Page 37 of Signed in Blood

“What else am I supposed to think? Who else would want him dead?” Warren questions. His anxiousness is palpable. He’s fucking scared. Good.

“I don’t know, but you know how he fucking was!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“With the girls at the show…with what he’d do to them. He hurt more than just…” Warren lets his insinuation sit between the two of them. They’re sick. Knowing what kind of man Jake was and choosing to stay. To be like him. They deserve to live in fear of me.

“Maybe, but it’s happening after what we did…” Warren says but doesn’t finish his thought.

“I choose to believe it was just a coincidence."

“There are no coincidences.” Warren states like a fact.

“Do you see what’s happening?” Lucifer interrupts their conversation through my mind, although I watch them continue to argue, I’m unable to hear them now.

“They’re turning on each other.”

“Scum usually does,” Lucifer comments.

“Is this how it always happens?”

“Yes, especially when murder is committed as a group.”

“I see,” I respond.

“Do you?”

“What happens next?”

“You kill them,” he tells me.

A huff of a laugh leaves me and I resist the urge to smile.

He squares his shoulders to me and I turn to him, his warmth enveloping me. “You need to realize something.” He holds my chin. “You’re the one who holds all the power now, the same power they stripped from you.”

“I know.”

He leans forward, planting a soft kiss on my forehead and murmurs, “Good girl.”

After a moment, he releases me and his attention returns to the two pricks across the street.

“What if they come for us!” Warren hisses. “Do you not understand that? We could be next.”

They’re scared and I love it. I love it more than I thought I ever would. I’m reveling in it, waiting for the right moment to own their souls.

“What are we going to do, huh?” Warren implies.

A beat passes between them before Murphy just shrugs it off.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

“Maybe we were wrong,” Murphy says easily, almost like he’s given up.

Another beat passes between them and I grip onto Lucifer's hand, waiting for him to bring me comfort. He instantly does, letting me feel the heat of his confidence, and I relish in it.

My handsome devil brings me peace and it’s the most confusing thing to ever exist. I feel like everything I was ever told is a lie and the devil isn’t this awful demon that preys on the weak. He makes me stronger, and it’s quite the contradiction of everything I ever believed in.

The argument across the street becomes heated, stealing my attention yet again.