Page 103 of Hunted By Fear

He moves around my room, looking at the few things I’ve acquired during my time here—a laptop, an Xbox controller, and shoes. I might have an unhealthy obsession with the shoes; I think I have close to twenty pairs now. Nothing special, but things that help pass the time that I find fun.

Stopping at my dresser, he picks up the one framed picture I have resting on top; it’s me and Kai in the shop back when we first opened it seven years ago.

I’d lost my charge and needed something to do to help fill the ache, and Kai was down to do anything that kept him from whatever it was he was here for to begin with.

It’s the only picture I’ve ever gone through the effort of getting printed. Thinking about it makes my phone feel heavy in my pocket, all the messages with Aeri and pictures I’d taken during coffee and even at Purgatory.

Damn it.

“She’s like a drug,” I grumble, squeezing my eyes closed as I try and think of something else, anything really.

“First of all, what do you know about drugs?” I hear the mocking tone in his voice, but I ignore him.

Just because he’s right doesn’t mean he needs to know it.

“Second,” He’s closer now, almost right behind me, and I try not to let my nerves show. I know I fail when he speaks again, and I hear him move away.

“I assure you she’s better than any drug, just wait and you’ll see.”

Again, his words cut through me just the way he no doubt intended.

“What do you mean?”

“For God’s sake, Ruin.” He throws his arms up in exasperation, and I cringe at the use of Father's name thrown around like that by him.

It feels strange because Father has never said Lucifer’s or any of the other fallen’s names after that day; it was as if they never existed.

“I know you're pretty, but can you at least act like you have a brain in that head?” he snaps, and I don’t even hesitate; reaching down, I grab the rolly chair and chuck it at him.

Asshole.

He teleports, and the chair ends up on my bed, but it felt good either way.

He pops back into existence with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall, his knee up, foot propped against it, looking right at home with a huge smile on his face.

“Now now, brothers shouldn’t fight,” he scolds me, but it falls flat with a smile on his face.

“Oh yeah, because that’s ever stopped you before. How many brothers have you stripped of their wings?”

He pulls a face, waving that off as if it’s not important.

“I didn’t strip them, and that’s not what I meant.”

What?

What else could he mean, unless, no…

The smile on his face is almost terrifying, like the villains in a horror movie the mortals are so obsessed with.

He can’t mean what I think he does, can he?

“You think I’m—”

I don’t get to finish my question, though, because as we stand there, I watch him change. His eyes shift, the black spreading through the whites, and his irises turn red. Horns grow from his head, and his armor grows out of him.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I know something's wrong, and there’s only one thing I can think of that would make him react like this.

“Aeri.” I almost choke on her name, my throat tight, my stomach rolling, threatening to throw up the meager lunch I ate as my mind thinks of every worst-case scenario, knowing so much is possible.