Chapter Forty-Six: The Void

Helaine

The world felt different, up in the sky.

Over the past few days I’d been doing what Valek said—training. I learned to use the wings that erupted from my back, learned to feel them and control them just the same as my arms and legs.

But it wasn’t enough.

How could it be?

“You’re getting better at that,” Valek called from the ground, her cold black eyes following me as my wings beat the air. “It’s an amazing freedom, isn’t it?”

“I did what you said.” My lips curved into a grimace as I landed in front of her. Logically, I knew I should still be afraid of her, but the more time I was forced to spend with this ancient monster the harder it was not to see her as a person. “I connected with my wings, but I still can’t hide them.”

She let out a laugh, her eyes falling shut as she shook her head. “Your wings, yes. But you’re still fighting where they came from.” Her fingertips hovered over my heart as she leaned in, too close, but I was quickly learning that social boundaries weren’t something she adhered to.

And why would she? She’d been alive for so long that the different social rules and niceties had shifted so much over the centuries that there’d be little point in her trying to keep up with it all.

But knowing that didn’t make it any less chilling when she leaned in so close, her ice cold lips at my ear as her fingertips made contact with my skin.

“That darkness inside of you . . . you need to accept it.” Her nose ran along my jawline as she laughed, and I wanted to step away from her, but I couldn’t make my feet move. “Accept that it’s not just some piece of you that you can lop off. It is you, woven into every fiber of your being.”

“I’m afraid,” I confessed without meaning to, the words falling from my lips unbidden. “I’m afraid of what I’ll become if I succumb to it.”

“Oh Hell Daughter, there’s no succumbing to anything,” she purred, stroking my hair as she leaned back to look into my eyes. “That darkness still exists whether you connect to it or not. You must reach out to it, or you’ll never have any control over it.”

My breath felt as though it was caught in my lungs. “I don’t know how.”

“Yes you do.” Her smile might’ve been warm if it weren’t so eerie as she stepped away from me, her eyes unblinking. “All you have to do is try.”

Sucking in a shaking breath, I shut my eyes tight, concentrating on that swirling black cloud within me as hard as I could.

When I opened my eyes again I was met with an inky blackness, and a weight that made me feel as though I was submerged in water.

I was alone—all alone as far as I could tell—in a vast sea of nothingness.

On instinct I held my breath, but there was only so long I could hold it for before my lungs screamed for air.

I gasped, expecting to suck in water, but all I did was breathe.

“That’s it,” a man’s voice seemed to echo through the darkness, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “Breathe.”

Somehow, the voice managed to chill me to the bone at the same time as it seemed to wrap me in a soothing blanket. I whipped around in the pitch black, trying to find him, but it was useless.

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am,” the voice washed over me, swirling around in my skull like it had a right to be there. “Think about it.”

My chest constricted as realization dawned on me, and I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to force the voice out. “You’re Lucifer.”

“I’m your father,” he declared with an almost mocking amusement as a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere rustled the feathers of my wings. “And look at how you’ve grown.”

I tucked them as tightly as I could against my back, whipping around as though it was possible to put distance between myself and the evil force that was all around me, a look of utter indignation twisting my features.

“You were never my father,” I snarled.

Everything that was wrong with my life happened because I was the anti-christ—because of his influence.

But he was never there. He could’ve spoken to me then as he speaks to me now, surely, but no. I spent my whole, isolated childhood in hell on Earth without a companion in the world.

“And who was, then?” He scoffed, a cruel edge of laughter in his tone. “Frank Fairgrieve? The man who stole you from the mother who bore you? The man who beat you, bloodied you, hid you away from the world?”

Shutting my eyes tight, I covered my ears with my palms, trying desperately to block him out, but no matter what I did that terrible mocking voice only grew louder.

“The man who tried to kill you?” He spat, and a few hot tears spilled from my eyes, rolling down my cheeks and falling into the dark abyss.

“Frank was a terrible father,” I admitted, my heart burning in my chest as I scraped my frayed nerves for any scrap of willpower I could muster. “But at least he kept me away from you.”

There was silence for a moment, but it was only the calm before the storm as his laughter permeated every fiber of my being, like acid that threatened to dissolve me down to the bone.

“Was that meant to wound me?” I felt his breath brush the back of my ear, causing me to jerk away, only to stumble into nothingness, falling through the void without end. “Your mother should have raised you.”

And all at once, he caught me in an invisible hand, and that same, deceptive warmth I felt when he first spoke washed over me again.

“You would have been cherished.” The hand squeezed, threatening to crush me like a dove in his first. “You would have been worshiped.”

“I never wanted to be worshipped.” My voice sounded so incredibly small in the sprawling vastness of his influence, but it was there all the same. My voice, and my will, chipped away at the illusion of his total authority, little by little. “I only ever wanted to be free to live my own life.”

I never wanted any of this. I didn’t want to be worshiped. I didn’t want to be locked away. All I ever wanted was some semblance of normalcy—to just be allowed to exist without every breath I took being treated like a sin.

Frank hurt me, but I couldn’t let Lucifer use his abuse to manipulate me. I didn’t deserve the torment I was put through, but I didn’t need revenge either—even if Frank deserved it, the rest of the world didn’t.

“The wheels of ruin are already in motion, my dearest daughter.” He squeezed tighter, but by this point, I wasn’t afraid anymore—not of him. He couldn’t kill me. He needed me. “You may as well get used to it.”

“I will not get used to it.” My face twisted into a grimace of resolve, and my wings pried against his hold. “I will fight you every step of the way, so you might as well kill me right now and make a new anti-christ.”

“If that’s the way you feel . . . ” Instead of crushing me like I expected, his grip relaxed, and I found myself sitting in his invisible palm. “Then we should have ourselves a little wager.”

My mouth opened to respond, but before I could, other voices permeated my mind.

It didn’t make sense—this darkness belonged to me and Lucifer alone.

But the yelling grew louder, and my name rang through my ears. It was only when my eyes shot opened and I sucked in a ragged gasp that I realized who the voiced belonged to.

“Helaine,” Evan choked out, cradling me in his arms as his forehead rested against mine.

My heart hammered away in my chest at the sight of him—the feel of his arms around me again. “Evan.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but he couldn’t. Instead, he pulled me tight against him.

Another hand gripped my shoulder, and it was only then that I realized my wings were gone.

Just like I wanted.

“I’m glad you’re okay, kid.”

My head whipped around, my jaw dropping when I saw Frank Fairgrieve standing there, his eyes red as though he’d been . . . crying. 

“Dad.”

“As sweet as this reunion is,” Valek called as she approached, her eyes glued to the horizon. “It seems we have company.”