Breathless (9 page)

Everything feels funny.

I feel funny.

My arms and legs both feel like they have weights attached to them. It’s hard to move, hard to get motivated to move.

I hear screams. They aren’t mine. At least that’s something.

The last thing I remember?

I was home. In my room. My mother was possessed. Hart was fighting Lucien. I tried to save my mother. I stabbed Hart, and I thought everything would be okay. I thought… and then he died. And everything inside me felt like it was on fire. Then, I was thrown out the window and ended up here.

Here on the ground.

Here in gray world.

Here where the screaming is so loud it hurts my ears.

Here where I can’t find the ability to move really well.

The image of Hart looking down at me and smiling flashes in my mind. I know exactly what he’d say to me if he were here.

I decide to
suck it up, buttercup
and try my best to roll over. It takes about five tries, but finally I do.

The next scream is mine. Not some random noise far away, but me. Mine. My voice.

The body is looking right at me. A woman. I know her. Marcy, Professor Mitchell’s Teacher’s Assistant. Marcy, who had always been nice to me. Marcy with the gay goldfish and the plans and the life. She’s staring at me. Her eyes fully open. Unseeing. Her body broken. I crawl over to her and try to shake her, but my hands go right through her, causing me to back up until my back hits the tree I’ve grown to like. I scream again.

This isn’t real. It’s another dream. Hart’s doing this to me, right? He has to be. It’s Hart or the demon blood or something. It’s not real. It can’t be real. It can’t be real.

“Marcy,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

I know it’s my fault all of this happening. I know it before I see
me
walking down the middle of the street. Her hair is black, black as night. That’s not all that’s black. Black wings extend out of my back, so big they extend from one side of the street to the other.

“No.” I don’t say it loud. Not loud at all. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t hear me. She—I—turn toward my direction. My eyes are white, pure white. Pure evil.

I duck behind the tree just in case. I don’t know if she can see me. I don’t know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing if she can or can’t. All I know is that I don’t want anything to do with any of this. She turns away from me and keeps walking down the middle of the street. I see people screaming. I see people falling. I see their souls leaving their bodies. They don’t go up or down. They are stuck here like me. Either that, or they don’t know how to go up or down.

“Gracen Sullivan?” I turn and see the gray, ashen face of Marcy the TA staring at me. She looks terrified. I know the feeling. “What’s going on?”

I shake my head. I can’t tell her. Not because I don’t know, but because if I say it, it means it’s true. If I hear the words coming from my lips, then it means that it’s really happening, and I can’t live in my incredibly screwed up bubble.

“Gracen!” Her voice is shaking. “Am I dead? Are we dead?”

I don’t mean to, but for a split second, I look down at her body. She does the same.

She falls to her knees without a sound, without a scream, without a whimper. “You did this,” she says as simply as the sky is blue, or rather gray. “I saw you.”

“We all saw you.” A voice from behind me makes me stand up and face it.

Not just an
it
… a bunch of its.

A bunch of people.

People looking at me.

People remembering me as the last thing they saw before they died.

“We all saw you.” A man who looked to be over six feet tall is leading the pack toward me. I don’t think they’re going to put me on their shoulders and carry me around like a hero.

I shut my eyes and ready for the inevitable impact. This is going to hurt.

The pain never comes.

I open my eyes, and I’m not on street. I wish I were. Facing that mob might be better than where I am.

I’d rather be anywhere but here.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lucien

H
E WANTS ME TO FORGIVE HIM.

I don’t know if I can.

It’s not just the fact that he shot me in the stomach when something whispered in his ear. And he doesn’t trust me, but he trusts something that he doesn’t know… in a voice he doesn’t recognize… to shoot his brother. And he does it.

It’s not just the fact that he took, or tried to take, Colleen from me.

It isn’t even just the fact that he allowed Gracen Sullivan to turn into the Abomination and freakin’ fell in love with her, or that she’ll destroy us all.

All of that is bad.

All of that is crappy and terrible and things that I never want to happen again. In fact, a brain wipe of it all wouldn’t be a bad idea, if that were possible. I don’t know if it is. I’m sure the Abomination could do it if she wanted… I’m sure she can do a lot of things. I’m sure I don’t want to know what she can do.

I’m sure of a lot of things.

No, the real reason I can’t forgive my brother, who’s going hoarse from screaming at me in his little basement prison, is that I know it’s just an act.

None of it is real.

None of it.

He isn’t sad about me or what he did to me or anything like that. He’s not even sad about Gracen, about what he did to her, about all the hell he put her aunt through. No he’s not upset about any of that. Nope, he’s upset because he got caught, because he can’t get away, because he wants to get his girl back… and he will say anything to make that happen. He wants me to let him out. I don’t blame him. I’d want him to let me out too.

I also would want him not to shoot me.

Oh and not hate or resent me because our mother loved me best.

The door is as cold as the basement was when I lay the back of my head against it, put my hands in my pockets, and shut my eyes, all the while listening to Hart’s voice grow more and more hoarse.

There were reasons Mother liked me best. Reasons I had no control over. I couldn’t control how obstinate Hart was to our mother. She’d ask him to do something, and he’d defy her nine out of ten times. Then he’d get mad if she became cross with him. And it isn’t my fault that she favored me more than him in the first place. I can’t control her. I can’t control anybody. If I could, I would’ve controlled Hart better—both then and now.

Still, with all that, with everything that man has done to me both as a person and as a demon, I still jumped into Hell for him. I still love him more than anything else in this world. More than myself. More than our mother… or rather the thing she became. I don’t know if she tortured me in Hell like Hart seems to think. I do know that place has a way of making you see things you don’t want to see—maybe even things you do. I don’t know why I saw Gracen. Maybe because I felt guilty about her.

Hart isn’t wrong. I could’ve killed her before. I should have. Tina ordered it. I talked her out of it.

If I could just focus, if I could just make her see things my way, then she wouldn’t turn. I’d fight Hart, and boom, everything would be all right.

Except, as we all know, none of that happened. None of it. I should’ve done my duty as an angel to protect the world… to protect Gracen. If I’d destroyed her then, she would’ve been rewarded in paradise. Now, her soul is gone. Gone into the Abyss, if I had my guess. And everything is wrong.

Because I couldn’t do my job.

Because I thought with my heart instead of my head.

Instead of whatever else I had to do, whatever things I told myself.

Truth be told, I never thought we’d lose. I always imagined we’d take Seth down, and the world would never know. Gracen would go on. The demon Hart would go to Hell. Seth would be cast out. I would be promoted… possibly into Tina’s spot because she would undoubtedly fill Seth’s vacant spot. Life would go on. People would never know.

People know now.

They know Heaven screwed up.

That I screwed up.

Will Hart stop yelling?

It won’t do any good.

As much as I hate Seth, and as much as I wanted it to be him that closed Hell, I have to trust him now. It’s all I can do. I can’t go after my mother or even Gracen by myself. I have no powers. I have nothing. I never was a strong human. Sort of the reason I liked being an angel.

“Lucien! Please! We can stop her together. Lucien! Don’t do this!” Hart’s voice is raspy. Undoubtedly sore. “I know this is strange coming from me, but who would you rather trust? An angel who royally screwed you over, or me… your brother.”

“Who royally screwed me over?” I can’t help saying it. It’s true. The irony hasn’t escaped me. Both of the people I have the choice of trusting are people that I have a history of hating.

Though, truth be told, I love Hart more than Seth any day.

I take that back. I don’t love Hart. I can’t love Hart. Hart is a damn, ugly, evil, son of a bitch demon. He’s killed people. He’s lied. He’s manipulated. He’s a horrible, horrible… thing.

Who I love is Jessup. My little brother. The one I used to hunt and fish with. The one I used to keep up at night telling scary stories to—the one who ended up in my bed because of those stories. His personal favorite was about the soldier with a hook for the hand. Personally, I loved that one. Mostly because it scared Jess so much.

I miss my brother. I miss Jessup.

As much as I want to make myself believe that that thing in there is my brother, I know that really, he isn’t. Jessup died way before Stones River. Way before the war. Maybe even, in a way, way before Colleen. I don’t know when it happened, but I know it did. I miss him so much.

I wonder if he misses me.

I wonder if there is any part of Hart in the room behind me that is Jessup? I wonder if he misses me too.

This stupid tear that’s hanging on for dear life can lump it! I don’t want it to fall. I don’t want to shed any sort of tears over this. I have one job. Keep Hart locked up and away from Crimson Ridge and Prospect while Seth locates the book and finds a way to defeat the Abomination. That’s all. I have orders. I follow them.

I try not to think about Hell or the torture or giving over to the evil of it all.

I try not to think about what Gracen or Amelia or whoever did to me.

I know that if I think about it too much, I’ll remember. If I remember, I won’t be able to forget. I know enough to know that I don’t want that.

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” slices through Hart’s wails, and I fiddle around with my pockets until I find my phone… the phone Seth gave me before he left. I don’t know where he got it. I don’t know where the people went that lived here. I don’t know much of anything except Seth said to stay put and maybe he’d get me into being an angel again—and I want to be an angel again. So I don’t trust him, but I need him.

I sound pathetic.

So does my phone singing in my pants.

“LUCIEN!” Hart screams my name along with a whole bunch of extra expletives, but I sort of just ignore him. It’s Seth. I need to know what’s going on.

“Has he talked yet?” Seth asks. No pomp. No circumstance. No nothing. No hello. No kiss my butt. Nothing. Just the question.

“Not yet.” Mainly because I haven’t asked Hart. I sort of forgot about it. I actually had two things to remember. One: Keep Hart here. Two: Ask him about the book. “He’s keeping its location to himself… if he even knows. For all we know, Gracen took it.”

“Listen to me, and listen to me well, boy. There is no more Gracen Sullivan. She’s gone. She’s dead. Do you understand me? You and your brother made sure of that, made sure that you killed the entire world along with her. Choices have to be made, son, hard choices, and you have to be willing to make the sacrifices.”

He sounds like a stuck-up old pig giving a pep talk, like he’s not the cause of all of this. He’s slightly right, though. Hart and I screwed up Seth’s already screwed up plan.

“I looked in the car at Gracen’s mom’s house. I looked at the hotel. I looked everywhere I can think of, and I can’t find the damn book.”

“You said the book wouldn’t help. You said that she can’t be stopped.” I like reminding him of things he’s said in order to piss him off. Because that’s what the world needs right now… to be pissed off.

“And do you know of any other mystical books from Heaven that mentions the Abomination and possible ways to deal with it?”

I don’t like it when he’s snarky. “No. Do you?”

“No.”

Great.

“So, in the meantime, Lucien, go into wherever you have Hart stashed, ask him about the location of the book. Tell him anything you need to for him to trust you enough to tell you the location. We’re running out of time. It’s bad out here, incredibly bad.”

“How bad?”

“What part of incredibly bad don’t you get?”

Click.

He actually hung up on me. That little twerp.

“Lucien!” Hart’s voice has nearly faded. Most of the fight is gone.

I don’t know if his spirit is giving up, but I think his body is. I wonder if these bodies, our old bodies, are going to last. Or will they speed up and die now that they are out in the wild, now that we should be dead?

“Lucien, please. I have to get out of here. I have to help her. Any way I can, I have to help her.”

Anyway I can. Seems like the Hart Blackwell way.

I grab the key from my pocket and turn to open the door when he says something I never in my life thought he would say. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Lucien. I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry… I’m sorry for Colleen.”

Colleen.

The keys drop from my hand.

Tell him anything you need to tell him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hart

“
L
UCIEN
B
LACKWELL, GET YOUR LITTLE SELF
back here now!” I’ve tried everything I can think of to get Lucien back here. I’ve begged. I’ve yelled. I’ve called him every name I can think of… and then some. I’ve been the loving younger brother. I’ve been the jerky little brother. I’ve been the demon who tortured him…