Chapter 53 #2
If anyone came by, I told them I was fine but needed the rest of the evening to myself.
They all understood because they thought it was incredibly pitiful that I’d just found out my mother was still alive and didn't even want me after spending ten years mourning her and plotting her revenge. And the way I’d found out was just utter bullshit as Astrid had confessed.
Soren didn’t come to check on me even once.
He didn’t need to. He knew exactly what I was feeling. He knew that sadness and shock had turned to anger. He knew that now it was dissipating into something else.
Calm.
Peace.
I was at peace. I felt peace.
I lay there plotting on my own for who knew how long.
I busied myself in the shower again and then with braiding my hair back out of my face. I tidied the room, packed a small bag, and used a notepad and pen to jot down a lie about how I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t deal with any of it and was leaving The Tower.
What’s the point of getting revenge for something that didn’t happen?
It would be believable. Pitiful enough for them to think I’d broken.
Around midnight, I cracked the door just enough to see that Soren was the only one still sitting around the table, looking through plans that didn’t matter anymore. I shut and locked the door again.
Could he hear my pulse pick up at the excitement of what I was about to do? Did he think that the exhilaration was for something else?
For him?
Or did he know?
I tapped my temple, and the Visex lit up.
Just like that.
I didn’t bother checking the messages or missed calls.
Call Abadon.
“Hello, My Darling.”
His voice slid into my mind before a ring could even sound, warm and lethal all at once.
I want in. On all of it. You let me kill Azazel. And I want to rule the world with you.
I could hear his lips part in a smile. “Anything else?”
Lillemore Chapman.
A pause. “Hm? Your mother?”
Where is she?
His laughter burst into my head, a jagged and cruel sound. I flinched and glanced toward the door, half-expecting someone to come storming in and catch me mid-betrayal.
“She’s here, Eliana. With me.”
I was right. I’d suspected almost immediately that Lillemore faking her own death had something to do with her finding a way to get close to Abadon. After all, the Founder was a much bigger catch than the President.
Nevertheless, for someone who had loosed thousands of arrows, I’d never known what it felt like to have one lodged straight into my chest until now.
She was with Abadon.
Lillemore was with him.
She’d chosen the devil over her daughter.
Bile burned the back of my throat.
No. She’d chosen herself over her daughter.
I want her dead.
“Why?” His surprise surprised me. I thought he was someone who had already figured everything out.
She left me here to waste my life seeking vengeance for her. Now, I want revenge for all the years I’ve lost. I won’t come unless you promise to kill her. But only after she sees me sitting on the throne and ruling your Kingdom.
“Not a problem,” he answered immediately. “Someone will be downstairs when you’re ready. A good friend of yours will be in the garage, eager to see you again.”
I didn’t ask who. I didn’t care.
Soren’s in the living room. He won’t let me leave.
His laugh was longer but quieter this time.
“You’re still so innocent. Even though you think you’ve broken already, you haven’t. My Darling, you need not worry about Soren. He has been waiting for you to make this choice for many, many years.”
The words hit harder than they should have. For one irrational second, I’d thought about running down to Soren, telling him I’d made a mistake. Telling him I’d let him protect me always.
Always.
But the arrow lodged into my heart twisted, dragging the last of the soft, fleshy bits with it. The organ was now mauled beyond recognition.
Why?
What I meant was both why would he want me to make this choice, and why did he turn out to be the devil I’d always suspected him to be.
A pause, then: “Because though you will rule with me as my Queen, you will be with him as his bride. That was my promise to him three thousand years ago, when he surrendered to me and came into his nephilim powers in full. He submits to me, and he gets to keep you. Forever.”
The vomit that had been threatening finally surged. I barely made it to the tub in time.
He didn’t stop speaking, his voice gliding over the sounds of my puke splashing against porcelain.
“He will perform the ritual to transform you into a nephilim, and then he can have you every night for eternity. During the day, though, you will be mine. You will sit on your throne as my Queen and rule over the pathetic remnants of humanity with me.”
The bathroom spun. My vision blurred even in the dark. My hearing as well. Blood coursed through my veins at an indeterminable speed. There was no way that Soren couldn’t hear my pulse now, at its thunderous boom. Probably everyone in the penthouse could hear it.
Then there was silence. The only indication the call was still active was that green dot in the corner of my consciousness.
I rinsed my mouth and dried my face.
“Did he not tell you yet who his father is?”
I didn’t need Abadon to ask that because I’d figured it out as I’d been blowing chunks just a moment ago.
Nephilim were children of the Fallen who had raped human women. I had known for a while that Soren’s father was a Fallen.
But I was a stupid fool—lovestruck before I’d even known what love felt like.
I’d ignored this possibility out of sheer willpower.
I’d chosen not to admit that Soren could be the son of the Dark One.
Call Ended.
Somehow, I ended up on the balcony overlooking the first floor, my hands gripping the railing so tightly my fingers ached. I knew the cold metal was under my palms, but I couldn’t feel it.
Below, in the open space of the penthouse, Soren sat at the table, pretending to study plans he’d never follow.
I stayed perfectly still, watching him, waiting.
He knew I was there.
Of course he did.
It wasn’t hard to muster the hatred that I felt. I wasn’t entirely sure if hatred was an emotion. Was it something he would know I was feeling? I didn’t care. Maybe it was the absence of my feelings that finally forced him to lift his eyes toward me.
They were dark.
We stared at each other like that—silent, immovable.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, and simply nodded.
The smile that curled at my lips felt alien.
Can you feel that, too, Soren? Relief.
I’m free.
I didn’t look at him again as I descended the stairs. But he rose to meet me, stepping into my path at the bottom. I brushed past him, heading straight for the Jonathan bow, still lying across the back of the sofa.
Soren was halfway toward me when I turned around with the bow in my hand and the quiver on my shoulder.
“I just want to ask you one question,” I said, my voice stripped clean of anything but emptiness.
He was silent, watching me.
“Why do you call me Little Shadow?”
The bridge of his nose wrinkled. “That’s your question? I’ve already told you the answer.” He reached for the quiver, and I handed it over. Maybe he thought I would shoot him. I couldn’t care enough to go through the actions.
“Tell the truth this time.”
He stood there with his eyes completely black now and even slightly narrowed. He studied me. It was as if he didn’t know how to react now that he’d finally gotten what he wanted. He looked almost…caught. Like he hadn’t expected the game to go this far and forgot to plan his next move.
“You haunt me,” he said at last, his voice low. “You follow me everywhere. Into the darkest places. But you’re most dangerous in the light, because that’s when you’re the biggest.”
Stupidly cryptic and infuriating as always.
I turned away, heading for the tin door. He followed, close enough that I could feel his presence but not his touch.
When my fingers closed on the handle, he whispered my name in a broken, belated plea.
I didn’t turn.
I didn’t even pause.
I just opened the door and stepped into the dark.
The world was nothing but darkness. So, what was the point of listening to him? What was the purpose of trying anymore? I hadn’t realized just how much the need for revenge had weighed upon me until I was free from it. I was free from all of it. Even free from the need to belong.
I never needed a place to belong.
I needed freedom.
Revenge, belonging, love—every weight slid off my shoulders. I let go of the things that chained me to others, tied me down.
The darkness that enveloped me in that moment felt like freedom.
After all, Shadows don’t disappear in the darkness.
They are the darkness.