Chapter 13

Thirteen

Skyler

The burning in my lungs stops before they fill with air, and I fucking choke on it.

Every breath has me choking as I cough and gasp to heave in oxygen.

This isn’t what I envisioned death to be like.

I thought in death, the pain would stop. I mean, isn’t that the whole thing-–no pain and suffering?

Honestly, I hurt like hell. Even more than I did when Lucifer was choking me. Every part of me feels like it’s on fire, and I swear if I cough one more time, a lung is going to pop out of my mouth.

Oh shit, maybe that’s it, maybe I’m in hell.

Wouldn’t that be just peachy? If that psycho was telling the truth, I just went from dying at his hands right back to suffering with him some more.

Fuck!

“You’re not dying,” someone snaps. The voice is vaguely familiar, but I take a second to realize why.

Fuck, this is hell.

“She might, fuck, man,” someone else says, and I don’t know this voice.

Fuck them.

Someone laughs, and I want to look. I need to see the danger that awaits me, but I still can’t get my body to cooperate.

I’ve been so close to passing out so many times tonight, it’s not even funny. Every time, I’ve fought against it, but this time, I’m tempted to give into it. What’s the worst that could happen? Besides, a break from the pain would be great right about now, even if only for a few minutes.

My body heats, but it’s not the uncomfortable feeling like when Lucifer touched me, and it felt like my skin was burning. No, this is almost… nice?

It’s as if I’m being warmed up from the inside out. I’d been shivering since I pulled myself from the water, but I’d grown used to it. The longer his hand sits on my thigh, the warmer I get until my shivering stops completely. It feels amazing to be warm, but it doesn’t stop there. No, the warmth continues to grow, and the next thing I know, I feel normal.

I’m still tired, but my throat doesn’t feel like I swallowed razor blades, and my chest and head no longer ache.

A sharp clap rings out in the otherwise quiet early morning. I snap my eyes open and find Lucifer standing in front of me, and I could almost cry all over again when the movement doesn’t hurt.

He looks back at me, and somehow, his black eyes seem even colder now.

“What do you want?” he asks, and yeah, I’m fucking lost.

What is this guy's deal? First, he tries to kill me, and now he, what? Wants to know what I want?

“What?” I ask after a few seconds of hesitation. I’d hoped he would elaborate, but that would be too easy.

“You won,” he says, his disgust clear in the way he spits the words. “You survived until sunrise.”

He gestures to the horizon, but I don’t need to look to know the sun is rising. I can feel the warm rays on my back.

“He’s just crabby because nobody’s ever won before,” a voice from beside me says, startling me.

He’s less than a foot away, but I can’t feel his presence, even with his hand resting on my leg. I want to turn and look at him, to know who or what just healed me, but I can’t make myself look away from Lucifer. It’s as if something inside of me knows he’s the bigger threat here, and I mean, that seems to check out.

One of them tried to kill me, and the other healed me.

“Shut up, Asmodeus,” Lucifer snaps, but Asmodeus, the guy beside me I assume, just chuckles in response, clearly unfazed.

We fall into silence, and I realize he’s waiting for my reply.

The only problem is I have no idea how to answer him.

“Why do you do this?” I ask, and I’m unsure where the question comes from, but now that I’ve asked it, I want the answer.

His jaw ticks, and I can only assume he doesn’t like my question.

“Devil’s Night, as you call it, is the one night of the year when the veil is the thinnest. It’s our one night to do as we please, a night of freedom, if you will,” Asmodeus says when it becomes clear Lucifer isn’t going to answer me.

Of fucking course, his answer only leaves me with about a million new questions.

Ugh, something tells me we could do this all night, and I wouldn’t understand them any better. Hell, I’m half convinced they’re just a bunch of psychos, ?so I’m not sure I want to understand them.

Freedom.

That one word rings out in my head above all else. They wanted freedom and used it to kill my friends and try to kill me.

‘Devious enchantress,’ another voice rings out in my head, sounding slightly familiar, and I feel Asmodeus’s hand squeeze my leg.

“We’ll be seeing you,” Lucifer says, and with that, they disappear.

I scramble to my feet, turning in a circle, but there's no sign of anyone.

What the fuck is going on?

They were just here! People don’t just vanish, but I get the feeling they don’t often follow the rules.

The events of the night run through my mind like a bad movie, and the more I think about it, the more confused I get.

My friends are all dead, according to Lucifer. Everyone but me is…

The thought brings me to my knees and steals the air from my lungs. Before, I’d been too busy trying to stay alive to really let it sink in, but now it’s all I can think about. I want to scream and cry and deny it, but I know it’s true. I saw it.

My emotions mix with panic, and it’s all just too much to process too fast, and when the darkness comes, I welcome it.

I come to suddenly as someone shakes me. The sun is bright, and I squint against its blinding light, unable to see who stands above me. It doesn’t matter, though. All I can think about is the fact that I’m not alone anymore.

“Sky!” someone calls with a chuckle, and all I can do is stare.

Slate stands next to me, peering down at me with a smirk on his face, and Caelan is on his knees beside me. His brows knit together in concern as he watches me slowly sit up.

“Hey, are you okay?” Caelan asks gently, squeezing my shoulder where his hand still rests. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“Yeah, how the fuck did you end up out here?” Slate asks, shaking his head at me like I’m a misbehaved child who wandered off from their parents.

“I—I…” I try to answer him, but I can’t get the words out.

How are they here?

“Hey, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. We found you, and it’s all good,” Caelan says, pulling me into his arms. “You scared the shit out of me, though,” he whispers to me with his lips pressed against my head, and I choke back a sob.

If I start crying now, I might never stop. I don’t care how they’re here, all that matters is they are.

I melt into Caelan’s embrace, soaking up the feel of him, alive and in my arms.

The sound of others approaching has him pulling away, and I know I need to do the same, but fuck, I don’t want to. I’m terrified that he’ll slip away, and this will all just be some kind of dream or hallucination.

As if he can feel my reluctance to let go, he pulls back and lets his hand drop to mine, interlocking our fingers. It’s not perfect, but it keeps me grounded enough to turn toward the others who have joined us.

Slate still stands close, his eyes fixed on mine and Caelan’s hands where they lay together in the sand, his lips turned down slightly.

Strange.

I want to ask him what’s wrong, but I don’t trust myself not to say crazy shit if I open my mouth right now. As if he can feel my eyes on him, he looks up and, just like that, his frown is gone.

I turn to find it’s not only them, but that everyone is magically back. They’re all just a few feet away, talking and laughing, appearing completely unfazed. I soak them in, looking for any sign of blood, bruises, or injury, but there’s nothing.

“Their dick game so bad you had to run away, Sky?” Holt asks with a grin, and Slate flips him off.

“You know it’s not, asshole,” he says, making everyone laugh. Well, everyone but me. I’m still in awe of the fact that they're standing here.

“Damn, it might not have been bad, but maybe y’all were a little too rough?” Bishop says, crouching down in front of me and squinting at my neck.

Without thinking, I reach up, curious about what he’s looking at. My fingers brush the smooth skin, and I’m met with the familiar feeling of a bruise.

The memory of Lucifer’s hand around my neck sends me reeling and for a moment, I’m lost to it.

“Hey, let's get out of here, huh?” Caelan says to me as he pushes to stand, pulling me with him. I nod, I’d follow him right about anywhere, whatever it takes to leave this place.

“Yeah, I’m fucking starving,” Holt says, and Price’s stomach grumbles in agreement.

The image of Holt biting into my leg last night flashes through my mind, and my steps falter. I swear I can almost feel his teeth there again, but I push the thought away, unwilling to let it spoil this.

“Food sounds great,” I say, even though it’s a lie.

This has to be a dream.

I’m not creative enough for last night to be a nightmare, but the longer things go on like normal, the more unsure I become.

I’ve spent hours with them. I tasted the food, felt their touch.

Maybe what I thought happened last night was a side effect of whatever Holt gave me.

But if that were the case, shouldn’t someone else have a crazy dream to talk about?

We all took it.

Fuck, I don’t know.

All I know is I want to just be done with this day, and leave it all in the past.

I jump in the shower, hoping to do just that. Letting all the dirt and grime of the night wash down the drain, I tell myself the memories will go with it.

I’m dragging ass hard by the time I make it to my bed and decide to find clothes when I get up. It’s not like Grandma will be home anytime soon. She’ll be at church all day.

Ever since Mom died, she spends more time there than at the house, which is fine. It usually works out to my advantage.

Shit, thinking about Mom is never a good idea.

Without thought, I reach up to grab my necklace, the last piece of my mother I have.

Shit!

My fingers come up empty, and I scramble over to my bag, dumping it on the ground and frantically searching through it, but it’s not here.

I never take it off. It should be here!

The memory of it being ripped off last night comes back and hits me like a slap in the face.

So much for it being a bad dream.

I push to my feet, leaving the mess for later. It doesn’t matter right now. Stumbling over to my desk, I try to recall what happened after that, but I come up blank. Lucifer had wrapped his hands around my throat, and I thought that would be the end. I wasn’t worried about my necklace, and when I woke up with everyone there, I’d been so shocked it hadn’t even crossed my mind.

I’d thought it had all been a bad dream, hoped it was something I imagined, but now…

I can’t deny it.

It happened, and Mom’s necklace is gone.

I sink into the chair, dropping my head to the desk. I want to cry and scream about how unfair life is, but what good will that do? In the grand scheme of things, I’ve lost Mom's necklace, but my friends are still alive. I’m still alive.

It shouldn’t be such a big deal, but it is, at least for me.

No tears come, no matter how much I feel the need to cry, and eventually, I sit up, unwilling to mope anymore.

Something catches the light through the window, momentarily blinding me.

What the fuck?

Looking down, I blink hard, almost positive I’m seeing things, but no matter how many times I blink, they’re still there.

On my desk sits my mom’s necklace next to a single scrap of paper.

I snatch up the necklace and quickly fasten it back around my neck and letting out a sigh of relief when I feel the cool metal against my skin. But despite that, I can’t pull my eyes away from the paper.

Do I want to know how this got here? Probably not.

Am I going to look, anyway? Yes, because apparently, I don’t know when to quit.

My hand trembles as I reach for the paper as if I’m reaching for a damn bomb, but I can’t stop it.

With a deep breath, I open it and find five little words that tell me without a doubt that last night was very real.

We’ll be seeing you soon.

-L

Lucifer would be most disappointed if you didn’t sign up for Sara’s Newsletter, make sure he doesn’t have to come looking for you the next Devil’s Night

Until next time…

THE END