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“Oh, really? Do you have any idea how long I was trapped, staring into the literal asshole of the universe while you played kings and queens down here?”
“We waited?—”
“You waited. Waited. You didn’t act. You didn’t come to help me. You should have been the first one to try to spring me from that place, and you didn’t. So, since you love Hell so much, you’re going to stay down here and think about what you’ve done.”
“You can’t!”
Lucifer rolled his eyes, turned away, and waved his hand as if he was swatting a fly. The Overlord flew across the courtyard like a bullet, and when he smashed into the Citadel it was with so much force that the wall, its supports, and the two stories above it collapsed into themselves.
Stunned silence fell over the courtyard.
Lucifer clapped his hands like he was dusting them off. He then turned his head and looked at the crowd of demons. “Well?” he asked, “Last one in’s a rotten egg!” and he jogged toward the portal, disappearing into the Light.
It took a few moments for the first demon to take steps toward the Light, but when he did, others followed. Only instead of an orderly line, it was chaos. The demons began to run, to shove, to push their way past each other to get to the portal. Lucifer’s lieutenant had to lift himself up off the ground with his wings to keep from being crushed by the stampede.
“Everybody out!” he roared, his voice carrying over the courtyard. “Move, move, move!”
I could only watch, horrified at what I was witnessing as it all unfolded around me. Abaddon. Lucifer. The other Abaddon. Maybe I could break loose of my bindings, get his attention, let him know I was here, still alive. But my brain kicked into gear and warned me, just in the nick of time, that doing so would’ve been the worst possible idea I could’ve ever had. I had made that mistake with Gadriel; I couldn’t make it again.
The first Abaddon’s intention had been to serve us all up to Lucifer on a plate. Lucifer hadn’t been interested in hearing anything he’d had to say, though. In fact, that Abaddon wasn’t getting up, and his soldiers were doing nothing to help him, or expose us as rebels, as traitors; they were just running, desperately trying to reach that portal.
Freedom, it looked like, was more important to them than duty.
The shackles around my hands suddenly undid themselves. It was Kainon—he had freed himself, then Missolis and Etari, and now me. I didn’t have much time to react. I grabbed the shackles as they fell, and in a quick, instinctual move, spun around and clasped one of Hekata’s hands before she could make a run for the Light. She looked down at me, dumbfounded, clearly too distracted by the proceedings to realize what we’d been doing under her nose.
But it was already too late; I had shackled both of her hands together, and now she was the captive.
“What are you doing?!” she shrieked.
“Taking you with me whether you like it or not.”
“You can’t do this to me, you?—”
Etari came up behind her and wrapped a hand around her mouth. She tried to struggle, to scream, but her voice was muffled.
“This one is important to you?” he asked.
“She is.”
“Then she comes with us, but we must move.”
I turned around and looked at the portal, at my Abaddon, at the demons flooding through it. That portal led to somewhere on Earth, only I had no idea where I was going to end up, or if we’d be surrounded by demons when we got there, but right now only one thing mattered.
Escape.
I would have to reach Abaddon on the other side, somehow. Not here. Not now.
I turned my hood up to try blending with the crowd and started running, joining Missolis and the rest of the rebels. They had Malachi in tow, and while he was in bad shape, he was at least shuffling now. To Abaddon we were just another group of demons, one of the many flooding underneath him, obeying his commands to move, to go through and get to the other side.
I sailed underneath him and rushed through the tear, feeling like my heart tore out of my body as I jumped into the portal, leaving Abaddon behind. How had he fallen so far? I trembled to think of the things Lucifer had made him do… or worse, done willingly. But there was little I could do for him then; I had the rebels and Gadriel in tow, and I had promised them sanctuary.
I owed them that much.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Intense brightness assaulted my eyes. I hadn’t realized how dark Hell was until I emerged on the other side of the portal. I felt like a newborn babe opening its eyes for the first time, squinting against the high, noonday sun.
At least I wasn’t screaming like the others.
