The Damned Holies (The Fallen Wars 1)

Chapter Eighteen

Time started to slip away from me again, but even faster this time. I let it go. I didn’t care anymore. It didn’t matter. This was my forever now.

The zero gravity chamber was awesome. I would take bottles of water in there and open them up. The water would flow out and create a bubble that would just float around. I would slurp some of it up and make the water bubble smaller. Lucien would laugh at me because of my childish amusement.

With all the reading I had been doing, I decided to make it useful. I learned how to cook better, do intricate braids with my long hair, different types of yoga, massaging techniques I practiced on Lucien, and various other things.

I was growing sick of looking the same. So to change my look, I would frequently dip-dye my hair in Kool-Aid. Right now, my hair had green streaks in it. Out of boredom, I started piercing my ears multiple times. I even pierced my belly button, but Lucien didn’t seem to like it. He told me to stop hurting myself.

But it all changed that one night Lucien got out of bed in the middle of the night when he thought I was asleep.

I silently followed him as he maneuvered through the dark house with ease. He stopped in the kitchen and I moved out of sight, planning on scaring him. He started whispering to someone.

What the hell was going on?

“Let me see her.” A voice ordered.

“She’s fine here. She’s happy. You don’t need to --”

“Where is she, Lucien? Let me speak to her, please.”

“Reven, don’t fuck this up for me. She’s mine now.”

Reven? Oh God…

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? She cannot stay there. She can and will deteriorate whether you like it or not and become one of those… Things.”

“No, she won’t. I’ve kept her very safe here. The others don’t bother us. They don’t know.”

“Hasn’t she been acting strange? Talking to herself, harming herself at all?”

My piercings. I looked down at my stomach in disgust and tried to take them out as fast as possible, dropping them on the carpet.

“I love her, Reven! Don’t take her away from me.”

“You aren’t capable of love! I’m the one who loves her. I’ve seen her grow from a shy and scared little girl to a powerful and stunning woman. You took my Aimee away from me and I want her back. We all do.”

My heart squeezed. My Reven…

“I didn’t steal her away. Her own actions, which obviously you couldn’t prevent, brought her here.”

Reven sputtered. I could tell he was really, really pissed off.

“She loves me too, you know.”

“What?”

“She hasn’t said it, but I can see it in her eyes after we kiss, when she says goodnight to me and falls asleep in my arms…”

“I told you not to touch her.” Reven grabbed his hair in pure frustration and rage. “I swear, I will kill you one way or another because you will cause her end.”

“She even promised to stay with me. And she doesn’t seem the type to break promises like that, does she?”

“No. No, she wouldn’t do that. You’re lying.”

“She did.”

“Why won’t you give her a chance to decide between Heaven and Hell? Are you afraid she’ll leave and never come back? She can’t be happy there, at least not forever. Everything you’ve given her, everything you’ve showed her, is fake. Nothing is real. Just a really good illusion over the true Hell you’re in. And that’s all you’re good at, Lucien, illusions. You weren’t meant to be able to create things, so you can’t. You break things, hide things.”