Page 48 of Signed in Blood

I know she’s coming before she’s here in the den. I can feel her dread and I can only imagine why. The panic in her gaze is unexpected as Lilith appears there with me. She lands on her feet but stumbles. She nearly collapses, her legs refusing to hold her up. Her red dress is disheveled as is her expression.

Fucking hell.

Shaken and with fear drenching her composure, she pleads with me. “Please, protect her,” she starts. “Sabrina,” she clarifies as if I wouldn’t know as she clings to my dress shirt. “Please protect her.” She can barely breathe as she makes her way toward me on shaky legs. I haven’t seen her so distorted in quite some time.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” she offers in my silence as I take in her state.

Sabrina. She’s always been in Lilith’s heart. Even as I turned it black, her soul holds onto her friendship and the love there.

“You love me, you’d do whatever I wanted regardless,” I tell her as a fact, and yet, the statement feels uncomfortable as it hits my ears. It feels selfish in a way I wish it didn’t.

“How can I protect her? She can’t lose her life over this,” Lilith’s voice goes tight with agony. “She wasn’t supposed to ruin her life because of me,” she says and tears pool in her eyes. “If they find out she killed Murphy, they’ll put her in jail. Her life will be over.” Her eyes widen as if something’s dawned on her. “You don’t know. Sabrina,” she heaves in a breath. “Sabrina killed Murphy.”

“I already knew what would happen, my little piece,” I tell her and add, “Sabrina was roofied over an hour ago, I made it so she wouldn’t remember the murder. When she discovers he’s been killed, she’ll not know it was her,” I tell Lilith.

“What?” she stares at me, confused and still panicked.

“She was in pain, and I knew you wouldn’t want that for her. So I gave both of you a gift. Sabrina knows you’ve passed and will know the men who hurt you are no longer breathing.”

Her expression changes slightly.

“She was roofied?” she asks. “She won’t remember?”

“Correct.

“But will she get caught?” she asks me.

“No. No. She’s going to get away with it and she won’t even remember doing it. If she had remembered, she would have confessed. So this…this was the only way,” I confess to her.

“You promise me?” She peers up into my eyes as she speaks. “This can’t come back to hurt her?”

“Your absence will always hurt her, but after tonight she will have closure and no one will ever know or suspect her.”

“Who did it?” she asks, her voice hard and unforgiving.

“Who what?” I question.

“Who drugged my friend?” The air bends around her. Her rage calls in the crows to caw in the veil. Their presence becomes nearer and heavier. Their desire to bend to her will is stronger than I’ve ever felt.

“Who tried to hurt her?” she asks, her eyes turning black as her hands turn to fists and yet tears stream down her cheeks.

It’s hauntingly beautiful, the love she has for her friend. And the swell of emotions that stir at the thought of something happening to her. Does she know that’s how I feel toward her.

“There was a man who was going to hurt her, yes. He drugged her and because of that, she’ll have no memory.”

With a wave of my hand, I show her a scene: Sabrina in a hospital bed.

“Sabrina,” she breathes her name, her bottom lip wavering as her eyes glass over and she approaches the vision. She struggles at the sight, but she shouldn’t.

“Her ability to walk gave out only minutes after she shot Murphy. She threw up then passed out on the sidewalk a few blocks down.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“Of course. She’ll be a victim, with the drug in her system, and never a suspect.”

“What about the gun?” Lilith questions, still ever human. Thinking logically and forgetting who I am and what I’m capable of.

“I took it. And wiped her hands of the gun powder. It’s not my first go with something like this, my little piece,” I murmur and her dark eyes find mine.