“Maybe it’s—why not leave?”
Chapter two
Seraphina
Devil in Disguise – Kylie Muse
The rain hasn’t stopped. It whispers against the stained-glass windows like it’s trying to get in. I can still feel that young man, Trey, his voice lingering beneath my skin, low and cracked, like it came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. There was something behind his eyes—something storming. Like he might be as damaged as I am. Only I keep mine hidden beneath my sleeves. Purplish blemishes, like fractured pieces of marble.
I’m terrified of him. Not because he’s dangerous. But because he looked at me like I’m not.
The floor groans as I rise from my mattress. This building always sounds like it’s breathing at this hour—bones shifting, air sighing through the walls. It’s almost two in the morning. I heard father lock his door an hour ago.
Three clicks. Always three.
Holy trinity.
Holy wrath.
Holy silence.
My room is narrow and cold, perched above the chapel like a forgotten wren’s nest. The radiator rattles weakly in the corner. I kneel beside the vent and pull out my sketchbook, its corners warped from damp. The pencil is still hidden behind the loose baseboard, exactly where I left it.
I draw in the dark.
Soft strokes. Gentle shadows. The candle flickers beside me, animated and cheerful, my only companion in this silence, aside from the curious critters in the walls. I’ve bundled my sheet around the doorframe to stop the light from casting shadows that might catch father’s attention. I still my beating heart and summon every detail of him. I don’t need light to see his face.
Trey.
He’s already burned into me—etched behind my eyelids like something I was never meant to look at directly.
I start with his eyes.
Haunted green, too bright in the dark, the kind of green old painters gave to avenging angels. Shadows cling beneath them, like he hasn’t slept since the world was made.
My pencil moves.
His lashes—unfairly long.
His hair—messy brown, wild, like it refuses any kind of order. Fallen-angel hair. A rebel’s halo.
There’s that scar near his eye. Small, but sharp.
I press harder there, dragging the graphite down his cheekbone, letting the line bite into the paper the way life must have bitten into him.
His jaw is next—cut like stone, like something chiseled from an old cathedral wall.
His mouth… too soft. Too full. Lips that don’t match the rest of him at all.
Like God gave a warrior a poet’s mouth by mistake.
And under it all, the sense that he’s something dangerous wearing human skin.
A seraph with his wings scorched off.
An angel who didn’t fall—he was thrown.
He said he needed an exorcism.
