Page 42 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Charlotte

That night, I’m still too frustrated and angry over how powerless I feel in the face of this whole apocalypse situation to drag myself up to our room, so instead I lock myself alone in one of the guest suites.

I collapse onto the bed, screaming my muffled rage into Egyptian cotton sheets until it feels like there’s nothing left but a cavernous hole where my soul used to be.

Fuck this.

Fuck doing nothing.

I rise from the bed, my hands, arms, and feet seeming to move of their own accord—like I’m a puppet on strings—until I’m standing at the top of our building. The same spot where Lucifer cast the aurora borealis over the city.

It’s the early hours of the morning, most of the city’s residents still asleep.

Those who don’t know what lies in store for them, anyway.

The autumn breeze rolls through my hair, the chill making me wrap my arms around myself as I steel my resolve, my rage.

I glance toward Heaven. To the sky above me.

It’s an odd mixture of darkness and light that reminds me of the power that now lives inside Lucifer and me.

And if I’m going to start fighting for our future, why not start at the top?

“Why me?” I shout, staring up at the never-ending sky.

Only the sound of the rooftop wind answers.

“Why me?” I yell, raising my voice even louder and letting all the fury I’ve been holding in for so long get the better of me.

“It wasn’t enough that I had to suffer at the hands of my dad?

That I kept faith and prayed to you every night even though you never fucking answered a single one of my prayers? ”

A furious tear slides down my cheek.

“It wasn’t enough when I begged, when I pleaded for your mercy every time Mark would put his filthy hands on me?”

I brush away several damp strands of hair that have blown into my face.

“And then ...”—I let out a humorless laugh, shaking my head in disbelief—“and then just when I think you’ve saved me, when I think you’ve led me to your son, I find out it’s your goddess for a wife that actually did all of the work?

” I shriek into the whistling wind. “What’s it going to take?

What’s it going to take for you to hear me? ”

The silence that answers is deafening.

I glance down at the city below, an insane idea sparking.

“All right, Big Guy. You want to play chicken? Abandon us all to do your bidding? I’ll play,” I shout, stepping up and onto the ledge. “If you’re listening ...” I yell up to God, just before I take the final step over the ledge. “Catch me, Motherfucker.”