Lucie

After driving for hours, I stalled the engine, and we fell asleep in the car—which meant that when the sun rose and I woke up, my muscles and bones were achy, and there was a crook in my neck. We weren't very far from San Francisco, maybe a few miles outside of it, as I could see the spires of its massive buildings piercing the heavy fog. We were pulled over on the shoulder of a rather deserted road, no one to witness the rising sun from here but us.

I sat up with a sigh, glancing over at the passenger seat. Vinny was still fast asleep, curled on his side. The strands of his pale hair were tossed in his shut eyes, his expression oddly peaceful. It broke my heart, almost, that he thought everything was okay. I knew I was going to hate to see that peace on his face vanish when I told him why we were running—worst of all, I was going to hate the fact that I'd broken his trust.

For now, though, we had to keep moving. We weren't far enough away yet.

I hesitated, but reached out a hand to gently shake Vinny's shoulder. "Hey, Vince? It's time to wake up."

He stirred, his eyes taking a moment to finally peel open. When he spoke, his words were still slurred with sleep, his gaze narrow and wavering. "Oh...are we there yet?"

I bit my lip. "No. I don't think so."

As he took his time sitting up, I fumbled around in my pocket for the keys and slid them into the ignition. The engine roared to life; I lowered the window and inhaled the dewy air, the cool moisture wafting into my face.

"You don't...think so?"

At the accusation buried deep in Vinny's tone, I shivered. Turning to look at him, I prepared myself to face the moment I'd been dreading.

Vinny's eyes were round and observant, unyielding in their need for answers. "Lucie, where are we going?"

"I—"

"Don't lie to me, either."

"Vinny," I snapped. "I'd never lie to you."

He closed his mouth, looking away as a blush filled his cheeks. He knew I was right—he meant way too much to me for me to do anything like that. Vinny and Cian had the privilege of being some of the only people I ever let get close to me, and as of now, they hadn't thrown it back in my face.

"Look," I began, training my gaze out the windshield, at the sleepy city we'd just left behind, "Caprice came to me yesterday, said Cian had contacted her, somehow. Vinny, he asked us to leave the city. He wants us gone from here—just, at least for now."

Vinny was trembling. Folding his legs in his seat, he hugged his arms around himself, as if trying to reassure that he was truly there at all. "He asked us to leave? Why?"

"Nick's opening the demon world today, Vinny, and Cian wants us in the clear."

I waited for Vinny to say something, anything, but his mouth was glued shut. He just sat there, arms hugged around his chest, shoulders shuddering, eyes never lifting from the floor. I wanted to know what was going on in his head—resentment, maybe? For me? For Cian? That was the thing about Vinny—he wasn't like everyone else. He guarded his emotions, everything about him, so he could hardly be read. Almost everyone else was an open book—Vinny was a lockbox in the old man's basement.

"No."

I couldn't believe he'd spoken, so it took me a second to respond. "What?"

"No, we're not leaving," he said. He looked up at me, nodding towards the steering wheel. "Turn this car around—we have to go to him."

I had felt the same as he had, that gnawing force within me to find Cian, run to him, protect him. This wasn't about what I wanted, though. It wasn't about what any of us wanted. "We can't, Vinny. This is what Cian wants—"

"I don't give a crap about what he wants! You think I passed up my chance to go to the afterlife because of what Cian wanted? The answer's no, Lucie," he fired back. He gritted his teeth, and when he struck the dashboard with his fist, I jumped a little in surprise. "He's my brother. If he's dying, I'm dying with him. I don't have a choice."

"Vinny, think about what you're doing! Please."

"I am thinking. You know what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, if that's my brother out there, being sacrificed for some world he wants no part of, then who am I to run away from the problem? If that's my brother out there in the storm, what gives me the right to be in its eye? He's protected me enough. It's my turn now.

"Now turn this car around, Lucie."

I hesitated. God, I hated this. I hated how Caprice was right and I hated how Vinny was right and I hated how I had to be in between the two. I hated the whole situation—why couldn't Cian just be safe? He tried so hard. With everything he did, he tried so hard, and in the end, this was all that it won him.

And it just wasn't fair.

I placed my hands on the steering wheel. "Okay, Vinny, okay—"

Thunder sounded through the air—except it wasn't thunder. It was louder than thunder, deeper than thunder—it was the ground, it felt like, splitting in half, and the earth screaming. There was squealing and chittering and wailing, and as Vinny and I both groaned and covered our ears, my eyes lifted.

The sky.

It had turned black, the sun almost completely invisible beneath plumes of ink. Shadows, moving shadows, seemed to erupt outwards, seeping through the streets of San Francisco. The squealing, the chittering, the wailing, was all I heard. My ears rung with it, the cacophony of the demons' songs.

We were not far enough away.

"Lucie! I think I found him!"

It took me a moment, but I realized who he was talking about, and turned to look at him. He pointed towards a cliff in the distance, from which a tower of the ink-like substance jutted up through the earth. It was miles away, but in a car, we had to be able to reach it in time. "That's...Sailor's Point," I breathed. "I was held there when my brother took me—yes, he has to be there."

Vinny didn't have to tell me again. I jerked the steering wheel, powering the Subaru onto the road yet again. We surged in the direction of the city, over the hills and through the valleys, ignoring traffic lights and stop signs. At the moment, I couldn't care less about tickets—as long as I reached Cian in time. I wanted to believe Nick wouldn't kill him. But I didn't have that much trust in Nick.

We were back in the city soon enough, though it still felt like it had been ages. The sky was even darker now, wind blowing at speeds that it shouldn't, sickly and malevolent figures crawling hungrily through the streets. People ran, screamed, locked their doors, hid away in their homes. Vinny and I kept going.

Sailor's Point was in view, so close I could taste it. Gritting my teeth, I yelled at Vinny to hold on, and stepped on the gas.

The car slammed to a halt.

Vinny and I shared a fearful look, as my foot was nowhere near the brake.

Crushing the fender of my car was none other than a demon, the car's grate gripped between its talons. I'd never seen one like it before—this one was like a lizard, covered in night black scales, with eyes like fiery red beams in its head. Its talons were sharp, white, glistening, and longer than any I'd seen before. They looked like they could slit your throat without any trouble at all.

The demon trained its eyes at me, cocked its head, made a chittering noise through its teeth.

"Vinny," I cautioned. "Do. Not. Move."

"Uh, no problem," he responded. "Literally not a problem."

I placed a hand on the car door's handle, still maintaining eye contact with the demon, no matter how hard it was to. I swallowed back my fear, told myself this was the only way I was going to get to Cian. At the click of the door opening, the demon's head twisted sharply.

Vinny's hand grappled suddenly around my wrist. "The hell are you doing?"

"What I have to—"

"You idiot! If you go out there, you'll get yourself killed!"

"Or I won't," I countered. "If I try hard enough. Let me go, Vinny."

"No."

"What?"

"No, Lucie—Lulu," he said, and I just blinked at him. Only two people ever called me that. One was Dempsey, and the other was not Vinny. He furrowed his eyebrows at me, shaking his head. "I'm not...I'm not losing you. Not today."

"This whole situation is a suicide mission, Vinny," I said. "You knew that when you told me to turn the car around."

His blue-gold eyes lowered, yet he didn't release my wrist. "I know. I'd like to keep you alive as long as possible, though. Just—get back in the car."

"If I don't take care of this thing, Vinny, no one's going to."

A terrible squeal sounded, that of something spraying its last breaths. With a squeal of my own, I let Vinny yank me within the car again, and slammed the door shut. Through the windshield, I watched the demon go down in a burning mess, melting down to no more than sizzling tar.

Standing over its miserable form was none other than Caprice, her dark wings spread out elegantly from her shoulder blades, her face already smeared with blood. Angrily mopping the sweaty hair off her brow, she stomped around the side of the car and knocked on my window.

Vinny raised an eyebrow at me, and I sighed. "I take that back, then."

I rolled the window down, now getting the full view of the wrath deep in Caprice's spotless brown eyes. "What on earth are you two doing here? What part of 'you should leave, the demon apocalypse is starting' do you not understand?"

"No, you made it very clear," I said. "Thank you, Caprice, but we've got to get to Cian. You haven't seen him, have you?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "The Order's just arrived, and they're dealing with him and Nick. But as for me, I've been down here killing these demonic little bastards since the gate opened."
"Do you think he's okay?" Vinny chimed in, leaning over to look into Caprice's eyes.

The look she returned him was sympathetic, not an expression one got often from this woman. "You know, I don't know, Lazarus. He's strong, though, stronger than any mortal I've ever known—and I've known a heck of a lot."

Vinny didn't seem satisfied with the answer, but he sat back anyway, falling into silence yet again.

Caprice frowned at him, the way a concerned mother might at her child. "Look, you two are both idiots. Total idiots. But if you're going to Cian, I can't stop you. Drive fast, and I'll cover you."

I paused for a moment, stunned. "Are you serious?"
Caprice just blinked those irritatingly beautiful eyes at me.

"Oh my God, you're serious," I said, then revved the engine with a grin. Considering the age of my car, this didn't have much of an effect, but it made me feel better.

"Well, no worries, then," I told Caprice. "Fast is my middle name."