Unwanted

Chapter 25

I’d spent the last twenty minutes in silence taking note of the different body language coming off each person.

From their builds, I was sure they were all men.

One of them I knew intimately by now. If my senses were correct, and they usually were, Callen was taking on an alpha role, leading the conversation with all heads and shoulders turned his way.

“What are the odds that this is some sort of fucked up, late night Bible study?”

“Bible study?” Lucifer scoffed “At midnight?”

“Hmm you’re right,” I hummed sarcastically. “Couldn’t be a Bible study. I forget that people do those during the day so that everyone can see how holy they are. Good call. This is probably more along the lines of an exorcism.” I took another large bite and smacked my lips obnoxiously.

“What are you eating? It looks abysmal.”

“Oh, this chunk of heaven?” The marshmallowy goodness stuck between my fingers as I held it up for inspection. “This is a Rice-Christy Treat.”

For the first time in biblical history (probably), Lucifer looked perplexed. “A what?”

“I was stalking this guy back in ninety-eight. Big Wall Street type, loads of money, but was sneaky modest about it in a completely narcissistic way.”

“Dany,” he interrupted. “I fail to see how this answers my question— ”

“Hey! Don’t be an interrupting cow.” I pointed one sticky finger in his face. “Anway, he made a huge point to make donations to the local Catholic Church he attended, went every Sunday and Wednesday, blah blah blah. I got curious,” I shrugged.

“About?”

“Church.”

“Did it make a believer out of you?” Lucifer smirked.

I hid my own smile behind the binoculars and checked in on the rag-tag group of shady assholes across the lot. Nothing had changed; I was beginning to think this was some sort of dramatic fucking poker night. Looked like Luci and I were in it for the long haul tonight.

So, I answered, “Hardly. It was a bunch of mightier than thou bullshit, guilting everyone to follow some made up set of rules by a guy who probably spent the majority of his life slipping roofies to schizophrenics and calling them prophets. Would you agree?”

Another smile crept its way up Luci’s lips. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“You don’t have to,” I shrugged and bit off another chunk of Rice-Christy Treat. “The only good part was communion. I’ve had a lot of men in my mouth, but there is nothing quite like consuming the body of Christ.”

“That tasty?”

“Ugh,” I groaned with an exaggerated eye roll. “The best I have ever had. So fucking good, in fact, that I snuck back in every Wednesday night after service and stole a few bags from their storage cabinets. The blessed ones, that way it was authentic.”

“Stealing from a church? That sort of blasphemy will get you sent straight to Hell, Dany.”

“Oh, definitely. And I don’t go anywhere without snacks.

So I went home, threw some butter and marshmallows in a pot, melted it down, sacrificed a bag of Christ, and bam!

Rice-Christy Treats. Here,” I said a little too perky, snatching another square from the baggie and handing it over.

Lucifer looked at it skeptically. “Don’t be such prude. Take the fucking dessert.”

His lips thinned into a fine line, but he did take it. The skepticism grew as he turned it over, inspecting every gooey inch before lifting it to his nose for a sniff.

“It’s not poisoned.”

“Wouldn’t matter if it were,” he grumbled matter-of-factly. “I cannot be sickened, injured, or killed by humankind.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmm,” he hummed in confirmation.

I watched him like a hawk on bated breath as the treat drew closer to his mouth. At first, my pride was hanging on whether or not he liked it, eager to soak in every reaction and analyze it down to the micro-features on his face.

That was where it ended, however.

As soon as his lips parted, I was tempted by sin.

Two subtly pointed canines appeared as he opened wider for a bite. I wondered if they served a purpose, or if they were just another sharp feature fitting of the Devil.

Waves of heat rolled over my body of their own volition when he finally bit into it.

Small strings of sticky goodness fell on his lower lip and chin from where I was maybe a little too liberal with the marshmallows.

I silently thanked our lord and savior Judas Priest that I had when his tongue snaked out to lick it off.

Sodom help me.

“Why do you do this to me?” I asked, breathy and genuine.

“Do what?” He answered around a mouthful.

“Have this… effect on me? It’s like everything I am falls apart when you’re around.”

Lucifer stopped chewing as if he could sense the raw honesty in my voice. It was a vulnerable part that I’d never meant to show. With him, in this moment, though? I was feeling kind of tired of the unknown.

Something that looked an awful lot like disappointment deepened the shadows of his features. “I am the epitome of sin, Dany. Temptation. All humans fall to temptation, no matter how large or small.” He handed the treat back over to me and wiped his hands. His eyes looked everywhere but at me.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’d definitely fuck you again in a heartbeat, for sure,” I laughed, the huff quiet and halfhearted. “But, it’s not what I meant.”

Still not looking at me, he whispered, “Then how did you mean it?”

“I.. I don’t really know.” He head whipped toward me and I could feel the rising irritation in the space between us.

It only made even more stupid, jumbled words flow faster.

“That sounds stupid, I know, I just don’t know how to explain it.

At first it’s definitely a physical reaction.

I would be lying if I told you it wasn’t.

” My hands wrung nervously in my lap where I kept my gaze trained.

“That reaction is the equivalent to…” I trailed off.

I didn’t allow myself to entertain the end of that sentence even in those dark moments of silence where it was just me and my thoughts. Was I really ready to not only think it, but speak it out loud?

“The equivalent to what, Dany?” He spoke so soft and quietly.

My fidgeting worsened as the slow pump of adrenaline quickened my heart. I looked out the driver window and exhaled shakily. The heat of my breath fogged the window and made me feel even more trapped.

And then…

Fuck it.

“The first step toward a chasm. And every time you leave, I get closer to the ledge.”

He didn’t respond immediately and, when he finally did, it was only, “I see.”

I see?

A deep seeded insecurity sparked a burst of irritation. I managed to tamp down the retort burning like acid on my tongue.

Men. Fucking men. When would I learn that my guard could never be let down for one? That whether they’re human, demon, or God him-fucking-self, I would always end up like Eve?

I was just about to tell him as much when he said, “It felt much the same when I fell.”

His words were like a needle jabbing into the inflating rage inside of me.

“Were you not literally thrown off the edge of heaven?”

A cynical smile harshened his expression.

“There are thousands of years worth of speculation. Was I angry like a pompous child? Did I lead a rebellion against my father and inevitably lose? Maybe I even chose to fall, tiring of the rigid rules of righteousness. Perhaps there is a bit of truth to each,” he mused and, though he sat next to me, he was no longer in the present.

“One of the first privileges my father granted humanity was free will. A choice to either walk his path or stray, the only consequences being the ones they brought upon themselves without any divine intervention.”

“A tale as old as time, that one.”

“Hmm,” he agreed with a nod. “The angels were never awarded such mercy.”

Two different feelings warred inside my mind. Was free will actually a mercy? Was it a mercy that Andrew chose me that nice? Or when Andrew used that free will to brutalize the last shreds of my life and take them just because he could?

“Our entire lives were written centuries in advance, kept in golden tombs lining shelves of an archive anyone could access.”

“Wait. Anyone? So that means…”

“Every achievement and indiscretion in my life could be read by any of my brothers whenever they wished.”

Fuck. I couldn’t even begin to fathom what that would feel like. Having someone know what my days looked like; Being privy to every detail down to the number of times I’d need to take a piss.

“I didn’t go to Eden as a malicious act. In fact, I didn't go because I wanted to. Father sent me.”

“Had you not already been cast out?”

“No. Not really. I’d grown restless, and Father could sense it. It took me centuries to come to the conclusion that Eden was my test, not Adam and Eve’s.”

“How do you mean?”

“Michael told me that my tomes were no longer in the archives. The Scribes pulled every single one from the shelves without anyone knowing. I didn't know it at the time, but my future was being rewritten.” Lucifer’s nose twitched with a sneer as the temperature plummeted in the car.

Ice crept over the windows and when next he spoke, each word was accented with a puffy cloud of steam.

“I went down to Eden given the task of tempting Eve with adultery.”

“I thought it was an apple.”

Lucifer’s eyes met mine, and the intensity I found there was soul gripping.

“I was the apple, Dany.”

My stomach dropped as the tapestry began to unravel.

“So you…”

“I was offered to a human woman with no choice of my own.

Why would a creature as insignificant as Eve get to choose whether she wanted to betray her partner or remain loyal?

While I, a creature of divinity, my father‘s most cherished child, be forced to lay with her because of wanton desire?” Lucifer grit his teeth, and the force was audible.

“Luci…” My heart ached for him, and I was clueless as to how to help him.

“The angels were not permitted partners. In secret, I coveted what Adam and Eve had. They were given the choice to walk together through a future unknown. We were only ever given a script. After I returned home from Eden, I confided in a few of my brothers. Slowly, their tomes disappeared from the archives as well. We were called to stand before God, charged with what the humans call the seven deadly sins. Because we dared to fight for a future that we owned.”

“And that’s why you were cast out.”

“No,” he growled. “That’s why we were punished. All of the horrific tortures you read about in the Bible about my domain are untrue. The Bible was unknowingly recounting the endless torture my brothers and I suffered at the hands of your God.”

“Not mine,” I snapped. “He is not my God.” It wasn’t the first time he said it, and it was beginning to sound like an accusation.

Lucifer grit his teeth and sighed as if he were trying to reel it all in and fall back into a sort of composure he’d had eons to master.

“It was not my intention to dump my past onto your lap, Dany. I only meant to say that I have found myself at a cliff's edge before, drawn closer by pride and ambition.”

“What did you do?”

He turned those mismatched eyes in my direction, the slit of his pupil dilating against the emerald green of one and milky white of the other.

“Made history, dearest Dany. I jumped.”

It didn’t land like a boast. He said it the way you talk to someone standing on the same ledge, caught between fear of what’s behind them and terror for what’s at the bottom if they fall.

It’s not that the acts of finding and killing Callen scared me. I have done that in my sleep years ago. It hadn’t taken me long at all to gut Damien and Andrew. What froze me was the after: when I had to live with whatever I am without the hunt and…

Without him.

That unknown was the ledge he was talking about.

“I don’t want you to be afraid to take the leap, dearest Dany. And so I thought perhaps you’d like to see what lies at the bottom.”

Lucifer handed me back the binoculars and nodded toward the windshield.

The fuck?

They were cold where they touched my face, but not nearly as cold as my skin when I saw what was happening through them.

A group of men had opened the latch of a shipping container and was ushering out a group of cold, shaking women. Their hair was greasy, clothes ripped, and most had bloody gashes on their lips–

“Mother fucker!” I screamed, blood boiling beneath my skin.

Fire-red hair dulled by neglect was the last to exit the shipping container. She was naked, and her tell-tale figure was the first to catch my eye.

“Sapphire,” I whined.

My eyes searched the rest of the group, and I found them.

Trinity, Lola, Nova, and…

“Carm!” I cried out.

He’d lined them up like trophies—my girls, shaking and bare—while he grinned and patted his men on the backs like he would a pack of dumbass flea ridden mutts.

I counted them once, then again. Caramel’s chin trembled, Nova sobbed, Sapphire tried to square her shoulders and couldn’t quite get there…

That was on me.

I’d let him breathe this long. I’d told myself I was practicing. Perfecting.

What I’d been was coward enough to give him time to run a master sex-trafficking ring under everyone’s noses.

“I could’ve stopped this,” I growled, angry tears pricking at my eyes.

“You still can, Dany.” My hand landed on the door handle, but before I could yank, another vehicle rolled up. “Patience,” he whispered.

My eyes narrowed in concentration when blinding LED lights swung around the corner. A sleek black truck rolled up and cut the engine. I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of whoever it was, the remnant flashes from his stupid headlights still dancing across my vision.

“It’s a dangerous thing, free will.“ Lucifer said, and his tone almost sounded sad.

Every head swiveled toward the newcomer. The door to the truck opened and all of the sudden, I could hear every fine detail like I was standing right beside them.

Callen’s jaw clenched, shoulders tensing in the most subtle manner. The heavy set cadence of the newcomer’s footsteps as he walked around the truck struck a chord in my memory, and my mouth slicked with saliva.

“Remember,” Luci soothed. “I am here for you, and I believe in you, dearest Danny.”

“It’s about time you showed your face,” Callen ground out. I was beginning to think you got lost.”

And then there he was, grimacing at the man who’d ruined my life.

Joe.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, dad.”