Page 23 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

I blink my eyes open, blurry and disoriented. For a moment, I think I’m in my bed at home, the curtains pulled shut against the morning sunlight. I’ve just woken up from the wildest stress dream of my life. A sign that I need to take more days off, even if I do need the tips.

But then I roll onto my back and see the vines snaking across the ceiling, the big purple passionflowers even bigger than I remember.

I shoot up to sitting and fight with the mildewed comforter, clawing it away from my body. I’m wearing a thin, flimsy nightgown, the hem hiked up around my thighs. Why the fuck does the winged man keep playing dress up with me?

I shove out of the bed, trying to get my bearings. It’s dark because it’s nighttime, and I can hear the familiar lull of the ocean through the shattered window, and I’m still trapped in this rotting old mansion, and I need to pee.

Great.

I fumble around the side of the bed, the shadows thick and impenetrable. I don’t know how I’m going to manage this, but I guess that bathroom I discovered is as good a place as any.

The shadows shift, and the winged man steps in front of me.

I scream and fall backward, slamming my leg up against the bed, although I’m more startled than afraid. His eyes glimmer a little in the dark, a dozen tiny flames blocking me from leaving.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I say.

He tilts his head, which I only see because his eyes move at an angle.

“I don’t know if you need to—” I wave my hand around, wondering if he understands this particular bodily function. He has a cock, doesn’t he ? My cheeks warm at the thought.

“I don’t want to make a mess in the bedroom,” I finish. “So I have to use the bathroom.”

“Very well,” the winged man says.

His voice is still thunderous and booming, but the words are much clearer. And they don’t hurt. I find myself wincing, but there’s no real pain, just a faint ache behind my eyes.

“Hurry,” he adds.

Then he steps aside, and I swear that the room feels brighter and less shadowed. But there’s no light source. No reason for me to be able to see.

I can feel him staring at me as I dart out into the hallway.

Because I’m not certain what else to do, I use the toilet in the bathroom down the hallway, although it doesn’t flush, and there’s no toilet paper, no soap and water for me to wash my hands. If he’s going to keep me here, we’re going to need a better solution.

Or I need to find a way out .

I stop in front of the dust-covered mirror, not wanting to go back out and deal with him yet.

I swipe some of the dust away and blink at my reflection, my face pale and drawn in the shadows.

When I wipe away a little bit more, I discover that the nightgown he put me in is completely transparent.

Even in the dim light, I can make out the outline of my breasts and the dark circles of my nipples.

“Fuck,” I whisper, whirling away from the mirror and glancing at the closed door, my breath tight. I wonder what he would do if I just stayed in here.

He’d walk through the walls and take you with him .

I shiver. There’s no escaping him, literally. At least this way, I can pretend I have some control.

He’s waiting for me when I step back out into the hallway. I stop and instinctively wrap my arms around my chest and press my legs closed, wishing I hadn’t looked at my reflection. At least then I wouldn’t know I’m on display for him.

We stare at each other. I wait for him to do something. When he doesn’t, I say, “Why can I understand you now?”

In the next second, he’s beside me. I don’t see him move, but I feel a rippling sensation, like he disturbed the molecules of the air.

No, that’s stupid.

“Here, together,” he says. “Close by. Takes time.”

“You learned English?” My heart feels light and fluttery. “In a day?”

Something flickers through the winged man’s eyes.

“No,” he says. “Different way. Not important.”

“I’d say it’s pretty damn important.” I’m trying to be brave, but my voice comes out wobbly and thin, which I hate. I hate that I’m in a nightgown so transparent it might as well be made of moonlight. I hate that I ever left the road after this monster fell to earth.

The winged man’s eyes drop to my body, and then he reaches out and wraps his long fingers around my wrists. I suck in my breath at their warmth—it still surprises me, his heat. It’s not like the heat of a human man.

“No cover,” he murmurs, peeling my arms away.

“Why not?” I jerk away from him. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

“Like looking,” he says, and I can feel all twelve of his eyes crawling over me. “No pleasure like this before.”

I wrap my arms around myself again, afraid he’s going to attack me. Afraid he has attacked me while I was sleeping. I know he’s stripped me out of my clothes twice. What else has he done?

“Before?” I say shakily. “Where were you before?”

It feels like a safer question than accusing him of assaulting me, but he doesn’t answer. I squeeze my arms tighter around my chest.

“Can not explain,” he finally says. “Not enough words.”

“Try,” I spit out.

He tilts his head, and the eyes on his face all roll upward, almost like he’s thinking. Then he reaches out and grabs my wrist and yanks me up to him again. And just like yesterday, the house roars past us, and when I scream, I taste grit in my mouth.

Then we’re in my room again. He points at the ceiling. “There,” he says. “Not like that. But what you think.”

I stare at him for a second, baffled, then tilt my gaze upward even though I know what I’m going to find. The thick, alien-looking passionflowers.

No, that’s now what he’s point at. It’s what’s behind them. The fresco with the cherubs. The clouds. The blue sky. It’s?—

“Heaven?” I cry.

I look over at him, a new, more confounding fear worming through me. Mom dragged me to church plenty when I was little, but I don’t remember much. Just the pastor yelling from his pulpit. He talked about Hell a whole lot more than he talked about Heaven .

“Are you an angel?” I spit out, a question so absurd that it tastes bitter on my tongue.

Something ripples through the winged man’s face, and this time, it’s an expression I recognize immediately:

Despair. And pain. And loss. A cascade of sorrow like what I felt when I was seventeen years old and the sheriff showed up on my front porch and pressed his hat to his chest and told me that there had been an accident on Route 1.

And it’s so intense in this moment that I feel it like I feel the humidity on the air, and I have to bite down on my tongue to stop from bursting into tears.

And then the winged man says, “No.”

What’s an angel but not an angel?

I take a stumbling step backward, my sorrow transforming into a terrifying existential panic. Church was Mom’s thing, not mine. But if he’s not an angel?—

“I am Laphriel,” he says suddenly, pressing his hand to his chest. “As you are Natasha.”

Hearing him say my name is like being hit by lightning. Heat floods through me, and I can’t move, and the air feels like it’s boiling out of my lungs.

“How do you know that?” I whisper hoarsely.

“I know.” He holds out his hand, and in it there’s another etched goblet of water. “Now drink. No thirst.”

“No thirst,” I whisper, shaking my head. I can’t drink that. I can’t eat the food he brings me. I have to find a way out of here.

But when he presses the goblet into my hand, the glass is cool against my skin. My mouth feels suddenly much too dry, and the water is suffused with a soft, pale glow that makes it even more inviting. I lick my lips.

“Drink,” he says, his voice husky. He wraps his fingers around mine, molding my hand to the glass. “No thirst.”

I know I shouldn’t. But I’m parched. And if I’m going to escape, I need water.

It also didn’t hurt me last time .

I peel the glass away from him, my arm shaking a little. I’ve never wanted to drink something so much in all my life.

And so even though I know I shouldn’t, I swallow it all down.

And the winged man—Laphriel—watches me with lust in his dozen eyes.