The cat answered with his own evil growls and hisses, releasing one set of claws to smack me in quick succession on the head.
I fumbled backward, unable to control the lower half of my body as the top fought for its fucking life. Ultimately, that was the cause of my epic downfall.
Literally.
The back of my knees hit the coffee table and down I went, crashing into the refurbished wood with full force. It had the audacity to break on just one side and sent my body rolling off to the side in an explosion of splinters.
Jesus yowled, sentencing me to one last violent round of skibbity-paps before scattering off toward the bedroom.
“Ughhh, you fucker,” I groaned, half considering staying on the floor until Lucifer came knocking to drag me back to hell.
As soon as his name crossed my mind, I shut it down.
“Nope. Not today, Jehovah.” Wood stabbed my palms as I pushed up to stand. “Note to self: burn the fucking sage later. Satan be gone!” My arms flailed around like I could actually banish him with my voodoo dance. Hopefully no one saw it through the windows.
No matter how hard I tried to banish him from my mind, though, his words still floated through my thoughts like bacteria infested waters.
“…seeing as you’re incapable of delivering the vengeance you begged for in death…”
My lip curled because–
He was right.
I’d killed men for sport, convinced myself it was practice and then took pleasure in perfecting my methods to draw out their pain. I’d lived under the lie that I was waiting to be the perfect machine with a perfect plan, but it was all an illusion, and under it, I was stalling.
Not because I couldn’t find him, or because I wasn’t strong enough to pull the trigger. It was because the moment I ended Callen, the unknown started. My debt would be paid, and Lucifer….
“We can finally be done with one another.”
Lucifer would be gone, and the girl I used to be would have to walk through that door alone.
And that’s what I was truly afraid of. Not of Lucifer or what eternal punishment he would dole out, but fear of the after–of being alone with whatever’s left.
But, I’d rather open that door than keep pacing in front of it for eternity.
I told the quiet, and meant it: I choose me. I wasn’t waiting to be perfect anymore. I was done rehearsing.
I went to work dragging forty years of stalking out of the coat closet—photos, newspaper clippings, receipts, literal trash—seven evidence boxes, all but one full. I laid them across the living room from oldest to newest and stood with my hands on my hips.
Shame mixed with the burning hatred as I read the dates on the sides.
1990.
1993.
1998.
2001.
2004.
2007.
20–
“Fifteen years.” I whispered. “It’s been fifteen years since I last saw you, you piece of shit.”
I liked to believe I’d grown an unhinged killer’s skin since my rebirth, that fear died with me. Looking at the dust on those boxes, I understood that I’d been lying to myself all along.
