Page 78 of Like Grim Death: Part One
He ignores my retort. “When’s the last time you washed your hair?” It could sound concerned but it doesn’t. The words are snapped out of his mouth like bullets from a gun.
I take a deep breath. Pressure builds behind my eyes. He gets like this when he’s stressed and antsy for coke. I know it’s about Samson, and the initiate, and all the things he doesn’t know. I understand he’s worried and fiercely protective and pent-up over Rain. But even still…fuck him.
“I just gavebirthtoyourson.” I take a step closer to him, my hands clenched into fists at my side. “I’ve been running again. I’ve been getting up with him. Feeding him. Drowning in diapers. I’ve—”
“I get up with him too. I doallof those things too. Don’t erase my part in this, Lilith.” There’s a warning in his words.
And he’s right. But even when he gets up, I can’t sleep, either. I listen to Rain sucking down his bottle. I silently wish for Lucifer to hum him songs like I do, but he doesn’t. I wait until Lucifer has crept out of the room and put him back in his crib. He should just stay in the bassinet, but I know the real reason my husband moved him out.
I couldn’t sleep. I watched him all night long, making sure he was breathing by the dim glow of the nightlight in our room. It’s like this anxiety iseatingat me, consuming me from the inside out.
I’m grateful for Lucifer. I’m grateful, I’m fuckinggrateful,but I have to supervise everything with Rain because I don’t trust anyone. I don’t even trust myself. Lucifer doesn’t trust me either, does he? It’s why he assumed the worst when he caught me with the knife, peering into Rain’s crib.
I don’t know what to say, what to do, so I try to give him a truth. To make himsee.“When you get likethis,”I gesture vaguely to him with one hand,“Iam the one who fucking suffers, Lucifer.” I drop my hand back by my side, my voice cracking on his name.
He stares at me, his expression unreadable. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He flexes his fingers and I force myself to look at the blood on his hand. It’s a sliver of a cut, but I think I know why he did it. To get my attention. A reminder, like all the scars on his thigh from Lover’s Death, that I can be written over. He has another palm free. Just like his father, he might end up with two Xs.
He flexes his fingers, the pads of them sticking softly to the blood on his skin, the knife held in his other hand, now by his side. Dressed in black sweats, a black shirt, the skeleton bandana around his throat, he looks every inch the beautiful demon who stopped me at that intersection. The only thing he’s missing is the skeleton paint.
When I lift my eyes, he’s staring back at me, vivid blue seeming to glow in the dim light of his office. He doesn’t need fucking paint. It’s child’s play. Luciferisthe devil.
“You think you’re suffering now?” He whispers the words, a deadly lullaby. A smile pulls on his lips. “Do you understand how much worse it could be? Do you know how my dad treated myfucking mother?”
I’m surprised at the mention of his mom, because he rarely talks about her. But we both know no matter what he does to me, I can’t leave. Where does that leave us? He was born into a life of crime, luxury, mistresses, and maltreatment. He doesn’t know how to have a happy family anymore than I do.
“You want me to end up like your mom?” I whisper, never taking my eyes off him. “You want to relegate me to a body who warms your bed? A nanny who raises your children? Is that what you want for us? Are you accusing me of knowing something you don’t know because you want an excuse to never trust me?”
A bone in his jaw jumps. Then he says, “If that’s what I wanted, I’d never allow you to speak to me the way you do.” It comes out like a snarl. “But you haveno fucking ideaall the things I’m doing forus,Lilith. I amdrowningin protecting you. I ambarelykeeping my head above fucking water—”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, a chime like a church bell ringing throughout the house. The doorbell. His fingers curl into a fist at the sound, playing in his own blood.
I grip the monitor tighter, glancing at it. My heart picks up speed a little as I see Rain sleeping soundly in his crib.
“You need to get that,” I tell my husband, because I’m certainly in no state to greet anyone. “Before they wake up Rain.”
I am drowning…
He shrugs one shoulder, muscles flexing as he does. Blue veins run down his forearms, evidence of the lifting he’s done since Jeremiah put him in the hospital.
My stomach swoops.
I push thoughts of J away.
No, no, no.
Lucifer needs reassurances I don’t still want Jeremiah. That I don’t still think about him. But I really don’t. I do not allow myself to imagine where he is, if he’s okay, if he thinks about me at night, if I haunt his dreams like he haunted mine. How to get rid of this bond wound tightly between us. Everyone wants me toget over him,like life and hearts and souls are ever that easy.
I ambarelykeeping my head above water…
“You get it, baby girl.” None of the emotion in his voice from a moment ago is still there. It has vanished completely. He lifts his bloody hand, running his tongue over his top lip, swollen and perfect. He has a nice mouth, even if all that comes from it is evidence of his corrupted god complex. “I’m a little bloody.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s your fault.”
“Come clean me up.” He tilts his head, watching me closely. I glance down the hallway, toward Rain’s room. “Look at me.” Lucifer snaps the words out.
I slowly turn my gaze back to him.
“I know who it is. They’ll wait.” There seems to be an unspoken threat in those words.
