Page 165 of Boy of Ruin
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.
“Fucking say something!” I scream at Ella, throwing the bottle to the ground.
She doesn’t even flinch. She just meets my gaze, steels her spine.
Then she says, “Would he let you go?”
That knot grows tighter.
“Jeremiah?” She whispers his name. Takes another step toward me. My knees are trembling. I think about Lucifer telling me he was done with me at the cabin. “Would he let you go, if he knew that’s what you really wanted?”
“Lucifer didn’t exactly—”
“He came for you because he thought you were in danger. Because he thought you would be physically safer here.” Ella smiles small at me, tilting her head. “But where is he now? He hasn’t come by, because he knows you want the space. And it’s killing him.” Her voice goes hoarse with those words.
My throat feels raw, and I think about Noctem. When I ran to Jeremiah. What I said to Maverick. Sometimes we run to save people from ourselves.
But maybe I didn’t do that.
Maybe to save him, I needed to be there.
“It’s killing him that you’re so close, and you don’t want him here.”
I think about Ophelia, but for some reason, I don’t want to tell Ella. I just don’t want to relive it. Instead I say, “But he’s dragging me to Ignis—”
“This date has been planned since he made you one of them. The 6 took us, Sid, and if he doesn’t do things the way they want, by the stupid book,” she shrugs, shaking her head, “it’s another excuse for them to take you.”
“But Maddox—”
“Maddox is going to die.” Those words sound haunting coming from Ella’s pretty mouth. But they sound like something else too. Something they might not have sounded like from my brother or my husband, because they both like to talk a lot of shit. Coming from Ella, those words sound like truth.
And I know it’ll hurt Mayhem. Just like…
“Just like Lucifer’s dad,” Ella continues. “He killed Lazar for you.” She wasn’t around then. She doesn’t know about that. I want to tell her that. I want to argue with her. Tell her to fuck off, but I don’t. Because she’s coming at me with the painful truths, and for once, I can’t run from them. “He’s hurting because of it. He might’ve hated his dad, but…he was the only family he had.”
“No,” I tell her, unable to hold my tongue again. “He has Jeremiah—”
“And I think that’s why…he hates him all the more. For what he did to you. For what they went through, growing up.” She drops her gaze, and I wonder what she knows. I wonder if Lucifer ever told Mayhem about leaving J in that fucking cage.
Why? Why did he fucking do it?
Could I forgive him for that?
“He needs you, Sid.” Ella steps back, like she’s going to go, and for one wild moment, I don’t want her to. I want her to stay. I want her to tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me how to fix this. Fix him. Fix us. “And I think you wanted to heal things with Jeremiah. But you haven’t tried to run again.”
I start to say something about the guards, but she keeps talking.
“And from what I know of you,” she smiles softly, “I don’t think you’d let a few guards that wouldn’t dare lay a hand on you stop you from going.”
Then she turns and heads back up the stairs, the hole in my chest growing a little bigger as she walks away, leaving those uncomfortable truths to fester inside me.
I shove some leggings and a few tanks into my black backpack, nervously darting a glance toward my open bedroom door. Mayhem brought me here, said Lucifer was out.
I wonder if he’s fucking Ophelia again. I swear to God, it’s like I can smell her in this house. My stomach flips thinking about it, and with that sensation, I’m thinking about the steady, strong heartbeat whooshing through the doppler when the doctor came to check in on me at Mayhem’s house.
Lucifer has never heard that sound.
