“What?I can not be thirsty?”
She pursed her lips but said nothing.
She was angry with me, which made me feel like shit.
It took everything I had not to soothe her, not to apologize.
But I wouldn’t apologize for saving Mercy, Miles, and her.
She could be angry with me all she wanted, as long as she got to live.
When we turned the corner, I saw them.
Mercy and Miles, in the doorway.
Valory went to them immediately, and I knew I’d been given my chance.
I looked up to the sky, Valory’s words heavy on my heart.Have faith.
I prayed that the fates would not intervene.
I spilled the contents of the vial in one bottle of water.There was no coloring, no fizz.Nothing to indicate it had been poisoned.
The poison Roche had given me was to landlock an angel.To prevent Valory from using her powers and returning to Heaven.
It was a long shot that it would work on a soul bound for Hell, but something told me it would.
At the core of our design, we were created from the same magic.
We were celestial beings, and somewhere deep inside of each and every one us, we were the same.
It was not genetics or magic that divided us.
It was power.Each and every one of us strived for it.
Valory strived to be the perfect angel.
Mercy strived for peace from grief and pain.
Miles strived for the power of love, to feel it in its deepest form.
And me?
I strived once to be a contractor demon.To have the power to hold life in the palm of my hand.
And that was exactly what I was doing right then.
I was holding life in my hand, and I was making a choice to let it live.
“You look like you need this,” I said to Miles as I handed him the tainted bottle of water.
I gave the other to Mercy, not to be suspicious.
She took it with a soft smile, thanking me.Miles opened it immediately, as I knew he would.
I knew I should have felt panic, because as soon as the deal was severed, they would come for me.
I was breaking a cardinal law of Hell by breaking a sacred bond.
