Page 15 of The Cruelest Chaos

“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” I shake my head. “You’re obsessed with her, but I’m not sure if you understand a fucking thing about love.”

I haven’t spoken to my father since Sacrificium, when I tried, and failed, to kill him. But now, I’m not sure how I feel about him. About what Iwant to do.He hasn’t been invited to any Council meetings, a rare show of solidarity between us and the 6. But even though Elijah is not Lazar, some things will never change. We’re still meeting at Sanctum, even though Elijah promised to burn the building to the ground. Should I kill my father—Sid’s and Brooklin’s, too—when really, they all deserve to die?

But if I don’t kill him tomorrow, Lucifer might. It’s not looking too good for Maddox Astor.

I bring my knuckles to my mouth, bite the skin. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as I wish it did. Now that the high has worn off from all that violent fucking, I’m feeling really fucking low again.

Lucifer frowns, folds his arms across his chest. “I need to get back to Sid, but we’re not done. You know that, right?”

Oh, I know we’re fucking not.“We are for tonight.”

He gives me a tight nod, then he slides open the glass door. I follow him, not wanting him to be alone with Ella. He’s obsessed with Sid, but Lucifer has always had wandering eyes.

And before Sid, wandering hands, too.

I close the door at my back, watch him walk down the narrow hallway that leads to the bedroom. He glances at the girl and I tense, but he keeps walking, then slams the fucking bedroom door as hard as he can behind him.

Dick.

Chapter Four

My stomach growls.

It’s a quiet sound, just a few seconds, but my entire body goes rigid, eyes still closed. I wait.

Holding my breath, I wait for it.

The screaming.

But it’s silent.

No. Not silent.

Someone is breathing beside me.

I taste blood in my mouth. And then everything comes back at once.

My eyes fly open, and I’m staring at a ceiling fan spinning overhead. It’s dark, and I shift my gaze, seeing a hallway. At the end of it, curtains are drawn closed.

The bed is soft, and my body is sore, stomach hollow, but still...

No one is screaming.

I turn over, as slow as I can, my back aching, thighs sore.

I see him beside me. My breath threatens to come out in a gasp, but I press my palm over my mouth, holding it back.

The boy with the face tattoo. An inverted cross beside his eyes. His brow is furrowed, as if even in sleep, he’s angry.

His hands are tucked under his head, his lips slightly parted as he breathes so softly, steadily. The covers are pulled up to his chin, but I can see tattoos on his neck. On his fingers. His hands.

There’s one on the side of his palm, in script that I can’t read in the dark. I noticed it when he first approached me in the forest.

I wonder what it says.

I need to leave. My mom won’t be expecting me home—she probably won’t even be there herself after our last blow-up—but I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know this boy. Anyone in this house.

Natalie invited me because she pitied me. I came because I didn’t want to be home in case Mom and her current boyfriend got blood on the walls again.