Chapter 33
The dining area wasn’t a preferable kill room, but it would have to do. Luci’s one Uber driver was too booked out to get the asshole back to my house. It was okay, though. I had a new finale planned to profess my twisted love for the Devil.
Callen was both still out cold, his head slumped over and shoulders sagging forward. I’d tied him to a kitchen chair facing my grand stage.
I pulled the finishing touches out of my magical great-big-bag-of-everything, seemingly incapable of stopping the giddy smile from raising my cheeks. As I wrapped my fingers around the water gun I kept for in case of emergency, something crinkled.
There, taped to the lime green barrel, was a yellow Post It note with beautiful scroll I’d recognize anywhere.
My biggest sin has always been pride, and you, dearest Dany, are at the center of it.
His words seized the air in my lungs, capturing the inhale and then releasing it in a gust as stupid tears pricked the stupid gelatinous orbs embedded in my stupid face.
“Fuck you, Luci,” I whispered through the emotion tightening my throat.
Here I was having a coming to Jesus reckoning with what felt like the whole purpose of my dead existence, and he had the audacity to strum the chords of my very real and extremely deep seeded-daddy issues attached to the organ I was ready to give him.
A deep groan sounded from behind, sending a wave of jitters down my spine.
It was show time.
“Do you keep any holy water anywhere? I need to cleanse your spirit before I send you to hell. It’s a classy place.”
“What is this?” He looked around, eyes blinking every few seconds as if he was trying to clear a haze in his vision. Which, honestly, he probably was. I swung that bat pretty hard.
“Ope! Never mind. I brought some.” I pulled the vintage flask from my bag and drained every last drop into the water gun canister. “I’ll be honest, your son really threw me for a loop. For a moment there, I thought I was special.” I puckered my lip and flashed my best impression of puppy dog eyes.
He wasn’t phased, just scrutinizing me with caution.
As he should have been.
“I was under the impression…” I said while taking one step toward him. “…that he was orphaned when mommy and daddy were gunned down after a play. Imagine my surprise to find out that, not only does he have two parents, but that you’re running some sort of father-son sex slave ring.”
His only answer was a sneer, so I squirted him in the face.
“This isn’t just for cleansing, by the way. I never got around to telling you this, but I love games. We’re going to have a little interrogation and every time you lie, I’m going to squirt you in the face.”
“Come on, this is ridiculous—”
“But, I must warn you,” I interrupted with a waggle of my index finger. “The stakes get higher. Once I run out of water, things get… serious.”
Callen pulled against the restraints with a series of curses and vein bulging. To no avail, of course.
“I can’t wait any longer. The anticipation is literally killing me!” With zero shame in my hustler game, I plopped my ass on Callen’s lap and did a little wiggle against his groin. “Let’s get started.”
I aimed the gun and let loose an assault of water straight into Callen’s ear. After two or three, he nearly jumped out of his skin with a bunch of angry sputtering.
“Woof! I’d ask if that’s what you sound like in bed, buuut I already know what sort of nasty grunts you make.”
“Get off of me,” he ground out.
“What was that?“ I cuffed my ear for emphasis and wrapped my other arm around his neck. “You want me to get off on you? It’s kind of rude to ask a lady to take care of herself, but if that’s what you’re into—“
“Who are you, you psycho bitch?”
“You don’t remember me?” I said in mock offense.
“I’ve never seen you a day in my life.
“Well that’s where you’re wrong. You don’t have to worry about that yet. I have plenty of blasts from the past to help jog your memory.”
I hopped off of Callen’s lap and went back over to the table where all the fun shit was laid out like a serial killer buffet.
Luci? I thought. If you can hear me, I really need to talk to you. So, yeah. Please find me?
There was a sheet covering my grand display, but I didn’t want to reveal it quite yet. I wanted to wait for Luci to show up. If he would forgive me enough to do so.
“Right now” I said to outloud, “My water gun is full of holy water. I have some things I want to know, and if you lie to me when you answer, I’ll know. Then I’ll squirt you. It’s all fun and games until I run out of water.“
I pulled a few more flasks out of my bag and lined them up on the table. Each was made of different material to be sure they could contain the liquid inside of them. A piece of blue painters tape was stuck across the front of each with the contents scrolled in my abysmal handwriting.
I stood off to the side and waved my hand dramatically in front of them like I was that hot bitch on Wheel of Fortune. My collection ranged from chemicals as harmless as peroxide to acids that would eat through flesh in a matter of seconds.
I was expecting horror. Terror. Begging. Instead, Callen’s face said he was ready to call my bluff.
“What is this about?” he asked.
“Well I can’t just give you the answer. What sort of fun would that be? So, Callen, truth, or dare?”
He spent the first thirty seconds trying to kill me with his stare before he finally growled, “Dare.” The defiance was meant to intimidate me, maybe even to throw me off.
It only made me ready to play.
“So be it. Dany, I dare you to hurt Joe’s daddy.” I pulled the knife from the sheath at my thigh and stabbed it into the top of Callan’s left hand.
But Callen? He wasn’t so easily unnerved.
Of course you’re not scared, I thought. You’ve never had to be.
“That’s the thing about you,” I said and I pulled the knife out of his hand and wiped it on his shirt. “You really believe you’re untouchable. Like the rules don’t apply and consequences are for other people.”
He smirked, breath hot and ragged. “Look around, sweetheart. I’m still sitting here, aren’t I?”
I leaned in until my nose almost brushed his. “For now.”
I straightened and turned away from him, palm skimming over the sheet-draped table. My fingers traced the outline of my “centerpiece,” the thing I’d built just for him, for us, for the Devil who insisted on seeing every ugly piece of me and still came back.
Luci, I thought again, harder this time. I’m doing it. I’m choosing. So if you’re going to show up, now would be the fucking time. I’m trying to be all romantic and shit.
Nothing answered but the faint hum of the fridge and Callen’s heavy breathing.
I swallowed, throat tight. Maybe he wouldn’t come.
“Second dare,” I said through clenched teeth, forcing cheer into my voice as I turned back around. “Try this on for size: Callen, I dare you to remember.”
His brow furrowed.
“Remember what?” he asked, genuine confusion wrinkling his forehead.
That punched a hole right through my sternum because of course.
Of course he didn’t remember the girl he left for dead on a gravel road thirty years ago. Why would he? I was just a night out with the boys that no one ever spoke about.
My fingers tightened on the water gun.
“You don’t know, do you?” I asked quietly. “Who I am.”
His jaw flexed. “You’re some crazy bitch who thinks she’s going to scare me with party tricks.”
I laughed. It cracked halfway out of my chest. “Wrong. But thanks for playing.”
I squeezed the trigger. A sharp stream of holy water nailed him dead center in the face.
He sputtered and cursed, jerking his head away.
“Every time you lie,” I said sweetly, “you get a bath.”
“I didn’t lie,” he snapped, blinking hard. “I don’t know you as anything except the crazy bitch from the shipping yard who killed all of my men.”
I shrugged one shoulder, pretending the admission didn’t slice through me. “Exactly.”
The overhead lights buzzed.
Flickered once.
Twice.
Cold rolled down my spine like someone had opened a freezer behind me. The air thickened, pressure tugging at the place under my ribs that had belonged to him since the moment he burned that first brand into my wrist.
“I was beginning to think you’d do this without me,” came a lazy drawl from the doorway.
Every nerve in my body lit up.
Lucifer stood at the threshold between kitchen and dining room, one shoulder propped against the frame like he’d been there for hours and only just decided to say something. Black shirt, open at the throat; sleeves rolled, exposing pale skin, and bright eyes cataloguing everything.
“It’s about time you showed up motherfucker,” I said, and my voice shook more than I wanted it to.
He came.
“What do you want, Dany?” he asked in a low voice that sent shivers skating over my arms.
Callen twisted, trying to see around me. “Who the hell is this?” he demanded.
Lucifer didn’t even glance at him. His gaze was locked on me, hot and cold and way too much.
“This is… elaborate,” he said, taking a slow step into the room.
I felt stupidly proud.
“Do you like it?” I asked, pulse racing. “Because, uh…” I gestured at Callen with the barrel of my watergun. “This is for you.”
One dark brow arched. “For me?”
“Yes, for you,” I said, words tumbling out faster now that he was actually here. “You set me free. You told me to choose. So—” I swallowed, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “I’m choosing his death. And I wanted you to see it.”
Surprise flickered in his eyes, quickly smothered by something warmer and far more dangerous.
Behind me, Callen made a disgusted sound. “What is this? Some sick roleplay?” he spat. “Let me go.”
I crossed back to Callen, letting my fingers trail along the back of his chair as I walked around to face him again. The rope creaked as he tried, uselessly, to lunge at me.
“You don’t remember me,” I said. “But I remember you. I remember everything,” I said softly.
His sneer didn’t waver, but something cold flickered in his eyes. “You’re delusional,” he said. “I’ve seen a thousand faces under me. You’re nothing special.”
There it was.
The truth.
I’d been hinging on my Death Day for thirty years when in reality, he’d never thought about me again. It was me who was keeping it alive and I’d only just realized tonight that Lucifer had given me the scissors I needed long ago to cut the tie.
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s why this is going to mean something. To me.”
I set the water gun on the table and picked up a new knife. Slim, sharp, the handle fitting into my palm like it had been waiting.
“Dany,” Lucifer said quietly.
I glanced back at him. The old panic tried to rise, clawing up my throat in a torrent of fear and rage.
If I kill him, does that mean losing you?
My thumb drifted unconsciously to my bare wrist, empty of the one thing that kept him bound to me.
“If I walk away,” I said, “if I let him live, I stay in that alley. Forever.” Lucifer’s jaw tightened. “And if I kill him?” I asked.
“Then the loop ends,” he said. “One way or another.”
My heart hammered. “And us?” The word was small, ridiculous, hanging there between a corpse-to-be and the Devil. “What happens to us?”
His gaze didn’t flinch, but he didn’t say a word. I saw that for what it was now.
Free will.
He would let me go forever if it meant I still had my free will.
I nodded once, decision made, then I turned back to the man who’d never bothered to remember me.
“I’m going to do you a favor,” I told Callen. “You don’t get to be the monster under my bed anymore.”
He laughed, raw and broken. “You think killing me fixes you?”
“No, but it stops you from owning my afterlife the way you owned my death.” I let that sink in, not so much for him, but as a proclamation to both myself and Lucifer. Then, I was ready to play. “Truth, or dare?”
Again, he regarded me before answering, like he was weighing every option in waiting for my poker face to slip.
“Dare.”
The challenge felt like liquid nitrogen in my blood and roused the real predator lying in wait.
“Alright. Let’s skip the foreplay.”
I walked with predatorial focus toward the black sheet covering the main event on the table, aware of the heavy lidded green eyes watching my every move with intent.
The sheet ruffled the air as I let it fly, and the sound of Callen’s choked cry was better than any aphrodisiac.
Pride warmed my chest as I stared at my creation, and again when I saw the pride in Lucifer’s smirk.
There, set among an array of memorabilia, was the severed heads of Andrew and Damien spiked on candle sticks
“I never needed foreplay to get wet anyway.”