Page 59 of These Monstrous Ties

I only wished Lucifer would be there to watch me pretend to deliberate over the decision to end Julie’s life.

This is going to be fun, with or without him. I might even bring Julie’s head in bag to throw at his feet.

I don’t know much about Lucifer. But the one thing I know for sure is that he’s a psycho. And yeah, so am I. So is Jeremiah. Maybe Nicolas, too. But Lucifer isn’t a psycho on my side, and that makes him dangerous. He’s a threat to me and the fucked-up family I’ve built over the past year. Maybe Jeremiah had only been manipulating me this morning when he cleaned my foot, but I believed Nicolas when he said my brother would have killed Kristof. I kind of believed him, too, when he had said Jeremiah wouldn’t have let Kristof get to me, in the end.

And he hadn’t. In the end.

Jeremiah and I will never be close, we’ll never be like normal brothers and sisters. But we love each other, in our own sick way. And Lucifer is going to see what that love looks like. Lucifer might have ruled hell, but Lilith made it burn. And tonight, he’s going to find out just what that means.

* * *

I fallasleep on the drive, even after the coffee. I had leaned far back in my seat, the music was on high again, my hands were stuffed in my hoodie pockets, and Nicolas had left me to my music and my thoughts. I’d dozed off, and when I wake up, it’s completely dark outside.

We’re on a two-lane road, the only car I can see around us. My playlist has started over,The Old Meby Memphis May Fire is playing, and I have to turn it down. It’s a song I love to hate, because it hurts. I’m tired of hurting.

“How much further?” I ask.

Nicolas is drumming his hands on the wheel. “You sound like a kid,” he jokes.

I shoot him a glare and the bird.

“We’re coming into Acid City now.” He looks around, brow furrowed. “Funny. I don’t see anything good to trip on.”

I scoff. “That was a fucking dad joke if I’ve ever heard one.”

“What do you know about dads?” he counters.

“Wowww,” I say, exaggerating the word. “Just, wow. You are anasshole;did anyone ever tell you?”

He shrugs one shoulder. I watch his tricep flex under his black cotton shirt in the lights from the dash. “A time or two.”

“When you get married, your wife better make fun of you all the fucking time or I’ll have to divorce you two. Someone has to remind you that you ain’t shit.”

He blows out a breath. “Good thing I’ll never get married, Sid.”

“But don’t you like steady sex and stuff?”

He shakes his head. “Yeahhh, we’re not having this conversation.”

But I know he has that private apartment. He’s right, though. I don’t want this conversation either.

I stretch out my legs, rotate my neck. Up ahead, I see lights. When we round a corner, there’s a lonely gas station with one car at the pump.

“Need fuel?” I ask Nicolas.

He shakes his head. “I stopped while you were knocked out. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

I frown. “There’s absolutely nothing in this town. Why would Lucifer stash his family so far frompeople?”

Nicolas shrugs. “It’ll make it easier for us. She won’t be able to call for help.”

I nod. “True.” It’s a good point. The flipside, though, is that if shedoescall for help, the police will easily spot us. This town is deserted. And we, along with the Unsaints, might have the Alexandria police in our pocket, but we don’t usually cross state lines for our worst crimes.

I fiddle with the strings of my hoodie, keeping an eye on the empty, curving road. I wish we were here to go camping. To have a bizarre family vacation. For fun. Something I haven’t had in way too fucking long. But every nerve in my body seems on edge, my blood pumping hard through my veins. This isn’t for fun. This is part of the war.

I see, out of the corner of my eye, Nicolas glance at me.

“You okay?”