Page 32 of The Cruelest Chaos

“That’s exactly what you said you were going to do.” Lucifer’s voice is calm, but I know him better than that. We all do. He’s pissed.

Elijah sighs, sinks back into the red leather chair. “There are centuries of traditions in here—”

“You told me that you were going to level it,” Lucifer says through gritted teeth. “And I toldher.”He’s staring at Elijah in a way that makes me nervous, and a little giddy, too. Another show that doesn’t involve me.

Elijah sighs again, scrubbing a hand over his face like he’s momentarily forgotten that as Dominus, you don’t do shit like that. “Lucifer, the sooner you get used to disappointing your wife, the easier you’ll find your time here in the 6.”

He should not have said that.

Silence rings out.

Lucifer stands to his feet.

“What?” he asks, giving Elijah a chance to try again.

But Elijah obviously wants to die. “Fuck, Lucifer!” He slams his fist on the table. “Listen to what your brothers and your uncles are telling you!” he roars, standing to his own feet. He’s shorter than Lucifer, but not by much, and Elijah isbuilt.I’m not sure who would win in that fight, but it would be pretty brutal. “You arelucky!” he hisses, leaning over the table, his palms pressed down onto it. “You’reluckythat Sid is yourwife,and not buried behind this cathedral, where your father is!”

Lucifer looks like he’s going to combust into flames, but he doesn’t move, he just stares down Elijah like he’s marked him for death, too.

“You areluckythat we didn’t killyoufor that offense. In light of the circumstances, we thought your actions were justified. But that doesnotmean you can dowhatever the fuck you wantand get away with it!” His voice only rises in anger as he slams his hand against the stone table again.

They’re punishing us. It’s why Elijah said he’d burn this place down and backtracked on it. It’s why my father is here, and still breathing. It’s why they keep pushing Noctem. This year’s is going to be brutal.

Lucifer steps back from the table and throws up his hands. “Whatever,” he snarls. “Fuck you, Elijah.” He looks back at Adam, Cal, and lastly, my father, his blue eyes narrowed. “Fuck all of you.” Then he walks out without looking back.

“Not gonna make him sit?” I ask Elijah, crossing my ankle over my knee. “That just a trick you make me do?”

Elijah’s jaw ticks. “Get.Out.”He looks around the table, at Ezra, Atlas, Cain. “All of you.”

Chapter Six

There’s no ramen.No bread. No fucking moldy cheese or animal crackers. There’s…nothing. And I can’t even blame Mom. I’m nineteen.I need a fucking job.

I pace around the small living room, the floor creaking under my bare feet with every step. I don’t know when she left, and I don’t know when she’s coming home. Her phone is off as usual, and she didn’t leave a note. Instead, she left a clogged toilet and half the blinds hanging off the back window that overlooks the red clay that serves as our backyard.

I wrap my arms around my waist, pausing in the middle of the living room. The sun is just rising—I can see it clearly thanks to the blinds she destroyed, probably in the midst of another forced withdrawal episode—and my stomach growls. It hasn’t been that long since I ate the mac-n-cheese Maverick made, shoveling it in my mouth so fast I could see him staring at me, stunned.

I didn’t care.

He didn’t say anything about it.

I want to go back to his house. I didn’t even know houses that big existed. I didn’t know twenty-something-year-old boys drove cars with doors that swung upward instead of outward. I didn’t know they were so…brutal.

Then again, my ex was brutal, too, at my last trailer in Durham, a few hours’ drive from here.

It was when I liked him best.

The rest of the time, I hated him.

I grit my teeth, sink down into the couch that Mom had her boyfriend-of-the-week haul here from someone’s house, left outside for garbage. It’s got a scratchy, corduroy-like texture, and it makes my legs—bare beneath my cotton shorts—itchy, but I need to sit.

I bury my head in my hands, feeling the oil of my hair. I wash it once a week, to save on shampoo and conditioner.

I’m on day six.

I’m lucky it’s thick. Not so lucky it takes up so fucking much shampoo and conditioner. Maybe I should cut it.

With kitchen scissors, because I’ve got access to exactly fifty cents, which I found under the fridge when I was rooting around for food.