Sancte Diaboli

“Tell Bishop?” She laughs, shaking her head. “I don’t know what Bishop you have met, but it’s not the one that most people know.”

I curl my lips between my teeth.

Madison’s eyes zone in on me. “You got some sort of witchcraft happening?”

“I wish, then I could maybe make Brantley not be mad at me anymore, though it’s like a daily thing these days.”

Madison snorts, rubbing her belly. “Oh, he’s just lucky that you didn’t come into this world a year or so ago. We would have fucked you right up and made him wish he never let you around us.” I watch as she ties her long brown hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. “They said they’ll have the results back to us in the morning.” Her eyes come to mine. “Tillie told me about you and how you came about, but did that psycho really leave you locked in that creepy house all of your life?”

“He did,” I say, smiling. “It wasn’t all that bad. Especially after Lucan died. It became silent. Lucan always took up a lot of energy with his presence.”

Madison doesn’t answer, and when my eyes come back to hers, I notice her whole face shift. Her eyes fall, though her shoulders sit up straighter, and the grip she has around her coffee mug seems tighter, based on the way her fingers are turning red. “Do you know how he died?”

I shake my head. “No. Brantley never got into the details. Before I knew about The Elite Kings, I assumed an accident of some sort, but now I’m thinking no.”

“You could say that,” Madison whispers, bringing her knees up to her chest. “He, ah…”

I tilt my head.

“Let’s just say I knew him and Brantley before I met Bishop.” My brows curve in. She caught my confusion. Her mouth opens. “Did—wait. Did Lucan ever do anything to you?” Her eyes widen in shock, her mouth agape.

I begin a French braid to the side of my head. “No. There was one time something was going to happen, I think, but Brantley, he—”

Madison sighs, ru

“Lucky?” I repeat, struggling to taste the sense of the word.

“Yes, lucky. Brantley is vicious and evil, but not with you. Have you heard of that quote, ‘I don’t care if I will fall in love with a devil, as long as that devil will love me the way he loves Hell’? Or ‘He set fire to the world, but never let a flame touch her’? That’s Brantley with you.”

“It’s all I’ve known from him, but he’s not easy to deal with. In fact, I’ve come to learn after being around so many of you that he is the most difficult.”

“Ah, but that’s what makes his love so rare.” Her eyes collide with mine. “Because his love is the hardest to find. Beneath that hard exterior and void behavior. It’s like finding a gold mine after living in poverty all of your life.”

“Exactly.” I laugh, my shoulders shaking. “Because he starves people of love and affection until they’re wilted and dead.”

“—Or,” Madison says, raising a finger. “He starves them to see who is the last one standing. Loving Brantley will be no easy feat for any girl. It will take a tough-ass female to handle all of the love that boy has to offer. He will be demanding, moody, distant at times, and wildly untamed with his love, but he’s smart. He does it to protect himself.”

I sigh, ignoring the list she just blurted off. She couldn’t have described Brantley more perfectly. “You’re right. He doesn’t love me, though. It’s not in that kind of way, if it is. It’s more of a little sister way, I think.”

Madison raises a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me over her mug. “Does someone who thinks of another as a sibling deflower them?”

“Madison!”

She laughs, resting her mug back on the table. “I’m not sorry.”

My cheeks flush, but I giggle. “Also true. You’re good at this.”

“At fixing other people’s problems while my world falls apart? I know.”

My heart squeezes in my chest. I hate it. “I’m an honest person. Brutally so. In fact, I think it makes Brantley want to strangle me most of the time, and I’ve had this discussion with Bishop on more than one occasion.” I run my tongue over my lips and hold my breath. “Why did you run?”

Madison pauses. She whines, ru

“Silence,” I answer for her.

Her eyes meet mine. “Exactly.” She sighs. “I know it’s bad. Bishop taking the gavel, he needs me to be strong. Be Scarlet so he can be Hector.” I flinch at my father’s name. “But I couldn’t offer that to him right now. I needed the clarity.”

“And when you go back?” I ask, digging for answers. “Will you do this to him again?”

A small smile tips the edge of her lips. “Ah, you fit that sister role perfectly.”

“Sorry.” I wince. “It’s just really hard to see you both go through this. He’s so lost.”

“I will never do this again if he takes me back.”

I want to believe her, but I can’t. Not right now, at least.

I wake, my body drenched in sweat with sheets sticking to my limbs. Four a.m. I groan, kicking the sheets off and opening the curtain. The city down below hasn’t slept. There’s a tall skyscraper building a few blocks away from us, with lights around the spaceship style ring near the tip. It’s pretty. So I leave the curtain open and head back to the bed, taking a seat on top of the soft mattress. I can’t remember why I woke, or why I’m this sweaty, since the temperature in the room is cool. A cold shiver slips down the curve of my spine, and I spin around, expecting to see someone behind me, but I’m met with darkness. I massage my temples and let out a light sigh, before turning on my bedside light.

It doesn’t work.

I lean back in my bed and bring my phone with me, opening up Instagram. I scroll past Tillie and Nate’s latest photo. Nate’s tattooed hands covering Tillie’s little bump. It’s in black and white with one of Nate’s hands flipping the camera off. The caption reads: You called him daddy, so I made him one. A chuckle gets caught in my throat, and I shake my head. Give it to Tillie to be so passive-aggressive. I don’t know how they got together or the troubles they went through to get there, but I couldn’t imagine it. It had to be chaos. They’re both so intense. I scroll down and fall on Bishop’s photo of Eli. He’s sitting on a sofa, looking at the camera with a dead expression. Free to good home.

Eli commented below it. @elirebel: Only so I can make it bad.

I blow out a breath of air. I haven’t posted on Instagram since our selfie, which I ended up deleting right after anyway, and I’m not sure I really want to. I flip the camera to selfie mode, roll onto my belly, and fluff my long hair to one side. Resting my face in the palm of my hand, I roll my eyes to the back of my head and stick my tongue out one side. With the flash, it turned out okay. I scroll over the filters, but don’t seem that fussed by them, so I leave it natural. I type out the caption: Witching hour. Can’t sleep.

I push post and then find my profile. I pause. I had four followers last time I checked, and that was Tillie, Bishop, Nate, and Eli. Not even Brantley. Now it reads 12.4k Following 5 because I followed him. I don’t care. A red dot lights up over the heart and I click on it, as likes roll in for the photo I posted.