“The eyes are the mirror to the soul, Dany. Take the eyes and we can see everywhere the soul wanders. It’s as good as mine.”
With a sigh, I scooped the soft tissue from the sockets and plopped them into a jar I kept in the fridge. Two more pairs floated around alongside Allen’s. Lucifer said that they weren’t judging me; I didn’t believe him. One green iris refused to turn away.
“I’ll show you,” I grumbled and swirled the liquid with my middle finger, catching them all in a spinning vortex. I didn’t bother to stick around for their scrutiny, instead choosing to close the fridge and sit back down on the couch.
With my head in my hands, I sighed.
It was the silence after the kill that was the worst for me. When the adrenaline disappeared, stealing all of the bravado and euphoria with it.
Tears dripped onto my legs and mixed with the dried blood crusting my thighs. I took one look at the markings on my wrist. Three black, one red.
Three souls for the cost of my one.
I was safe for another year. Lucifer collected the souls, and I’d be here. Alone. For eternity.
Pride and disgust took turns roiling in my stomach. Allen deserved it. They all did. Still, there was a part of me that kept a ledger of my own for the girl I could have been. The one who wouldn’t have learned to love the switch. She would have looked at the blood and flinched. I looked at the blood and thought,efficient. Well-deserved.
I stared at the red line banding my wrist. The last of three that had marked my wrist for the last thirty years. Relief didn’t crash over me so much as seep. Slow, mineral, like heat leaving a corpse. The itch under my skin quieted; the old hum ofsoonfinally shut up. I’d told myself it would feel triumphant. Trumpets. Fireworks. Cue the end credits. Instead it felt like taking off a weight and realizing the bruise was what’s been keeping you upright.
The tears flowed more freely as I stared at something that likely seemed so insignificant to others. Little did they know, it marked the night of my biggest shame.
Hot breath ripe with beer heated my ear along with the echo of long forgotten whispers.
“Stop,” I demanded through gritted teeth. The memories didn’t stop, though. They just flowed more freely.
Piercing blue eyes shot through me like an iron stake. His voice, measured and commanding, ordering the others to hold me down–Allen was practice. Callen was the architect that built this demon I’d become from the ground up. He still lived in the fractures that never healed in my bones, the torn fibers of muscle that never quite knew how to knit themselves back together.
Any time I felt like I was getting close to sealing my bargain with Lucifer, to being free, my past loaded the gun and Callen pulled the trigger
Bile churned in my stomach and I stood in a fit of rage.
“Fuck you!” I screamed, hands trembling as I swiped everything off of the coffee table before grabbing two of the legs and slamming it against the wall. “You don’t own me anymore, do you hear me?”
More shit went flying through the air, a physical manifestation of the vitriol melting my insides, fueling the self-destructive path I’d been hell-bent on since the night I made that stupid bargain.
“I sold my soul and for what?” I cried out to the universe. “Nothing. I. Am.Nothing!”
The words ricocheted off my apartment walls and slammed back into the empty space where that stupid fucking soul used to be. They drained everything I had left, banking the fire and leaving nothing behind.
I was a demon. Eternal life, inhuman strength, and a get-out-of-jail free card that never expired.
But more than that?
I was empty. I was alone. And I was filled with more shame than any mortal was capable of holding.
A gentle swipe of fur against my calf drew my attention down toward the one thing I could count on.
“Sorry, bud,” I whispered. “I’ll clean it up before I leave.”
My phone dinged from the counter. I wiped away the angry tears and picked it up.
Vinny DeVito
Unread Message
Don’t forget, you’re starting Caramel’s shift tonight. The twins never showed, so you better leave that shithole of yours in less than thirty.
“What?” I dialed his number immediately, giving him zero time to bite into me when he answered. “What do you mean Trinity and Lola never showed?”
