeling his pain, it just hovered.
Oliver grabbed my face, stopping my frantic search. “He’s fine.”
“You know that for a fact? Which one is he?” I demanded.
“I’m your eyes, remember? You promised. Focus on your squad. Do you know why we lost?”
My face flushed. Giving up my search for Aspen, I finally noticed Enora holding her neck. She’d been bitten.
“Nightmares will join the Devils as demons and face off against the Tormentors for their second round. Severely wounded, go to the healers’ wing. The rest of you, ready yourselves.”
The Nightmares? They were one squad beneath the Dreads. I don’t even think anyone defeated a Nightmare during challenge week.
“Why us?” Oliver groaned.
I glared at Ronen as he stood on the dais like a cruel king observing his subjects, hoping he felt my anger and frustration. He crossed his arms and stared back. What was this? Revenge?
“He may be taking the Shard Field incident out on me.”
Why else would he do this?
“I mean, you did stab him,” Oliver pointed out.
“I wasn’t going to let Aspen die. With or without our bond influencing me.”
“True. But do you think he’d make you leader as punishment for protecting him?”
“I don’t know! Maybe!”
Ronen’s mind was closed off from me. He kept everything to himself: his emotions, his past, his motives. He remained an unsolvable puzzle. As soon as I thought I’d solved a portion, I had to pull it all apart and start over again.
“I think Ronen has something else up his sleeve,” Oliver said thoughtfully.
“Like what?” I snapped as Ichi touched my shoulder, taking my attention from Oliver to her solemn, patient face.
“It’s about to start. Direct me in any way you wish, Tormentors Leader.”
I wanted to tell her that wasn’t my title. That wasn’t me. But a faith I didn’t deserve shone in her eyes, and the small bow she gave me held back my bitter remarks. This was my reality. This was Hell’s way.
The rest—the suffering, my squad’s hatred, their disobedience—it all came with the title I didn’t want but couldn’t get rid of. But maybe I should want it… Maybe I should care. Wasn’t I Hell’s princess?
I glanced at Ichi, trying not to look like a wide-eyed, sweaty wannabe.
“What do I do?” I whispered.
“Learn the mistakes of the past to help the future,” she replied.
“You don’t have something a little more straightforward?” Oliver inquired.
“Learn the mistakes of the past to help the future,” I repeated softly to myself.
What mistakes did we make?
Well, disobedience for one. No one wanted to listen to my strategy.
Second, Enora got bitten, and we lost. Why?
I surveyed my squad. They all looked exhausted and had injuries, some superficial and others—like the gash in Zera’s side—not so much. But at least she had Valarus to lean on, like Dusty had Matt. Enora, on the other hand, stood alone, fought alone.
“She had nobody to help her.”
“There is more to fighting than power and strength,” Ichi said.
Right. Well, that was an easy fix.
“I need you to watch out for Enora this round,” I told her.
She bowed low. “Your word is my purpose.” Then she unsheathed the sword at her hip. The wide red blade looked almost unmanageable in her dainty hands, yet it matched the steel in her spine, and the blue dragon stretching up the blade mirrored the one morphing through the air beside her.
“Begin!” Ronen bellowed.
I stared at the line of demons and our bloody, tired squad. “We’re never going to win this. They won’t listen to me. So what’s the purpose of this besides a beatdown?”
“Or maybe it’s a lesson,” Oliver suggested.
“In what?”
“Well, besides stabbing him, was there anything else that may have pissed him off that he thinks you’d need to learn to be a good leader?”
Probably. But I had no time to think about that as a horde of demons came our way. I frantically glanced at every demonic face, analyzed their movements and powers, searching for any sign of Aspen.
But there were too many to look at.
“Do you know which one he is?” I asked Oliver.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He held his dagger higher.
“Oliver!”
“Focus on the squad. Or our chances of even trying to beat the Nightmares are zilch.”
They were easy to spot. Unlike the Devils, who were similar to us in trying to get their squad to work together, the Nightmares attacked as a coordinated unit. They worked around the chaotic Devils and beelined for Dusty and Matt.
No.
I tried to lusceler to them, but the Devils surrounded us.
“You stun them when there’s an opening. I stab.”
“I do hear you’re good at that.”
We ducked shots of fire—red, not blue. We parried levitating daggers and guarded each other’s backs.
With each block and dodge, we rounded them up, bringing them closer.
Oliver didn’t need to touch them to force them into their fears.
But if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to stun them for long, especially not with this large a group.
Proximity was our friend. The five of them stepped closer, and Oliver struck. They all froze, demonic eyes widening.