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For the first time in my life, I have an urge to feed the pigeons in the park.
But I am, little flower. The devil is always watching.
“Fucking leaves her doors unlocked in this neighborhood. The woman is going to give me a heart attack…”
This is how I’m going to die—stabbed to death in my bunny pajamas.
Patience is not my strong suit. Nor is it the devil’s.
“I don’t know… because you’re a sociopath?” He pauses. “I’m not a sociopath.” That makes me pause. “You’re not?” He looks back at me, an emotion I can’t place swirling in his dark eyes. “No. I’m a psychopath.”
“I appreciate it. Especially…what did you call it? The devil’s spinach?” Against my wishes, a giggle bubbles from my mouth. “Lettuce. But close enough.”
How can she even ask that? Why her? She’s fucking everything. So sweet, brilliant, wonderful, effervescent. She’s everything I’m not, and then some. And she has the gall to ask me why?
“You’re a strange cookie. Anyone ever told you that?” First, it’s ducks, then the lettuce thing, now cookies? “You have a lot of sayings.”
The only man she ever loved was cheating on her, and her actions directly caused the injury of her son.” A puff of air escapes his lips. “She was getting the first-aid kit from under the sink, and the next second, she was on the floor. I tried… I tried to wake her, but she was gone.”
“They said the tendons in her heart ruptured. A medical anomaly is what the doctors called it. A tragic, unfortunate loss of life. A fluke.”
The day I took Lillith, I had Ghost pay the rent for the rest of the year from my bank account.
Not for her to live in—as long as I have any say, she’ll never step foot in this hellhole again—but so I can continue to feed the little pigeon she cares about so much.
I watch its movements in alarm, wondering if something’s the matter with it. Oh fuck, did I poison her bird?
The ghost on the wall raises his head to give me a smirk. “People with brains. People with class.”
The silver-haired boy goes slack against the wall, pretending to be asleep while It—my father, Carl Hellfyre—steps inside.
Fisting my hair in his fingers, he forces my head back and fires up the torch. I can feel the heat from the flame grow more intense as he slowly inches it toward my face. No, not my face—my right eye.
“I was going to ask how you’re doing, but then I saw you chugging a bottle of fucking absinthe.” I look at Wes’s scowling face, noting how he’s swaying on his feet. “I’m fucking peachy.”
“Would you stop being such a shit taco and get up?
I blink at her. “A what?” “A shit taco.” She huffs. “Don’t make me sick my fiancé on you.”
“Are you sure I’m not hurting you?” I shake my head, a chuckle building in my chest. “Lillith, you’re saving me.”
Ahhh. Precious bean water.
“Yes.” He cocks his head. “Bean water?”
“I may only have one eye, Lillith, but I can see perfectly fine.
Callum can go fuck himself with a cactus.
It all makes so much sense now. The familiarity that first night I saw him in the hospital. The way my body melts in his arms, somehow knowing they’re the same arms that protected me all those years ago.
“You remembered,” he whispers, his fingers tightening around my windpipe. “I was starting to wonder if you ever would.”
“I saw that.” I turn to him, barely able to speak past the pastry filling my cheeks. “-ou thaw nufin.”
“Please, Lillith,” I beg. “It has to be you. I’m not fucking strong enough.”
“I am home,” she whispers, brushing her thumb over the tortured flesh. “You’re my home, Kain. I never really knew what that meant until I met you, but I do now.”
“No one knows his real name, but he goes by Ghost.”
Slowly, oh so slowly, I lower the weapon as Ghost appears in the doorway, waggling his gloved fingers in a greeting. I can’t see his expression through the oval mask covering his face, but if I had to guess, he’s wearing an insipid smirk.
“Do you have cable?” he asks, turning from me and stepping toward the couch. “Cable?” “Yes. You know, news and 90s reruns and all those funny little men chasing the balls.”
He extends a gloved hand, his body eerily still as he waits for me to take it. I don’t. The man—Ghost—clicks his tongue. “Everyone is so paranoid these days. It’s a hand, not a viper. Take it.”
He tilts his head. “And here I thought you were becoming more acquainted with the masked variety of men.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’m picking up on some mommy issues.” “My mother sold me, so yeah. That’s pretty accurate.”
The phantom in my father’s basement.
“They call me Orion. I’m Ghost’s… apprentice, for lack of a better word. I’m also the one who got you all the information about Drew and Sandra.”
He taps his chin. “While you’re contemplating whether to shoot me, Ghost wanted me to tell you one last thing…”
He clicks again, reminding me so much of Ghost as a boy. “I’m going to need you to put down your pew-pew before I relay it.”
If there’s one thing about Ghost, he always keeps his word.
I mime an explosion with my fist as the body hits the ground, finally letting loose the laugh I’ve been holding in. I still got it.
“Ghost drives like a maniac, so hold on tight, okay?”
“Welcome to my childhood home. Ladies first.”
I’d find you in every lifetime, little flower. You shouldn’t have worried about that. It was only see you later and never goodbye.
I raise my hand, flipping Ghost off with what little strength I can muster. “So rude. And after I went through all the trouble of saving you.”
