┌─────━┿──┿━─────┐

𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 : 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐍 𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐒 

& 𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐒

└─────━┿──┿━─────┘

Aiden Tobias stood in my kitchen, shoulders hunched over himself and shaking. From the top of the stairs, I could hear him muttering to himself. He was going through my cabinets and when he found what he was looking for, he turned and saw me. He held a box of old cereal in his hands.

"What the fuck?" I gasped, gripping the railing as he stared up at me, one hand in the box. "Have you been staying here?!"

He dropped the tension in his shoulders and he pulled a handful of cereal out, eating it as he spoke. "Can't go back to my place, too many of your lover's men patrolling it."

"Get out," I snarled, making sure he saw Spiorad gripped tightly in my hand. I would not be defenseless this time. "I don't care if the police are corrupt with demons or whatever the fuck, I'm going to call them if you don't get out–"

"I was sure I had killed you," he said, interrupting me to lean against the island. He continued to eat from his palm, his chewing obnoxiously loud in the quiet house. "You should've bled out in minutes."

I gritted my teeth together. "Guess I'm just lucky."

"Want to test that luck a second time around?"

"I'd rather pass."

He shrugged, sticking a finger into his mouth to suck off the crumbs. "Surprised you came out here all on your own, aren't you and the boss shacking up?"

"He's hardly your boss anymore."

He laughed, wagging a finger at me. His clothes were disheveled, which wasn't like him at all. Even in the dark he looked exhausted, like something had been gnawing at him. "Did he save you? Is that how you survived? Did he come to your rescue like the dog he is?" He shook his head, laughing again. "Having him on a short leash is smart, I like that. Does he even know you're here? That you're going to die?"

I tightened my grip on my knife and she hummed in response, a soft vibration of the power I knew I would have this time around. I would not allow him to pull the gun out before I had my turn with him. A soft, growing pain spotted my vision but it didn't stop me as I snarled out, "You're lucky it's just me here. If Crow had been? You would've been dead the second you walked through that door."

"Aw, you really think he could've been able to stop me?" he chortled. "Me?"

"You're not special."

"I'd clearly beg to differ."

He set the box of cereal down and reached behind him, pulling his gun free from his waistband. It was different from the last time and I knew then it must've been a silencer. It seemed that he wanted to do his job better, to do it differently than last. But if he had thought I was dead, then who was he going to use that gun on instead?

"Even if you succeed in killing me tonight," I murmured, pushing away from the banister to head down the steps, "you won't get away with it. There's a handful of people who know that if I die because of a silly gun that it's your fault."

"I don't care about that," he said, twisting the silencer and smiling as it secured tightly in place. He would make no mistakes tonight.

"You'd rather sign your death wish with a bullet than live to see tomorrow?"

"Yes."

I scoffed. "Why?"

"Similar to you, Blaire, I also have a death warrant on my head," he said with a subtle shrug. "It just matters if I go with a purpose at the end, that I did everything I could."

My brows furrowed, lips parting at his comment. What was his purpose besides killing me? "Who wants you dead more than me? More than Crow?"

"A punkass kid, that's who," snarled Tobias as he raised his gun. He didn't fire but his arm shook as he continued on, "He contacted me and said that if I killed you, he'd kill me." He shook his head, his arm faltering and coming down to his side as he rubbed his face with his free hand. "He has some greater purpose for you and–" He shook his head again. "–and if I allowed that to happen, what kind of man would I be?"

"What are you talking about?" I had reached the bottom step and I had the urge to take off running back up them but I held my ground. I would not cower in front of him again. Gun or no gun, I was not going to be a coward. "What's going to happen?"

"You're the key," he breathed, eyes watering and rimmed with red. "You're the key to everything."

"And you still want to kill me?"

He nodded, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "He said he needed you and the power inside of you–"

"I thought you didn't believe in all that."

"I fucking don't!" he cried, shaking. He pounded his fist against the side of his head and I flinched as he let out an anguished scream. "But he won't get out of my head, he won't stop coming for me."

"He'll stop if you don't go through with this!" I said, trying to reason with him but with the crazed look in his eyes, it didn't seem like it was going to work.

"He won't," he whispered. "He hated me when we worked together and that hatred will continue to fuel him until he's killed me."

Aiden Tobias did not look or sound like the man I had met two days ago. He was not the frightening man with the gun, cornering me in a secluded bedroom. He was not the same man who shot me and left me for dead. This man? In front of me now? He was scared and he was looking for someone to end it all before he got caught.

I will take this burden from you. I will raise my knife and keep you from this torture.

"I have to kill you," he whispered, taking a step forward as I did.

I twisted Spiorad in my hand, her hum slithering up my arm. "You don't have too."

"I do," he said, nodding. "I do, I do, I do–"

We stood right before the other and I raised my blade slowly. The tip of the knife pressed against his jacket and he didn't seem to care and I applied a gentle pressure, a little warning. He raised his gun to brush the hair out of my face and my breath got lost in my throat.

"He'll come for you," Tobias whispered, staring down at me. He looked at me like a prize, something twisted and ruined just as he was. "He won't stop until he's got you."

"Who?" I breathed, Spiorad itching to go further.

"The devil."

His gun went off against my face and Spiorad got lost into his side.

The impact of the bullet against my face sent me falling backwards with a cry bundled up inside my chest. Even with the suppressor, the gun shot was still loud. It didn't ring my ears but it left a horrible sound in my mind, like the cracking of a bone. I had my eyes open long enough to watch Tobias drop the gun with a gasp and his whole body go up in golden light like an angel taking form.

Our time together had been short but I couldn't help but feel attached, connected in a horrible, agonizing way. Even as I laid on the ground, looking up at the ceiling and seeing stars and feeling a creeping numbness crossing over my cheek and into my hairline, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

He'd been vengeful. Angry. Disturbed.

But wasn't I the same way?

He wanted to kill me in order to keep me from whatever fate the devil and his henchmen wanted of me. He wanted me dead to erase any possibility of the ending we all knew was coming. The end of the world. The end of our humanity. The end of our freedom. The devil would soak up my blood and begin anew, a curse rising from something tainted.

By the time I sat up, there was blood lost in my hair and running down my cheek. It was smeared across the floor by my head and it took me only two good scrubs to get it up. There was a bullet lodged in the couch behind me and I chose to ignore it as I climbed the stairs and gathered my things before leaving.

It was only six in the morning and I had classes, there was no point in dawdling around aimlessly in my empty home. Beatrice hadn't made an appearance and neither did Pandora, even though my head ached like something was trying to split it open.

I could only blame the pain of the bullet graze and the impact of my head against the floor. My cheek had split open and the flesh was puckered and swollen, my blood still oozing with fevered heat. It was strange, though, because I felt something cold in the middle of the wound, as if something with delicate fingers was trying to push the flesh back. To keep it contained and whole.

The cold didn't leave, not even as I pulled up back at the cabin. The light in the kitchen was on and I immediately wished I wasn't bleeding. I didn't need someone to worry or even pity or someone fearful for me. I wanted to take a shower, to cleanse myself of the horrible dawning feeling of knowing I was the last hope. That even Tobias, a nonbeliever, died knowing what was at stake and what my purpose truly was.

He'd shamed me for believing, shamed Cage, shamed the Morticianers only to die like one of us after all.

I got out of my car in more of a daze than I would've liked, slinging my bag over my shoulder and trudging up the front steps and ignoring the feeling of blood dripping off my jaw and across my night shirt. The blood would never come out, no matter how many times I washed it. Bleach would stain it worse.

I opened the front door and turned to close it, keeping my back from the demon in the kitchen. I could smell coffee and I craved the taste that would surely bring me back to life.

"You got out of bed," said Crow and I kept myself facing the door. If I turned around, I would start to cry. "At least tell me you got something to eat?"

"No," I whispered, my voice hoarse and my throat raw. I didn't even remember screaming. Had I even screamed when the gun went off?

"Blaire?"

God, why did he always have to sound so concerned? Why did he even have to care? We're supposed to be enemies, blood bond be damned. Damn it all to hell.

"What?" I snapped out, ignoring the sting in my face and the continuous little drip drip of my blood. Droplets ran down the side of my neck like a tongue, warm and wet.

I heard the chair screech across the floor as he got up and I felt him behind me before he even touched me. When his hand went down on my shoulder and he was turning me to face him, I wanted to lash out and beat my fists against his chest. I wanted to kick and scream and seethe through clenched teeth. I wanted to howl like a wild animal but instead, I looked up at him in a cold silence. He didn't deserve to be hurt for my own misdoings and sadness.

"Jesus," he breathed, "what the hell happened?"

"Aiden Tobias is dead."

Crow didn't stop to ask how, to ask what I was talking about. He narrowed his eyes and said, "Where did you go?"

"My house," I replied, wiping absentmindedly at one of the drying droplets and smearing red across the back of my hand. It looked like a red sunrise, angry and vibrant.

"And he was what? Just staying there?"

I shrugged. "Must've been, he knew where the cereal was."

"Did a bullet do this?" he asked, reaching out and running his thumb underneath the graze as I nodded. He took his hand away and retreated into the kitchen where he produced a small kitchen knife, pricking the pad of his thumb and walking back over to me. As he applied his blood to my wound, he said, "You really need to stop getting yourself hurt. I won't have enough blood left in me by the end of the year if you continue this."

"I'm not doing it on purpose," I murmured, swallowing the rising feeling of emotion and tears. It was hard not to blink and see Tobias's face behind my eyelids, to see Pandora's retreating form, to see golden lights and blood. "I locked up my house pretty well, so hopefully there won't be any other demon squatters anytime soon."

He nodded, wiping his thumb off into a napkin and creating horrible sunsets of black and red. "Did he mention anything important? He always was fond of hearing his own voice."

I walked into the kitchen, sitting down at the counter and reaching out and taking Crow's forgotten bowl of fruit he must've been eating before I interrupted his breakfast. I popped a few grapes into my mouth, my stomach aching for the taste of them as I said, "Talked about how someone wanted him dead, a 'punkass kid.' That this kid would kill him if Tobias killed me but he went on and on about how this kid has some bigger plan for me and that he couldn't allow me to live to see that." I rubbed my eyes, feeling exhaustion creeping in on me again. "He was talking about the devil, Crow. He said I was the key and the devil wanted my powers, what was inside of me. He's talking like he's already here."

Crow didn't say anything as he sat down in his seat across from me at the island. I filled the silence quickly. "We're screwed. If the devil somehow gets a hold of me, we're screwed."

"He won't get to you," Crow said, shaking his head. "I won't allow him to get that close."

"What do we do if he's really here?" I forced a couple more grapes into my mouth to stop from sobbing. Focusing on chewing and swallowing was enough of a distraction for now. "That he's been here the entire time?"

"He would need your blood," said Crow, shaking his head again. "There's no way he could've risen without it."

"But how much of it would he have needed, though?"

"I'd suspect a lot."

"And if it wasn't?"

Crow's brows furrowed. "What are you saying?"

I swallowed, thickly. "I'm saying, what if that night you and the rest of the Morticianers tried the summoning with my blood actually worked?"

"You think the devil is already here and what–"

"I think he's here and is one of your remaining men."

eeeeee what do you think of blaire's theory about the devil????? this is leading into the final few chapters of this act so i cant wait for you guys to find out ahhhh!!!

pls vote/comment ILY ILY