Page 103 of Pray for Scars
But no one has ever fought for me.
I’ve always had to fight for my fucking self.
Now is no different.
I grab the blade as Jeremiah turns his attention back to me. I close my hand around it, feeling the sharp, nauseating sting of pain. Why not fuck this up a little more? Fuck myself up, just one more time?
It hurts, but not as much as it should. Later, I’ll feel it.
All of this.
But right now, I’ll cut up my entire body if it means I can live through this. Funny, how I was so willing to die last year and now I’m willing to mutilate myself for a chance to live.
I pull the knife closer, and Jeremiah comes forward too. His nostrils flare but he shakes his head.
“Whatever game you’re trying to play, Sid, let it go. He doesn’t want you. He never did.” He leans in close. “But I do. I always have.”
Is that true? Did he want me? Did he really save me from Lazar’s sick, twisted plan to end us both? To cover up two of his dirty little secrets?
And just as I’m about to let go of the blade, the pain coming in waves now across my hand, my mind spinning, legs going weak, I flinch.
Glass shatters, splintering through the silence of this warehouse.
Something lights up the room, arcing over me and Jeremiah. It lights up the whole fucking night sky outside.
And then, opposite us, where Lucifer just walked away from me, something erupts into flames. Flames that scale the wall, immediately catching fire, the heat nearly unbearable, even here, across the warehouse.
Jeremiah and I drop the blade at the same time, and he steps in front of me, as if to shield my body from the flames.
I can’t take my eyes away from the wall of red, the brightness of the orange flames, the building slowly charring as we watch. Some part of my brain knows I need to move. That we need to get the fuck out of here, but I’m rooted to the spot.
Before I can get my legs working, my mind to focus, I hear a voice.
“I’m never leaving you alone,” Lucifer says quietly. I feel the hairs on my arms stand on end as his lips are against my ear.“Ever,do you understand?” His fingers dig into my waist. “But your brother?” He laughs, his breath warm against my skin. “Jeremiah,”he clarifies, “they’ll have to find what’s left of his teeth to identify his body when I’m done with him.” And then he pulls me away from Jeremiah, who turns at the same time.
Lucifer steps in front of me and his hands go to Jeremiah’s throat as he slams him against the wall.
“You’ve gotten your hands on her far too many times. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance. But look at that,” he muses calmly, the fire growing closer, pieces of the ceiling falling into the flames in shades of black, “God gave me another one.”
The flames reflect in Jeremiah’s eyes as they narrow and he says, “You don’t know shit about God.”
Lucifer shakes something free from his sleeve, and I see the glint of a blade before he plunges it into Jeremiah’s stomach.
I can’t breathe. My hand comes to my mouth and I take a jerky step to Jeremiah.
My brother sinks to his knees. Lucifer goes with him, so they’re eye level. He twists the blade and Jeremiah screams.
“Ego sum deus,”Lucifer growls. “I am a fucking god.”
I take another step. Something crashes to the floor across from the warehouse, but I don’t care. I can’t think. I can feel the flames, feel the heat at my back as I kneel, too, next to Lucifer and Jeremiah.
“Don’t,” I say, shaking hands going to Jeremiah’s shoulders.
His face has grown pale, and he has his hand over Lucifer’s on the blade. It looks nearly affectionate,brotherly,but the way his shirt has grown darker, the blood spreading…it isn’t affection. It’s something worse.
Defeat.
“Don’t,” I repeat, over and over and over in a hoarse whisper. I don’t even know what I mean. I don’t know what to do.
