Devil's Descent II update 2-4-10

Estimated reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

“Did you hear me, darling?”

“Samantha.”

“What?”

“Samantha jumped off the bridge. Her body was on fire. I saw it. I was there with my father when she did it.” Lily’s words softened in pained memory. “I always wondered how much she was hurting at that moment. Did she jump into the water hoping it would stop? Or did she know it was too late for her?”

Lily laughed in an attempt to minimize the tears rolling down her face. She wiped her cheeks and blew out a cleansing breath. “Samantha was nice. I liked her. She’d let me paint her nails. Her Trainer, Joseph, was supposed to bring me some new colors when he got back from HQ. He never came back.”

Julian’s tendencies didn’t run into sympathy. If prodded, he wouldn’t deny it had little to do with deliberate cruelty. Reason, exquisite in its simplicity, dictated much of Julian’s logic His enjoyment came from the reactions to it.

“Whether you’re a Resurrector or just another flea on this planet, you know you’re going to die. Does it really matter how it ends?”

Lily waited until he put the car in park. “Tell me something, Douglas. When your insides were being pulled out and left for the rats to eat, did it matter? I mean there’s very few things that can really kill you. You knew you were going to survive so what did it matter?”

“Following that logic, correctly by the way, it didn’t. “Julian turned towards her. “There wasn’t anything I could to stop it. I was truly caught…just like you. But like you I didn’t accept it. What did I get for my troubles? Ian. What are you going to get?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“Language.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lily reached for the door handle only to feel Julian’s cold hand stop her. “What now?”

“I asked you a question.”

“And I answered it.”

“No, no. You became mouthy and reverted to what’s easy.”

“What do you want me to say? The truth? You asked what am I going to get. Nothing. That’s what. I’m going to get nothing. I’m going to die young. I’m never going to get married. I’m never going to have children. I’m never leaving this town. I’m never going to get see the night sky without knowing if it’s really there. I just take it—accept it—because there isn’t anything I can do about it. It’s how live my life and I hate it.”

The confession, spoken in a dry, emotionless cadence, caused him to let go.

“The closer to death you are the more you can understand creatures like me.”

Lily twisted back to him. “You did not just say that.”

“It’s true. The inevitability is what makes men like me crazed. What makes girls like you insane. I’d wish many things on you—this isn’t one of them.”

White flickered in and out of her eyes like a broken signal.

Julian smiled. He took the liberty of wiping away her last tears. “See? She’s reaching out to you. You’ll be back to your freakish ways before morning.”

“I don’t understand you. You’re nothing like you were yesterday. You’re actually trying to make me feel better.”

“And I’ll be something else tomorrow. Remember that.”

Lily damned her fear and reached out. Her fingers glided down his cheek. She half-expected him to break them. “I wanted you so badly. You were the only person who made me feel alive.”

“It wasn’t me.” His words lacked their usual venom.

“No, it wasn’t. Maybe one day it will be though.”

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