Page 20 of These Monstrous Ties

I want to enjoy this Monday.

Observe bodies and get tormented at the park on a Sunday. Relax on a Monday. And the countdown to Halloween is on. Which means the relaxing I’ll be able to do is minimal. Jeremiah will be sure of that.

“I have a job for you,” he finally says. There’s something strange in the way he says it, almost as if he’s apologizing. I’ve never known Jeremiah to apologize to anyone for anything.

I swallow. Hard. And wait. He’s making me nervous. He’s never had a job for me.

He keeps staring at the ceiling, keeps leaning against the glass door.

The fan still spins overhead, and I’m grateful for the noise. This high up, on the tallest hill in Alexandria, we can’t hear the city below. Most days, I wish I could. Especially right now. The fan isn’t enough.

But still, I wait. I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say. Jeremiah never wakes me up. He usually sends Nicolas, or sometimes, when he wants to be a real pain in the ass, he’ll send Brooklin. But today, he’d come in himself. With water. The cup had been knocked to the ground in our fight.

I look at it now, bright blue and plastic. Like a kid’s cup. It doesn’t belong in this dark room.

“A kill.”

My mouth falls open as I look back at him.

“I know,” he snaps, even though I haven’t said a word.

I arch a brow. It isn’t his usual snappy tone. It’s less dangerous. More on edge. More…worried.

“You’re joking?” I give a nervous laugh, bring my knees into my chest and curl into a ball under the black fuzzy blanket. Something is up. He’s never offered to let me do anything for the Order, and definitely not this.

I don’t think I want to do this.

I’m going to say no.

He’s going to make me anyhow.

He still doesn’t look at me. “No,” he answers evenly. He finally tips his chin down, his pale green eyes on my pale grey ones. “But I don’t think you’re going to be able to pull the trigger.”

I pull my knees in tighter and roll my eyes, blowing my bangs out of my face.

“I don’t want it.” My voice doesn’t shake, but under the blankets, my hands tremble. “I don’t want this job. I don’t want to do that. I don’t care who it is.”

He takes a step toward me and I tense. I don’t want him to see me shaking. I don’t want him to see me squirm.

He stops halfway to me, the rising sun at his back, making him look like some kind of strange angel with a halo. But my brother doesn’t wear a halo.

“Lucifer is back.”

I still. I want to tell him I don’t think he ever left. He was just biding his time.

“And the rest of them,” he answers my unspoken question. “They’ve been here,” he admits. “But they kept their distance. Not now.”

Now I’m shaking in earnest.

Jeremiah steps to the edge of the bed, his knees against the mattress. He looks down at me.

“You know, I watched the two of you for a long, long time. I couldn’t tell if you wanted him or not. I didn’t know if it was the Death Oath, or…worse.”

A shiver goes down my spine. I know this story, even if I can’t remember it. I don’t want to remember it. I don’t want to talk about it. To think about it. I don’t want it to exist.

“I’m not doing it,” I say.

He laughs. “Don’t play dumb, Sid. It’s not a good look.” He sighs, slides his hands in his pockets, and then he sits down beside me, his shoulder bumping mine. I try not to recoil. Try, and fail. “You know you have to.”