“I’m not going to stand here and watch Lilith play along to her starvation,” Cam said.

  “It’s not so bad—it’s just like going to sleep,” Lucifer said.

  The smallest boy now appeared to be doing just that. One of his sisters laid her head on his shoulder and followed suit. Then Lilith stopped playing and closed her eyes.

  “That’s enough,” Cam said.

  He thought about the Lilith he’d just encountered at Rattlesnake Creek. All this past suffering, the imprint of all these deaths, was in her somewhere, but she had no conscious memory of it. Just like Luce.

  No, he realized, Lilith was nothing like Luce. They were as far from each other as east from west. Luce had been an archangel, living a cursed mortal life. Lilith was a mortal cursed by immortal influences, blown across the universe by eternal winds she could not perceive. But she felt those winds nonetheless. They were there in the way she sang with her eyes closed and strummed her cracked guitar.

  She was doomed. Unless …

  “Send me back in,” Cam said to the devil. They were back in Hell’s food court, snow globes atop the tables everywhere Cam looked, each one full of Lilith’s pain.

  “You liked Crossroads that much?” Lucifer asked. “I’m touched.”

  He looked deep into the devil’s eyes and shuddered at the wildness he found there. All this time, Lilith had been under Lucifer’s spell. Why? “What would it take to make you release her?” Cam asked Lucifer. “I’ll do anything.”

  “Anything? I like the sound of that.” Lucifer slid his hands into his back pockets, tilted his head, and stared at Cam, considering. “Lilith’s current Hell is set to expire in fifteen days. I’d enjoy watching you make her even more miserable for those two weeks.” He paused. “We could make it interesting.”

  “You have a bad habit of making things interesting,” Cam said.

  “A wager,” Lucifer proposed. “If, in the fifteen days remaining, you can cleanse Lilith’s dark heart of her hatred for you and convince her to fall in love with you again—truly fall in love—I’ll close up shop, at least where she’s concerned. No more bespoke Hells for her.”

  Cam narrowed his eyes. “It’s too easy. What’s the catch?”

  “Easy?” Lucifer repeated, cackling. “Didn’t you notice the gigantic chip on her shoulder? That’s all you. She hates you, pal.” He blinked. “And she doesn’t even know why.”

  “She hates that miserable world,” Cam said. “Anyone would. That doesn’t mean she hates me. She doesn’t even remember who I am.”

  Lucifer shook his head. “The hatred for her miserable world is a front for the older, blacker hatred for you.” He poked Cam in the chest. “When a soul is hurt as deeply as Lilith, the pain is permanent. Even if she no longer recognizes your face, she recognizes your soul. The core of who you are.” Lucifer spat on the floor. “And she loathes you.”

  Cam winced. It couldn’t be true. But then he remembered how cold she’d been to him. “I’ll fix her.”

  “Sure you will,” Lucifer said, nodding. “Give it a try.”

  “And after I win her back,” Cam asked, “then what?”

  Lucifer smiled patronizingly. “You’ll be free to live out the rest of her mortal days with her. Happily ever after. Is that what you want to hear?” He snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered something. “You asked about the catch.”

  Cam waited. His wings burned with the need to fly to Lilith.

  “I have indulged you too much for too long,” Lucifer said, suddenly cold and serious. “When you fail, you must return to where you belong. Here, with me. No more gallivanting through the galaxies. No more white in your wings.” Lucifer narrowed his blood-red eyes. “You will join me behind the Wall of Darkness, on my right-hand side. Eternally.”

  Cam eyed the devil evenly. Thanks to Luce and Daniel, Cam had an opportunity—he could rewrite his fate. How could he give that up again so easily?

  Then he thought of Lilith. Of the despair she’d wallowed in for millennia.

  No. He couldn’t entertain what it would mean to lose. He would focus on winning her love and easing her pain. If there was any hope of saving her, it was worth everything to try.

  “Agreed,” Cam said, and held out his hand.

  Lucifer swiped it away. “Save that crap for Daniel. I don’t need a handshake to hold you to your word. You’ll see.”

  “Fine,” Cam said. “How do I get back to her?”

  “Take the door to the left of the hot-dog-on-a-stick stand.” Lucifer pointed at the row of vendors, which were now far in the distance. “Once you set foot in Crossroads, the countdown begins.”

  Cam was already moving toward the door, toward Lilith. But as he passed out of Hell’s food court, Lucifer’s voice seemed to follow him.

  “Just fifteen days, old boy. Tick-tock!”

  LAUREN KATE grew up in Dallas, went to school in Atlanta, and started writing in New York. She is the author of the international bestseller Fallen and The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and is learning how to surf.

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  Lauren Kate, Torment (Fallen Book 2)

 

 

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