Soulless (The Heartless Series Book 2) (23 page)

“Where’s my mother?” I ask, feeling brave. I’m ready to get this show on the road and get it over with.

“In here. With Hart’s brother, though neither has had the best day ever.”

Before I can possibly contemplate what that means, Amelia opens the door to my bedroom, and my legs nearly give way.

Lucien is sitting in a chair, not tied down, not handcuffed. Blood oozes from his mouth. Blood that isn’t his own.

His eyes are black.

White feathers cover the floor.

My mother is hanging by her wrists from the ceiling in front of my poster with a New York alleyway, her toes barely scraping the floor. Her head is lulled to the side. Blood oozes down her arms.

If she’s alive, I’d be surprised. If she’s dead, I’ll kill Amelia myself.

“That’s the fire I want,” Amelia whispers in my ear and pats me on the back. “That’s what I need from you.”

Hart lets go of my hand, making it feel exposed, and runs to his brother, who doesn’t flinch. “Lucien?” Squatting down in front of his brother, Hart puts his hands on either side of his Lucien’s face.

Lucien doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.

“What did you do to him?” Hart’s voice cracks.

“Nothing I didn’t do to you.” His mother smiles.

CHAPTER THIRTY

HART

“
Y
OU PROMISED.
Y
OU PROMISED YOU WOULDN’T
turn him if I brought you her!”

My brother has black eyes. No white. No blue. No red tinges. Black. Black eyes. Only full demons have those. Or angels that fall—fall all the way down to the bottom of Hell. She promised! When she’d called, when I’d talked Gracen into coming on this suicide mission with me—not that I want it to be a suicide mission, but for all I know neither of us will make it out alive—my mother told me that Lucien would be there, and if I didn’t want him to be turned into a demon, I should come and get him. Bring the girl. That was my job. To bring the girl.

I brought the girl. The girl I knew better than to bring. The girl I had to practically beg to stay alive. The girl who wants more than anything not to destroy the world. I sweet-talked her. I said what I had to say. I did everything I could to get her here. And it worked.

I tell myself it was all for Lucien.

I know better.

I don’t want her to die.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want my brother to be a demon.

I don’t…

Breathe. Calm down.

Calm.

Down.

My mother wants to throw me off my game so I’ll make some kind of mistake. I don’t know what her end game is, not exactly, but I imagine she’s using Seth just as much as she’s using us. Using me. I try not to think about her as my mother. My mother died a long time ago. It’s easier to think of her as someone else since she looks like someone else—a face I wore for years. I have to admit, it was a bit weird to look in the mirror for sixteen years and see a woman staring back.

Willow fought me at first. Yelled at me. Tried to get me to leave. Then, over the years, she got quiet. She stopped talking. I’d feel her scratching sometimes. Inside my noggin. Trying to get out. Trying to get me out. Trying to be heard. I didn’t listen. I had things to do. I had to make my brother pay.

I go back to Gracen and hold her hand again. I do it for myself. I have to have something to hold on to. To stay calm. To focus on.

As I stand in this bedroom I know so well—in this house I lived in for sixteen years, staring at my black-eyed, unmoving brother—I realize it wasn’t worth it. We were both played, me more than him. It wasn’t worth it. We should have stayed dead. Both of us. So many lives would’ve been saved if we’d done what we were supposed to do. If I’d given up my humanity. If he’d stayed a good little angel up in Heaven, he wouldn’t be sitting there—a demon. A demon with angel blood. One of the Fallen.

I can’t look at him, so I focus on my mother in Willow’s body. I have the knife in my pocket, and my hand tightens around the handle. It’s taking everything I have not to run over there and stab her in the heart. She’s more powerful than me, and it would be the end of me, but if I could just get a piece of her…

My brother is gone.

“You promised.” I seethe again because Amelia hasn’t said a word. She’s staring at me with that smirk of a smile I can’t stand. Her eyes turn red. I wonder if there’s anything left of poor Willow.

“You should know better than to trust a demon.” She smiles brighter.

I’ll kill her.

I’ll kill her myself.

I blink a few times, trying to not let my emotions show. Trying to hold in my humanity. I don’t want her to know I still have it. That would be bad… very… very bad. “Yeah, I’ll work on that. Guess I shouldn’t trust angels either.”

I glare at Seth who is leaning against the closet door, his arms are folded across his chest. It’s funny to me how he still looks like Seth. Professor Mitchell. He has on a white button up shirt. Khaki pants. Khaki blazer. His eyes are bright and blue. Angel blue.

“Can’t trust anybody nowadays.”

It’s my mother who decides we’ve had enough stalling. “That’s all well and good, son; it truly is. I thank you for bringing me the girl. You’ve done your job well.”

Hell…

Gracen’s grip on my hand relaxes, and she looks at me. If I were her, I’d kill me now. She can. Somehow, I know she can. Yeah, I told her some of the truth. I didn’t tell her everything. I didn’t know everything.

How much can one person be betrayed? How much can one person deal with it?

“Did she not know that she was a pawn in this entire thing? How did you get her here anyway?” Amelia wants to know, and her eyes light up like an eager child at Christmas. She’s way too excited about all of this.

“Can’t you read my mind?” Gracen says all sarcastic. That’s my girl.

“Can, but I want to hear it coming from your lips.” I wonder if she’s lying. If Gracen is working on putting up the wall in her thoughts. I hope she is. It would have been easier if she’d drank my damn blood, but here Gracen had to be all moral about it.

“He told me my mother wanted to see me,” Gracen says.

She lied. She lied for me. Why would she do that? Gracen is playing her own game. I try to read her mind to test my theory. I can’t. She figured out how to put the wall up. Freaky Abomination powers and all.

Thank God.

If she lowers the wall, then Amelia can hear too. I don’t want that either. We will just have to do this the hard way.

I hate this.

Stupid revenge.

“She does.” Amelia pulls the duct tape from Gracen’s mother’s mouth. “Right, sweetheart?”

“Gracen!” her mother yells. Even I cringe. “Gracen, she’s gone crazy. Willow. She thinks she’s a demon. She thinks… Get out! Run!” Gracen’s mother’s voice becomes mumbled when Amelia’s puts the duct tape back on.

Gracen flinches beside me, and I grip her hand tighter. I know she wants over there. This isn’t the time to make a move. All the pieces are laid out. Everything is there. The bomb has been set, as it were. If we move too early, we could lose whatever advantage we might have. If there is an advantage…

“You haven’t said hi to me,” Seth says, giving Gracen a little wave. “Wanna come and give your daddy a hug.”

To that, Gracen’s mom hangs her head. She knows him. She remembers him. I bet that’s awkward.

“Go to Hell.” Grace snarls back.

“No thanks. Wouldn’t mind a little Hell on Earth, though.”

“To say screw you to God. I remember.” Gracen’s nails dig into my hand.

She’s fighting to hold herself together too. If she wants, she can make some sort of light that will destroy us all. She can end this with her mind. I think she knows that. She can also end her mother and Willow—if she’s even still there—too. Gracen doesn’t know how to control her powers. That’s a bad thing because I know her. She won’t do anything so she won’t risk hurting her mother.

Kill someone you love.

“Is that what you want too?” Gracen asks my mother. “Do you want Hell on Earth? Is that why you two are working together?”

“Oh, baby. I want so much more than that.”

And that, that one little sentence, is when all hell breaks loose.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

GRACEN

W
HEN ONE HATCHES AN EVIL PLAN
with another person, they should be on the same page. Evil Villain 101.

It appears my father and Hart’s mother aren’t on the same page.

From what I know about my birth angel—a thought that still makes me cringe—he wants the Hell gate open so he can give God the big screw you for what He did to my father’s brother, Cain. For allowing evil into the world, allowing free will, and then punishing those who actually made a choice. I’m, for the record, on Team God for that. Seth wants the Hell gates open, but he wants me dead because I’ll destroy the world. He seems to like the world.

Amelia does not.

Amelia, it seems, has bigger fish to fry. She has big plans. I never asked Hart, but it occurs to me that she might be some sort of head honcho down in Hell. Worked up through the ranks, as it were. I don’t know what her end game is, but it’s terrifying.

Keep breathing.

Don’t do anything stupid.

Keep my mom safe.

Keep the wall up so they can’t hear my thoughts.

That wall… a handy little trick.

Wish I’d known about it sooner.

Seth stands a little straighter and glares at Amelia. “What are you talking about? We had plans. Big plans. Don’t go changing them now.”

Amelia laughs. A big thick, heavy laugh. “It seems you and my son have a lot in common.” She leaves my mother’s side and slides next to Seth, who flinches back. Seth is one of the big bads of Heaven. One of the most powerful of the Heavenly Hosts. If he’s afraid of Amelia, then I’ve got big, big problems.

“You trusted a demon.” Amelia raises her hand toward Seth’s face. He slaps it away, only to have his wrist grabbed and broken in the process. The crack of bone makes me jump, and I hide my head against Hart’s shoulder.

The devil you know.

He hugs me back and slips his hand into the pocket of my pullover jacket. “Use this. Kill Amelia,” he whispers in my ear. He removes his hand, and the pocket stays heavy. I know what he’s put in there… the knife. He wants me to off his mother with the knife. He’s trusting me not to hurt my mother. Oh Lord… Oh Lord…

I hear Seth screaming behind me, and a bright light fills the room, so bright I have to shut my eyes. Hart’s lips are on my forehead, and his fingers are rubbing my cheeks.

“Don’t do this.” I plead. Don’t give me the knife. He needs it. He needs it to kill me.

“I love you,” he says.

The light fades.

Hart’s gone.

I grab the handle of the knife. Amelia grins at me from where Seth had been standing. He’s gone. I don’t know if she killed him, blasted him away, sent him back to Heaven—to Hell—or what. All I know is that he’s gone. I have the knife. Hart is running toward Lucien.

Everything is in slow motion.

Am I doing it? Or is it just how I see it?

Hart is running toward his brother.

Amelia is yelling at Lucien, who stands slowly, very slowly. When Lucien gets to Hart, Lucien’s fist connects to his brother’s jaw, sending Hart reeling backwards out of my bedroom door.

Lucien looks at Amelia, who nods. Without looking at me, or even acknowledging I’m alive, Lucien walks by and into the hallway with Hart. The door slams behind them, and I hear the lock click.

Amelia smirks. She’s locked us in. “I have big plans for you, sweetheart. Big… big plans.”

My mother struggles against the ropes as Amelia stalks toward me. I keep the knife in my jacket, my hand wrapped around the handle. I’ll kill her when I have the chance. Kill her—kill my Aunt Willow in the process.

It won’t count. I won’t turn because of it. I love my Aunt Willow, but not the soul inside her. Not really. I don’t even know her. I love the person she was when I was little. I love how she took care of me. I love that Aunt Willow. Not that I want to kill her. I don’t, but like Hart says, there are worse things than death.

There are worse things.

“What plans?” Like I don’t know. My back hits the door. I’m trapped.

I hear Hart and Lucien fighting behind me. The door has symbols on it. That stupid circle with the lines, the one that means Tina isn’t real, is on the back. There are other line and squiggles I can’t read. I know I didn’t put them there.

“So we can have our privacy,” Amelia says. “You are wrong about me, you know? I want to help you. I like you. I mean, any girl that can steal my son’s heart… As a mother, it’s my duty to meet you.” Her eyes narrow. Sarcasm is rolling down her tongue.

“Hart told me about you.” I don’t know what else to say. All I know is that I have to keep her talking, keep this thing going, until I can figure something else out. I have the knife, but Amelia is too far away.

Am I really going to do it? Am I really going to kill my aunt?

The familiar red tunnels into my vision, and I fight it back. I have to be in control. Me. Not the thing inside me. Not the thing I’ll become. Me. Human me. Human me is freaking out. Human me wants to run. Human me can’t do anything but keep Amelia talking, keep my eyes on my mother, try to let her know that she’ll be all right.

I wonder if she knows about Amelia, about Seth, about me… oh God, does my mother know about me?

“I know you have the knife in your pocket. I know my son gave it to you, so don’t try to deny it. I know you have a lot of experience with it. He’s used it on you before.”

“In my dreams.” I clarify.

She smiles. “Kinky dreams.”

My hand twitches on the blade. I want this over with. Now.

“Are you done with this yet? The cat and mouse? Being told half-truths so you’ll do whatever someone else wants you to do? Because I am. I’m going to tell you the truth, Gracen Sullivan. I’ll probably be the only person in the world who will do it. I want you to reach your full potential. I’m a mother after all; I want everyone to reach their full potential.”