Page 23 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Nineteen

Charlotte

I wake with a start sometime later, something damp and cold across my forehead.

“It’s all right. Breathe,” a calm voice says to me.

I inhale a sharp, sudden breath, jerking upright, but that only causes my vision to swim. I weave unsteadily.

“Easy now.”

I clutch something hard to steady myself.

There’s a ... tingling sensation at the back of my skull, and my lips are chapped and cracking.

“Here, drink this.”

Someone pushes what feels like a Dixie cup full of water into my hand.

I take it, the waxy paper wobbling as I bring it to my mouth. Once the cool liquid hits my throat, I down it, my vision starting to level out as I take in my surroundings.

A church. I’m inside a cathedral that, based on the high-vaulted ceilings, the stained glass windows, and the nearby altar full of votive candles beneath a small statue of the Virgin Mary, must be a Catholic sanctuary.

I reposition myself from where I was lying, half propped on a pillow on top of a wooden pew, so I can lean against its side.

My eyes fall to the Black man positioned beside me, who’s wearing a staunch white priest’s collar. “Maria here and one of my parishioners saw you collapse,” he says. “So, they brought you inside.”

“Here. Have another drink,” a second, newer voice says, and I look up to see a young Latina woman, a nun in her habit, who appears to be around my age, passing me another cup of water. Maria apparently.

“Thank you,” I rasp, sipping it.

My stomach feels as if I’ve swallowed a whole mound of rocks, and my forehead is clammy. She smiles warmly at me, muttering something in Spanish to the priest, before leaving the two of us alone.

Olivia, my mind hisses, the thought causing me to jerk upright.

“I have to—”

“We said a prayer for her, for your friend.” The priest nods. “It’s already on the news.”

My friend?

Which means it’s likely been at least an hour since I went missing, maybe longer.

I nod uselessly, my pulse slowing. There’s no point in correcting him, I guess.

Olivia wasn’t my friend, but only because I ...

I swallow.

Because I didn’t allow her to be.

So if something like this happened, I wouldn’t feel so ...

Grief tightens my throat.

That line of thinking seems foolish, cruel even.

“Name’s Father Brown.” The priest extends a hand toward me like he’s unaware of my distress. Or just polite enough to ignore it.

“I’m—”

“I know who you are, Charlotte.” He smiles softly.

My insides turn cold. Of course he does. My face is constantly plastered across every kind of screen these days.

Which means I’m ... not welcome here.

Why would I be?

Gingerly, I set the empty Dixie cup down onto the pew beside me, my gaze shifting toward the exit. “I suppose I should—”

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like,” Father Brown says, reading my expression easily.

“ All God’s children are welcome here, you included.

In fact, I’d wager a guess this’ll be the most interesting conversation I have all day, though let’s keep that last bit strictly between you and me.

” He chuckles, watching me for a long beat, like he’s trying to gauge my reaction.

“But if you really want to leave.” He gently nods toward the door to show he won’t try to stop me.

My eyes dart toward it. To where the rest of the world waits.

It won’t take long for the paparazzi to find me.

If Lucifer doesn’t first . . .

Honestly, I’m not sure which of those possibilities terrifies me more.

I swallow. “I’d ... like to sit here for a moment actually, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Take all the time you need.” He nods like somehow he gets it, though he couldn’t possibly begin to understand.

No mortal can anymore.

A thick feeling constricts my throat.

I half expect him to leave then, or for this conversation to take a turn for the worst as he tries to convert me, make me repent and see the error of my ways for being “the devil’s whore,” like my father or Mark would have done, but instead he just turns toward the front of the church and sits with me, both of us together in a companionable silence.

I stare up at the stained glass window overhead, watching how the colors stream in from the early morning light, and after a while, the feeling in my chest grows tighter until I find my eyes stinging.

A sharp twinge of grief settles in as I realize the sight, the smells, the sounds of this place make me . ..

Incredibly homesick.

Though how can I feel homesick for somewhere I’ve never even been?

I gaze up toward Heaven.

“I still pray to Him, you know,” I whisper, unable to stop myself.

Father Brown casts a proud sidelong glance at me, smiling a little. “Do you?”

I lower my head. “But I ... don’t think He’s listening.”

“How can you be so certain?” he asks.

I open my mouth to answer, but something stops me. “I suppose I’m not,” I mumble, “certain, I mean. But if He is listening, I ... wouldn’t know it.”

“Mmph.” He gives a meaningful hum. “That’s the thing about faith.” He casts a conspiratorial grin at me. “Sometimes He’s listening when we least expect it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, something slithers between the pew aisles beside us, drawing my attention, and a moment later, the church’s heavy double doors fly open as if they weigh nothing at all, their deafening bang against the walls echoing through the sanctuary.

Lucifer stands in the doorway, his silhouette backlit so that he looks like an avenging angel made of shadow. Darkness embodied.

“Charlotte,” he grumbles, curling a single finger toward me.

Beckoning me. Like I’m his to command.

I can tell by the tone of his voice and the connection between us that he’s furious with me, though whether it’s because I slipped my security detail and ran, or out of concern for how careless I was with my own safety, I can’t be certain.

Nodding, I immediately stand, knowing better than to disobey him right now, only to find that Father Brown does the same beside me.

He turns and looks toward Lucifer, and if he feels any hint of judgment or disgust at the fallen angel that stands before him, it isn’t visible.

“Sammael.” He nods in greeting.

I stiffen, my gaze volleying between the two men, Lucifer’s head quirked to the side as he looks at the priest curiously.

“No one has called me that for a very long time,” he says slowly.

“Allow me to be the first this century, then.” Father Brown smiles. Surprisingly, he turns toward me, giving Lucifer his back as if he’s unafraid. “You’re welcome here any time, Charlotte.”

I nod. “Thank you,” I manage, my eyes darting to Lucifer before I step away from the pew. “For everything.”

Hastily, I hurry to Lucifer’s side.

Lucifer wraps his arm around my waist, tucking me into him easily. “Father.” He inclines his head, smirking irreverently at the priest’s title, but it’s the amused look in the priest’s eye as he says it that—

Without warning, a sharp tugging sensation pulls at my navel like I’m clay being bent and molded, collapsed and reformed, and the next thing I know I’m standing inside the penthouse, completely whole again, Lucifer beside me.

Holy shit.

“What in the bloody hell were you thinking?” Lucifer growls, releasing me only to tear his already loosened tie off as he starts to pace. “Running off like that? You could have been killed. You could have been—”

The sight of my quivering chin stops him, like he’s momentarily at a loss for words.

“Charlotte,” he mutters.

I nearly collapse onto the floor, Lucifer catching me as silent tremors begin to shake my whole body.

“They killed her,” I whisper, my voice so strained with emotion I can hardly speak. All those people. All those people. “They killed her because of me.”

“You are not responsible for their sins,” Lucifer whispers feverishly into my hair, holding me together. “Trust me. I speak from experience.”

He pulls me closer. Like if he holds me tight enough, he might be able to keep me from breaking. But my heart is already cracked open, flayed down the middle.

I’m not sure what it is about his reassurance that sends another fresh wave of grief rolling through me, but the pained whimper that escapes me seems to soften him all the same.

Lucifer folds me into his arms, cradling me up and onto his chest, so he can carry me to our room. He gently deposits me onto our bed a few moments later, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside me as he combs his fingers through my hair.

“I will do whatever it takes to be worthy of you, little dove. This I swear to you.”

I don’t know what it is about the way he says it, but the idea that he still thinks he’s unworthy of me, of my love, after everything we’ve been through, only manages to make my shoulders shake even harder.

“Shh. Shh.” He hushes me. “Rest now,” he whispers, comforting me until the last of my tears have been wrung from my body. “Leave their punishment to me.”

And I do.

My lids grow heavy as they droop shut, trusting that no matter the fallout, in his own cruel way, he’ll always take care of me.

And that maybe, for him, that’s what his love truly means.