[BOOK TWO]
"Anniversaries to some are like counting the years spent doing something great, years spent together, or years spent alive." I started slowly, voice dropping to a drawl as I peeked cautiously out of my bedroom blinds, scanning the road to...
I WAS IN the cottage for barely even an hour before Lucius entered the hut again. His presence was easily made known even though the rat slipped in without a single trace of sound. It was almost as if I could sense him, which led me to turn my head around in caution.
"Jonah, brother, have you made our guest comfortable?" Lucius' words had a sadistic snide to it, his eyes trained on my face as angled my chin upwards in response, in defiance.
The older angel looked up from the book in his hands which he had picked out just mere minutes ago, a small, almost inconspicuous frown appeared for a fraction of a second before he gently placed a bookmark to the spot he had last read. Jonah seemed as though he was irritated by the disturbance, yet the irritation did not last long enough. He knew that the question in which Lucius had asked was directed to me, not to him. And so wisely, he kept quiet.
"Not like you'd care." I tugged once at the restraints, eyebrows furrowed in anger as Lucius crouched down in front of me in order to look me straight in the eye.
"Oh my darling, I do care about you," Lucius mused, a sparkle dancing in his eyes made of golden caramel. "Unlike Porsha. Shame I had to waste such a good weapon in order to kill her. Her blood taints everything in the realm. The bitch is probably reincarnated into a baby already. Oh well, guess it's time for me to find her and kill her soon after I win this war."
Jonah freezes at the name, his bottom lip slipping between his teeth as he chewed on it almost anxiously.
I, on the other hand, could only take in a sharp breath of air at the familiar name. Her rotting body, pouring with blood red as fire, along with the painful wound down her back. That image will forever be burned into my memory. No matter how the tides had turned for us, for me, an old friend turned enemy was still an old friend in the end.
"And to think I thought Dimitri was a monster."
Wordlessly, Lucius stood to his full height. He gently patted down the cloth of his clothes before taking small steps, encircling me like a hawk circling its prey. At the moment, Jonah, too, stood up. He walked to the far side of the room, careful not to be in the warpath of Lucius' anger should I ever push him to the edge.
"I could've killed Bella too, Addi. But I didn't."
"She almost died! Just because she didn't breathe her last when your knife was first plunged in her side does not mean that you're not the killer." The ropes burned as I yanked at them, eager to give Lucius the right hook in which he deserved.
How strange. And to think I was a weakling just months before, cowering in the comforts of my room in an attempt to find any sort of solace in peace and serenity. Just a while later, my ex-boyfriend turned out to be a murderous angel, fixed with personality disorders. The way Lucius' mind had flipped yanked whatever remorse I ever had from him away from my heart. What was left was just a cold blank space, void of any memory but pain.
All the pain I've ever felt was, essentially, because of Lucius.
Ida was my past life, and she was to wed Fabian. If Lucius had not killed her, along with the reincarnations following that life, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be suffering and accepting pain as an old friend. I wouldn't fear the shadows hidden beneath my bed or the creaking sound in which the door sometimes made just because it reminded me of the old wood in the boathouse.
Lucius, now ever so clearly, was the root of all my problems.
The switchblade felt cool against my skin, still hidden behind the fabric of my long dress as well as the sofa cushion with the way I was seated. I wait for an opportunity to use it, to utilize a small yet deadly weapon.
"I'm not the real killer, Addi, don't you see?" In an instant, Lucius' face was lowered inches away from mine, his eyes staring straight into my very soul as his breath fanned out along my jawline. He spoke with near desperation, hands gripping the armrests so much so that it feels as though he was puncturing holes into the material. "Death is the real killer. He takes what he wants, and he is a follower of the ways of Lucifer. He may not run Hell the same way his predecessor did, but he is ultimately still running the blazing depths. Hell cannot exist. It shouldn't exist. Humans should never be allowed to stay in Hell and remain immortal. Only angels can have that privilege, don't you see? Why is it that some humans have to be reincarnated while others live their undead lives down under the blanket stars of the never ending soothe of the summer sun? It's not fair."
"What is your point in all of this?" I countered. "To remove immortality for the dead humans? Just so you can prove angels are superior?"
"My point in all of this is to cleanse the world of Hell and its damnation. Why don't you see things clearly, Addison? I'm doing this for you."
Obsession and insanity leaked with every syllable of Lucius' words, making my heart thunder wildly in my chest. It beats against the bones of the ribcage, threatening to spill out into the open air and away from the flesh of my body.
"What are you talking about? Doing this for me? You kidnapped one of my best friends, stabbed the other, forced me into a world of heartbreak, and stabbed my ex-best friend in the back quite literally, for me? Do you know how insane that sounds?"
He trailed a single finger down my right cheek, causing me to flinch away violently. Though my actions did not seem to irritate Lucius in any way, only allowing a small smile to appear onto his features. For a split second, I thought I saw Lucius. Not this Lucius in which he was an 'angel'. The Lucius in which I knew back in my younger teenage years and my childhood. The one that had been my best friend.
"Isn't it odd that you aren't living in Hell yet? That you can't seem to stay dead and live in peace after your death even though it had been eons since your first life? Here's the thing, Addison. The reincarnation system ships in whoever has done nothing good when the time is due. When they could've done someone right but they didn't. Those who have incomplete missions and aspirations in their lives will stay as ghosts in the human realm, while the others will live in Hell, the world where everyone thought Heaven would be. Three ways after death, and yet you are only allowed one. You, however, don't have that luxury to be a ghost or live in peace after death. You are destined to be reincarnated every single time after your death until you marry one of the brothers. And since I can't give you peace for I wish to bring down Hell and destroy everyone in it, I can give you the next best thing: equality."
Lucius' first mistake of the day was to head towards the door with Jonah in tow, a last fleeting smirk passing over his face as he stood by the door.
"And until I find a way for you to be immortal by my side, unafraid of even a poison that could kill an immortal within seconds and rule Heaven just beneath the almighty himself, I'm sorry, love, but equality will have to do. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a world to bring down."
With that, he stepped out of the hut, the resounding click of the lock echoing into my eardrums, even after minutes later.
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