Page 75 of Hell Bound

A few hours? How was I supposed to keep my sanity in this place forhours?

Any brush of one of the tombstones would trigger another memory, and I wasn’t sure how many more of those I could handle before they shattered my mind completely.

They’d already done a hell of a job. My denials and fervent clinging to the fact that I’d been born Liliana Martinez could no longer hide the truth.

I was also Lilith.

Somehow, I’d escaped being reborn in Hell and found my way to the human world, but deep down, she was me.

I was her.

It made sense, explained all the inexplicable feelings of familiarity I’d experienced since the second Lucifer had dragged me through that portal.

Lucifer.

That meant that everything he’d said was true. We’d been more to each other before I’d escaped Hell.

But how much more?

So many questions whirled in my mind, but there was one that stood out more than any other.

How can I make sure I don’t end up here again?

As a visitororas another body added to Asmodeus’s sick collection.

It took courage I didn’t think I still possessed, but I lifted my head from where I’d buried it in my arms and looked around the grotesque garden.

The tombstones had registered, but when I finally took a good look, my stomach flipped. Turned out I’d missed a lot of details.

Like the fact that each headstone was irregular, formed by hand out of a bloody-red clay.

I knew even without a flash of memory that those hands were mine.

Bone stuck out of each one, fingermarks and indentations scattered over them from where I’d shaped the latest marker of my death. I also knew those fingerprints would match mine perfectly.

Terrified, but unwilling to let my fear control me, I got on my hands and knees, creeping forward. The headstone was unmarked, no name or date of death anywhere on it.

The dirt under my hands was soft, and part of me feared I would sink into it, joining my former selves packed into the ground. How many of us—ofme—were down there?

I clenched my jaw and moved closer to the headstone.

There was something I couldn’t quite make out…

Teeth.

Embedded among the stones and bones, shining white in the darkness of the earth… were my own shattered teeth.

* * *

The hours passed at a crawl,the silence threatening to drag me under into the abyss of madness.

It was like even the creatures beyond the wall were under the command of Asmodeus, refraining from the barest rustle lest they join my fate.

Hey Lil, what’d you do this afternoon? Oh, me? Nothing, just hanging out in a graveyard full of my former bodies, no big deal.

“My Queen? If you’re ready, I can escort you back to your room.”

Before this hellish experience, I would have jumped up and sprinted for the door, desperate for escape.

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