Queen

After ten minutes, the side of the closet he occupied was empty and his clothes lay in a heap on the floor outside. I giggled as we looked over the balcony and Lilith took out a cigarette. She whispered a spell, lighting it between her lips before taking a long drag and holding it out for me.

She raised a suggestive brow, the cloud of smoke filling the air in front of us and I looked at it for a moment as Syn's words filled my mind. He was always so adamant I never smoke even though he kept up the habit himself. Letting the air of defiance linger around just a bit longer, I accepted it and took a weak-ass excuse of a puff before coughing my lungs out.

"Eww!" I coughed and she laughed. "How can you guys smoke that shit?!"

She shrugged a shoulder, taking it back from my fingers. "I haven't had one in a long time," she admitted. "I don't know why anyone else does it, but it makes me feel fearless in a way. Like I can do anything—"

"It makes you feel like a bad bitch?" I asked teasingly and she raised an amused brow.

"A bad...bitch?"

"Mhmm." I nodded.

"Sure." She looked back into the woods ahead of us and shrugged. "I guess I am a bitch to most people...and I am very bad."

"So maybe you don't understand the definition—"

"You look good," she said to me. "Different than before...but still good— thinner, for sure."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, I can't say I've been eating that great for a while," I admitted.

"You need to take care of yourself, Queen," she chastised me, standing up straight and looking down at me. "Because no one else in this world will. The moment they see that you're crumbling— they will leave."

"I feel bad for you sometimes, Lilith," I admitted, looking at her. "You don't know what it feels like to truly be loved because you're always trying to keep up this act..."

"Ugh, you sound like your father," she grimaced.

"Well, dad is always right," I told her.

"Hm, I beg to differ," she said. "Besides, despite what you all think...I love very deeply."

"You have a pretty hard way of showing it," I told her and she sighed, guilt momentarily riddling her features before she looked back out at the forest. "Love isn't control or keeping up appearances because you're scared that they might see you're not as strong as you say you are. Love is what remains in the ashes after you crumble— my father loves you...I'll never know the reason why after everything you've done but he has loved you at your worst— even if that love betrays himself and me."

"Well, Adam has a horrible track record with choosing women," she muttered. "You saw how crazy of a bitch Eve was—" I tilted my head and she sighed. "I need to be drunk for a conversation like this."

"Fine." I gave in and we both remained silent, letting the cool air whip past our faces as my mind raced. Memories of what she did began to fill my mind until I couldn't keep silent anymore and turned toward her. "Why'd you do it..."

She sighed, clearly knowing what I was talking about yet not meeting my eye. "Why does anyone do anything?"

"I need an answer...because I am so angry," I told her. "And I was never an angry person before you came and ruined everything."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Queen..."

"Why?"

She sighed. "After I lost you and your father...I lost my mind." Her voice broke slightly. "I had never had a normal life before- I never wanted it. I was always running- from Lucifer...from committing to your father. From everything." She laughed softly. "Then I got pregnant with you...and your father told me to grow the fuck up— so I married him."

"And you didn't want to?" I tried to pull out of her. At this point, I'd take anything over knowing nothing. Maybe she resented me and her taking Syn was her way of making my life miserable...

"No, I did. I tried to tell myself that I didn't— it was easier to keep that part of me alive if I told myself that I didn't want him. He'll never tell you but I gave him a really hard time. I didn't make loving me easy at all...but he was always there. When someone loves you like that, one day you just crack and all that guilt comes down on you. I didn't deserve him then, and I don't deserve him now."

"I can't say I disagree," I admitted and she smiled.

"Well, he was content with just waking up to me in the morning, having that mundane life, and then going to bed with me. Then repeat it the next day. That petrified me- the idea of not doing something more spectacular," she said. "But then I gave birth to you and you looked at me like I was the center of your universe and you didn't even know me." I watched a tear fall down her cheek before she wiped it away quickly. "That's when I realized that it was all enough— you were enough. I didn't need the world in my hands anymore. All I cared about was my little family— I would've done anything to protect you."

"And protect me meant killing Syn?"

She shook her head. "I didn't see any other option, Queen. After they took you, it crushed me to realize that the best thing for you was to forget me. My staying in the shadows was my one single selfless act— I resorted to lurking and manipulating situations so that you wouldn't be hurt. I did it for so long. It was the only thing that made me happy anymore- just seeing you smile," she said. "That bully- when you used to come back to Jeradua for the summers, Kimmy Schwartz—"

"Oh, that bitch." I shook my head at the memory, shivering slightly. "She tried to drown me but no one ever believed me. I hate to say this but I'm glad she broke her legs."

"Mhmm." She nodded with a raised brow. "That accident in the woods..."

I gasped. "That was you?!"

"Hell, yeah," she said. "Who did that skank think she was?"

"I know right?!" I exclaimed before my senses came back to me. "Wait, no! That's insane, no. We were kids."

"The girl was damn near seventeen," she said. "There was no saving her. Her parents already fucked it up."

"That's not loving me, Lilith..."

"Well, I'm sorry. There wasn't exactly a book on what to do and it's not like I had any examples..." she told me. "All I could do was watch when I could and feel. I could feel your sadness- your anger sometimes and that shit pissed me off. So when I saw the chance to rectify it, I did. I'm not saying I was right..."

"You weren't."

"I'm giving you motive, Queen," she said. "My ways weren't always...logical or ethical, but I always had the intention of protecting you." She looked at me and I raised a brow, asking the silent question she knew was running around in my mind. "Even with Syn. When I saw the two of you together...all I could think about was how Lucifer and I were. When it was good, it was great but these men aren't exactly the type of men whose hearts you can break without consequence. I destroyed him and he made it his life's mission to kill me."

"I'd try to kill you too if you did to me what you did to him..." Just saying.

"Fair enough." She smiled sadly. "In the beginning, I was convinced it was some trap by Lucifer and Syn was sent to trap you somehow. I stepped out of the shadows, worried that I'd somehow gotten you in the crosshairs...but I was wrong. It was worse than that."

"What do you mean?"

"You were in love with him," she said. "And he loved you back. Me knowing what it meant and how it felt to be loved by his father...I believed you were in for the same fate I was. And I didn't want that for you. I wanted you to have a love that was good for you- like the one I had with Adam."

"So you wanted him dead...even if it meant hurting me."

"You were young- you are young. I couldn't believe that the both of you truly knew what love meant anyway. I thought you would just move on and that what I was doing was for the best in the long run—"

"And my baby?" I wiped my tears. "Was her being gone best for me as well? Or was she just collateral?"

"You have to know," she began intensely. "I had no idea that Sebastian was going to shoot you. That wasn't the plan—"

"Sebastian," I repeated, feeling a knife twist in my chest. "You worked with him..."

"I did— we all did."

"Who is we all?" She gave me a look and I took a step toward her. "If there was any time to snitch— it's now."

She sighed. "Me, your father— if that's what you want to call him even," she said, referring to the bastard that kidnapped me and kept my true identity from me all my life. "Felix, Julius, and Xyla."

"Oh." I let out a breath of disbelief. I knew they had something to do with it, but we could never prove it after Syn died. She knew— if she was watching me, she knew how hard I worked to get justice for Syn and didn't say anything. "And then I'm sure you had something to do with Sebastian possessing Dimitri, right?"

"Well." She tilted her head. "He assured me what happened at the wedding was an accident...and I did make him pay, trust me. His being Dimitri was simply because he knew you. I wanted him to get close and take back my magic you stole, but the asshole ghosted and went who knows where."

"To take your powers back?" I scoffed. "How did you figure he could do that?"

She winced. "Must we really dredge up all of this? Can't we just have a clean slate—"

I shook my head. "Not until I know everything."

She sighed. "I gave him some spell. It should've made you weak enough that all he had to do was take that necklace of yours. It was simple, truly. But he— I don't know."

I felt a knot in my chest as she spoke, her words answering the question of how I've had for the past two years. How Sebastian was able to get me so weak and do what he did when I spent years making myself stronger and picking up the shattered pieces of myself...How?

Because of her.

My lip quivered and tears filled my eyes as I looked at her and took a step back. "Do you have any idea what you did..."

"I mean, I know it wasn't right..." she said slowly and I shook my head.

"Y-you think he used that spell in the way you intended for him to?" I cried and she looked at me in confusion.

"Is there something I'm missing—" A cell phone rang in her purse and I glanced at it in question as I rubbed the pain in my chest. My mind raced, memories flooding in of the most helpless time in my life. With Justin, at least I could remember the fight leaving my body but with Sebastian, it was different. My mind fought with everything in me, but I was too weak.

Now I was learning that it wasn't even because of me.

She took the phone from her purse, silencing the ringer and glancing inside at the door before answering it. She glanced at me as she listened and after a moment she passed me the cell phone. "For you."

I shook my head at her, not wanting to accept a thing from her. All I wanted her to do was leave. I didn't even care if that meant I'd be in more danger, she just needed to go. She rolled her eyes and held the phone back up to her ear. "She said no," she spoke into the cell before a scowl appeared on her face. "Okay, calm down. Sheesh."

She held it out once again and when I didn't make a move to grab it, she set it down on the table on the balcony and walked back inside, sliding the door behind her. With her gone, my curiosity got the best of me and with shaky hands, I picked up the phone. As soon as I held it up to my ear, a voice filled the line.

"Sit down, Princess."

꧁꧂
...