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Chapter Eighteen
Lilith didn’t appear all that amused with our jokes, and our laughter dried up.
Somehow, she was scarier than she had before. I think that was because I’d had the chance to see what she was capable of. In hell, she’d been an interesting mystery. She’d been a story I’d heard, a frighteningly beautiful woman with a past I didn’t like thinking about.
The memory of Gran falling hit me, of Lilith stealing from me the one person who had watched out for me for years. Lilith had proven she wasfarmore than I’d realized at the start.
I tightened my hands into fists before forcing myself forward, one step at a time. I’d come this far—I’d damn well face her.
She didn’t move, didn’t retreat or show any fear. Then again, look who she was.
She was Lilith, the first woman, a child of Lucifer himself. She’d bested Gran, who was by all accounts one of the most powerful beings there was, and was here in a place where few could venture.
And what was I?
Pissed off.
“So, you found your way here?” She moved her hand out to examine the pointed nails at the ends of her fingers. “I had started to doubt you’d manage it. It took so long that I’d thought my worry might have been unfounded.”
As I walked up the rest of the small hill, the mist cleared to reveal the altar I’d seen when I’d pulled Hunter back—the same stone floor, the mist on the edge.
“You have to stop.” I stepped onto the main stone floor and came face to face with Lilith. “You’re going to destroy everything.”
“I know,” she said with a shrug. “That’s the whole point. This all?” She waved her hand. “It was all built wrong. Why not tear it apart?”
“Because this is better than the alternative,” I said. “Life is better than just not existing.”
“Something will exist—you should know that by now. This place is proof of that. Even when nothing should be, something always is. The universe won’t abide a vacuum.So the barrier between the living and dead realms will fall, and yes, it’ll destroy a lot, but maybe what comes after will be better.”
“You’re betting a lot onmaybe.”
She gave me a smile dripping with condescension. “Experience all I have, see all I have, and you realize that maybe is good enough.”
“So because you had something shitty happen to you, we all have to pay the price?”
“It isn’t aboutpayinga price.” She shifted, as if she wanted to pace but didn’t dare turn her back on me. “I’m not punishing the world.”
“Sure sounds like it. Seems like you’re mad things didn’t go your way, so you’re flipping the table and going home.”
She narrowed her dark eyes. “You know so little, have lived and seen so little. You find out you’re some sort of supernatural abomination and assume you can stand toe-to-toe with those of us who have been here from thestart?” Flames danced in her eyes, reminding me so much of Lucifer. “What happened to me was just one example of this world’s failings. Come on, you must see it!”
“I don’t blame other people just because my life isn’t going swimmingly.”
She stared at me, and everything slipped away. It was horrible and wonderful at once, like sliding into a hot tub that was a few degrees too hot. The heat burned me but also eased me.
Her voice floated through my mind, deep and terrible. “I have a gift, an ability to see how people were wronged, to see the things that broke them. It’s what has always made me crave freedom. I saw it in Adam, that pompous man who thought to own me, twisted by the expectations and praise heaped upon him by the one who made him. I saw it in Lucifer, who wanted nothing more than recognition for who he was rather thanwhathe was, all because he was made damned and vilified from the start. And, Ava Harlin, I see those cracked edges in you. The little girl who was unwanted from the start, who was alone from the beginning, who has twisted herself into a parody of a person just to try to find a place to belong. It wasn’t your fault your parents created something that never should have been, or that the worldknowsyou’re wrong, yet you suffer the burden. You carry the shame for things that aren’t your fault.”
I tried to block her out, but I couldn’t. Her words were there, in my head, and the splinter of her influence dug deeper into me. That piece of her tore away my resolve as it took over.
“That’s not true,” I whispered back weakly.
“Of course it is. You’ve never done what you wanted, never been truly free, because you’re too busy trying to fit in.” A softtskin her voice said she didn’t approve. “Me? I was rejected for not fitting into the role I’d been cast for, and I’ve always resented that. I had no idea how much worse it could be.”
“Worse?”
“You gave it everything you had to fit in, and you failed. How much more devastating that must be, to try so hard and still fall so short.”
And…she was right. I thought back to every time I’d tried so damned hard. Each stupid conversation I’d gotten into when I’d plastered on afake smile, when I’d mimicked what I’d seen from happy, normal people. I recalled each time I’d gone to a new school and sworn I’d reinvent myself andthistime I’d be happy, this time I’d find the magical way of behaving that would change everything.
