I thought for a moment. I was an only child. I’d wished for siblings when I was younger, but now I was incredibly thankful that never happened. How would I feel if I’d been in his shoes?
“Jealous.”
“Ding, ding. We have a winner.”
“But my point still stands. Plenty of people are jealous, and they don’t destroy their whole lives.”
He cackled. “Clearly you’ve never heard of a midlife crisis. It happens all the time, crabapple. Every fucking day.”
“Buying a sports car or cheating on your wife is hardly the same as causing a full-scale rebellion.”
“Isn’t it? I was fighting for all of us, railing against the circumstances He forced us into. I am not a guardian angel. I’m more than the keeper of his precious humans. All I did was point out his error in judgment. I told my father how much he’d hurt usall. But only a handful of my brothers stood with me. As such, we were easily cast out. Which, when you take a look atyourhistory, is a very typical move made by dictators and monarchs when they are confronted with the displeasure of their subjects. Hello, American Revolution. Isn’t one of the tenets of your kind to rise up against tyranny? To oppose fascism in all its forms? How can you judge me so harshly for being the embodiment of heroism?”
“Are you really comparing God to a fascist?”
“I mean, they use him as an excuse all the time. So I say, if the iron fist fits.”
His feelings on this issue were much bigger than I’d expected. Honestly, I’d assumed what I’d get from him was more bravado and bluster, not bare honesty.
“So... you didn’t abandon heaven to come rule in hell?”
“No, darling. That was simply a side effect of my charisma. Free will isn’t something angels are encouraged to push for. But it is something well worth fighting to keep.” He heaved another sigh, suddenly looking exhausted. “And those who fell with me were lost. I’d been the face of our little revolution, so they turned to me expecting answers and direction. I couldn’t abandon them. Not when I knew just how deeply that sort of injury cuts.”
“So you ruled out of necessity, not selfishness?”
“All the best leaders rise to the occasion. Never trust someone who desires that much power over others.”
“And now?”
“What?”
“Do you enjoy stealing souls and ruling the damned?”
He smirked. “I don’t steal anything. If a soul finds its way to me, it was freely given. Once again, that pesky free will comes into play.”
Now I was thoroughly confused. Was he right? Was God oppressing the angels the cause of all of this? Were we all working for the wrong side?
“I have another question.”
“Of course you do,” he said, but he didn’t seem annoyed. More like he was resigned.
“If the whole point of this apocalypse is to get some sort of revenge for casting you out, how do you justify all the casualties? You claim you’re different from Him. That you are not the callous leader you make Him out to be, but aren’t you sort of doing the same thing you’re accusing Him of?”
“I have never forced any creature to do my bidding against their will.”
I cocked a brow.
“Okay, maybe I have a time or two, but it was for a good reason.”
Shaking my head, I walked away from him. “You’re a hypocrite, Lucifer. Your mission may have started in a noble place, but you’ve turned into someone worse than He ever was.”
He’d caught up to me, clearly not ready to let this topic drop. “How can you possibly say that? I make people’s dreams come true.”
“You trick them into giving up their immortal souls in exchange for trinkets. If they understood what they were giving up, they would never agree.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.”
“Fine. We’ll set that point aside. You claim you’re a hero, but when I look at what you are doing, the destruction you’ve already caused, there’s nothing heroic about it. You are worse than any dictator or awful leader I’ve ever read about by a freaking landslide. It’s not even close.”
