“You set all this up,” I said to Lucifer, not taking my eyes off Callen. “Every step.”
“Yes,” he answered so coolly that it made my ears burn hot.
“You ripped the brand off right before this.” My voice was rising right along side the fucking embarrassment I felt for falling for him when all he was doing was dumping me in the garbage like everyone else. “You knew.”
“Yes,” he said again.
I swallowed.
“So this is what? A test?” My laugh was humorless. “See if your favorite project can stand up without her training wheels, huh? Taking pity on the poor dead girl because she was too pathetic to pass up?”
“Wrong metaphor,” he responded right on my heels and ignoring the jab. “You never needed the wheels, dearest Dany. You just liked pretending they were there.”
Callen let out a wordless yell and I turned my scowl to him. My grip on the knife white knuckled. I’d half a mind just to kill the bastard right now as an afterthought to the battle I was preparing to fight.
Whether it was against my own pride and ambition or Lucifer’s manipulation, I wasn’t sure yet
The brand was gone, and our deal was done. If I killed Callen right now, it would bemedoing it. Just Dany, a girl who died on an old gravel road and came back as a murderous mistress of Satan.
I wanted it so bad my teeth ached from the grind, so why wouldn't my feet move? Why could I not stop staring at Lucifer like I was both begging him to stay and daring him to leave?
Because the thought slid in again, quiet and ugly, between one breath and the next:
If Callen is dead… what happens to us?
Us.
Me and the Devil. The fallen angel who had claimed my soul, my body, and somehow when I wasn’t looking, my heart.
Stupid, that voice inside of me whispered. He is the biblical fucking Devil you idiot, and you’re a literal blip in the timeline. You were never special.
“Dany,” Lucifer said, breaking through my spiral but not stopping it.
The knife felt wrong in my hand all of a sudden. Heavy. Slippery. Attached to the end of an arm that didn’t quite feel like mine. If I did it, if I drove the blade home and watched the light go out of Callen’s eyes, that would be it.
“What happens if I do it?” I asked him.
His jaw tightened. “You finally get what you asked for.”
“That’s not what I mean.” My throat felt tight. “What happens to you?”
Something dark flickered in his eyes. “Does it matter?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered breathlessly, hinging on his answer. I could hear my pulse in my ears. Feel the empty place on my wrist like a phantom limb. The space where Lucifer’s mark had sat like a promise and a threat for thirty years.
He looked away from me, muscles jumping in his neck and jaw, and said, “Kill him, Dany. Take what is owed to you and be free like you’ve always wanted.” He met my tear-filled gaze once more. “Be normal. Find someone who makes you feelwantedand live.”
Normal…
What did that even mean anymore?
My fingers slackened on the hilt.
I saw it then—just a flash, just enough—that this was never about Callen at all anymore. Not for him. This was about whether I would choose me. Lucifer cared so much about free will that he’d be willing to walk away from whatever this was, if it was something that could even be.
I was naive enough to think I wanted to try, though.
Even if I was just a fleeting moment in his lifetime.
