Page 54 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Forty-Five

Charlotte

When I return to our table a few minutes later, I’m panicked to see Jax gathering her purse, prepared to leave.

No.

“Jax!” I call out as she starts to walk away.

She rounds on me, her expression not only hurt, but like she’s disappointed in me.

“I’m done, Charlotte. I’m done trying to be your friend when all the effort’s been one sided ever since you and Lucifer started dating.

You never come home anymore. You don’t answer any of my texts.

You haven’t even checked in to see how me, or Evie, is doing. We—”

“Would you just listen to me for a moment? Please?” I take hold of her hand, trying to edge her back toward the table.

She looks at me reluctantly, but finally she gives a tight-lipped nod.

We both collapse back into our seats.

“I know I’ve been a shitty friend lately.”

She scoffs. “That’s an understatement. Do you know all the shit the general populous has been going through?

The subway keeps shutting down as they move all that rubble in Washington Heights to find more of the victims, and everyone I know has been calling in sick at work.

Not to mention, you didn’t tell me that you and Lucifer are actually getting married now.

I had to find out from Ian, who overheard Az talking about some engagement-turned-play-party at the penthouse this weekend while he was at work, which I didn’t even get an invite to. ”

I wince. “I know. I know I should have told you, but ...”

But what?

I’ve been just as dishonest as Lucifer’s been.

And that’s when I finally decide to confess everything to her. The truth about the Met Gala. God’s redemption. Being immortal and fated. The anthrax. The PR firm. Olivia. God’s blade. The impending apocalypse. Lucifer opening the first seal. Pestilence. My stupid jump. Azrael.

Everything.

By the time I’m finished, Jax’s mouth is hanging open slightly, and most of the color has drained from her face, the usual brown of her skin turning a pasty shade of tan.

“I’m ... going to need a stronger drink,” she says, signaling the waiter.

Two Long Island ice teas and half a cosmo later, she seems a bit steadier, or just buzzed enough to finally process everything I’ve been saying.

“This is all . . . That’s . . . that’s wild, Charlotte.”

I nod weakly, stirring my pina colada. “You’re telling me.”

“No wonder you haven’t been texting.” She shakes her head, and in the next second our eyes meet, and we both burst out laughing.

We laugh until both of us have tears running down our faces, until we’re practically crying over what remains of her sushi and my soup, and then we both start crying for real, and hugging, until I feel fully whole and like myself again for the first time in what feels like forever.

“God, I missed you.” I pull her over to my side of the booth, giving her another too-tight squeeze.

Jax rests her head on my shoulder, squeezing right back. “You should’ve told me sooner.”

“I didn’t want to scare you, and then after I saw you and Evie at our apartment together, I—”

“Evie could never replace you,” she whispers to me. “We’re ride or die. Remember?”

“Even if that means we’re both riding toward the apocalypse?”

“ Especially when it means we’re both riding toward the apocalypse. A bitch has gotta do something with her last days, you know? You only live once.” She takes another hearty sip of her drink, then she sets it back onto the table, her eyes going distant and glossy. “So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“I think you should go through with it. The PR thing.”

Convincing Lucifer’s siblings to take my side, she means.

“If anyone can change their minds, motivate them to help, you can.”

I snort. “You have way too much faith in me.”

She shakes her head. “No, Charlotte. I don’t. You don’t have nearly enough faith in you. You’re the woman who managed to get the devil wrapped around her little finger. Lucifer would do anything for you. That’s its own kind of power, honey.”

I nod, considering what she’s saying.

Maybe she’s right.

Maybe I have been going about this whole thing the wrong way.

Trying to use someone else’s power instead of recognizing that my own has been sitting right in front of me this whole time. My interaction with Gluttony earlier is proof of that.

“About the last time I was at our apartment,” I say, abruptly changing the subject.

She lifts a curious brow, like of all the insane directions she expected this conversation to go, this wasn’t it.

“When you, you know, had that vision. What did you see?”

She swallows, her throat writhing. “I wasn’t exactly sure what it was I saw at first, but now that you’ve given me some context.

” She nods to where my hand sits in my lap, and I extend it across the table toward her, my palm facing up.

She uses her finger to trace a particularly deep X shape in one of the creases there.

“This is the Mark of Lilith. A lot of women have them. It’s pretty normal, but when your hand brushed against mine the other day, I . .. I saw her.”

“Lilith?”

She nods. “She’s angry, furious even, that God locked her babies away for so long. That He ... took some of her power away.”

All the breath rushes out of me. “And?”

“And she wants vengeance. Against God, I think.”

“But I thought she—”

“Charlotte.” Jax levels me a serious look. “I don’t think Lilith is God’s wife like you think she is.”

I lift a brow.

Jax swallows. “I ... think she’s His ex .”

My stomach bottoms out, sudden realization flooding through me. “I have to go. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I have to tell Lucifer that he—”

“Charlotte.” She catches my hand and uses it to hold me in place. “There’s something else I need to tell you too.”

I pause, her grip on my wrist going slack. “Okay?”

“The day we first met in Times Square, when I gave you your first reading, do you remember that?”

I nod. “Of course I do.”

She looks down toward the table, like whatever it is, she’s ashamed to tell me.

“There was a ... fourth card that I didn’t want to show you.

One that came after the Devil inside your spread.

I held it back at the time because I didn’t want to scare you, and you already seemed like you were coming out of your own skin, considering all you’d been through, but I . ..”

“Jax, what are you trying to tell me?” My heart races.

She lets out a slow breath. “I’m trying to tell you that the other card that came after Lucifer’s, it ...” She grips my hand tightly. “It was Death.”