Unforgiven (5 page)

No, he realized, Lilith was nothing like Luce. They were as far from each other as east from west. Luce had been an archangel, living a cursed mortal life. Lilith was a mortal cursed by immortal influences, blown across the universe by eternal winds she could not perceive. But she felt those winds nonetheless. They were there in the way she sang with her eyes closed and strummed her cracked guitar.

She was doomed. Unless…

“Send me back in,” Cam said to the devil. They were back in Hell's food court, snow globes atop the tables everywhere Cam looked, each one full of Lilith's pain.

“You liked Crossroads that much?” Lucifer asked. “I'm touched.”

He looked deep into the devil's eyes and shuddered at the wildness he found there. All this time, Lilith had been under Lucifer's spell.
Why?
“What would it take to make you release her?” Cam asked Lucifer. “I'll do anything.”

“
Anything?
I like the sound of that.” Lucifer slid his hands into his back pockets, tilted his head, and stared at Cam, considering. “Lilith's current Hell is set to expire in fifteen days. I'd enjoy watching you make her even more miserable for those two weeks.” He paused. “We could make it interesting.”

“You have a bad habit of making things interesting,” Cam said.

“A wager,” Lucifer proposed. “If, in the fifteen days remaining, you can cleanse Lilith's dark heart of her hatred for you and convince her to fall in love with you again—truly fall in love—I'll close up shop, at least where she's concerned. No more bespoke Hells for her.”

Cam narrowed his eyes. “It's too easy. What's the catch?”

“Easy?” Lucifer repeated, cackling. “Didn't you notice the gigantic chip on her shoulder? That's all you. She hates you, pal.” He blinked. “And she doesn't even know why.”

“She hates that miserable world,” Cam said. “Anyone would. That doesn't mean she hates me. She doesn't even remember who I am.”

Lucifer shook his head. “The hatred for her miserable world is a front for the older, blacker hatred for you.” He poked Cam in the chest. “When a soul is hurt as deeply as Lilith, the pain is permanent. Even if she no longer recognizes your face, she recognizes your soul. The core of who you are.” Lucifer spat on the floor. “And she loathes you.”

Cam winced. It couldn't be true. But then he remembered how cold she'd been to him. “I'll fix her.”

“Sure you will,” Lucifer said, nodding. “Give it a try.”

“And after I win her back,” Cam asked, “then what?”

Lucifer smiled patronizingly. “You'll be free to live out the rest of her mortal days with her. Happily ever after. Is that what you want to hear?” He snapped his fingers as if he'd just remembered something. “You asked about the catch.”

Cam waited. His wings burned with the need to fly to Lilith.

“I have indulged you too much for too long,” Lucifer said, suddenly cold and serious. “
When
you
fail,
you must return to where you belong. Here, with me. No more gallivanting through the galaxies. No more white in your wings.” Lucifer narrowed his blood-red eyes. “You will join me behind the Wall of Darkness, on my right-hand side. Eternally
.
”

Cam eyed the devil evenly. Thanks to Luce and Daniel, Cam had an opportunity—he could rewrite his fate. How could he give that up again so easily?

Then he thought of Lilith. Of the despair she'd wallowed in for millennia.

No.
He couldn't entertain what it would mean to lose. He would focus on winning her love and easing her pain. If there was any hope of saving her, it was worth everything to try.

“Agreed,” Cam said, and held out his hand.

Lucifer swiped it away. “Save that crap for Daniel. I don't need a handshake to hold you to your word. You'll see.”

“Fine,” Cam said. “How do I get back to her?”

“Take the door to the left of the hot-dog-on-a-stick stand.” Lucifer pointed at the row of vendors, which were now far in the distance. “Once you set foot in Crossroads, the countdown begins.”

Cam was already moving toward the door, toward Lilith. But as he passed out of Hell's food court, Lucifer's voice seemed to follow him.

“Just fifteen days, old boy. Tick-tock!”

Fifteen Days

L
ilith could not be late to school again today.

Bailing on the bio test yesterday had already earned her detention after last period—her mother had silently handed her the detention slip when Lilith got home. So this morning, she made it a point to get to homeroom before Mrs. Richards had even finished adding creamer to the coffee in her biodegradable cup.

She was two pages into her poetry homework before the bell rang, and so pleased with her small accomplishment that she didn't even flinch when a familiar shadow darkened her desk.

“Brought you a present,” Chloe said.

Lilith looked up. The senior reached into her zebra-striped purse and plucked out something white, then slapped it on Lilith's desk. It was one of those adult diapers, the kind meant for really ancient, incontinent people.

“In case you crap your pants again,” Chloe said. “Try it on.”

Lilith's cheeks warmed, and she pushed the diaper off her desk, pretending she didn't care that it was on the floor now, that other kids had to step over it to get to their desks. She glanced up to see whether Mrs. Richards had noticed, but to her dismay, Chloe was now having a tête-à-tête with their smiling homeroom teacher.

“I can recycle my shampoo bottles
and
my conditioner bottles, too?” Chloe was saying. “I never knew! Now, may I please have a hall pass? I'm supposed to meet with Principal Tarkenton.”

Lilith watched with envy as Mrs. Richards dashed out a pass to Chloe, who took it and skipped out of the room. Lilith sighed. Teachers doled out hall passes to Chloe like they doled out detentions to Lilith.

Then the bell rang, and the intercom crackled to life.

“Good morning, Bulls,” Tarkenton said. “As you know, today is the day we reveal the much-anticipated theme of this year's prom.”

The kids around Lilith all hooted and clapped. She felt alone among them once again. It wasn't that she thought she was smarter or had better taste than these kids who cared so much about a high school dance. Something deeper and more important divided her from everyone she'd ever met. She didn't know what it was, but it made her feel like an alien most of the time.

“You voted, we tallied,” the principal's voice continued, “and this year's prom theme is…Battle of the Bands!”

Lilith scowled at the intercom.
Battle of the Bands?

She hadn't filled out the ballot for this year's prom, but she found it hard to believe that her classmates would have selected a theme that was actually almost interesting. Then she remembered that Chloe King was in a band, and that the girl had somehow brainwashed the student body into thinking that whatever she did was cool. Last spring, she'd made playing bingo an actual thing the in-crowd did every Thursday night. Lilith, of course, had never gone to Bingo Babes, as it was called, but come on—who between the ages of eight and eighty actually enjoyed the game of bingo?

The prom theme could have been worse. But still, Lilith was sure Tarkenton and his high school henchmen would figure out a way to make sure it sucked.

“And now a message from your prom chair, Chloe King,” Tarkenton said.

A scuffling noise came from the intercom as the principal passed the microphone.

“Hey, Bulls,” Chloe said in a voice that managed to be both peppy and sultry at the same time. “Buy your prom tickets and get ready to dance the night away to am
az
ing music played by your am
az
ing friends. That's right—prom is going to be part Coachella, part reality TV show, with a panel of snarky judges and everything. It's all sponsored by King Media—thanks, Daddy! So save the date: Wednesday, April thirtieth—just fifteen days away! I've already signed up
my
band to do battle, so what are you waiting for?”

The intercom clicked off. Lilith had never been to one of Chloe's shows, but she liked to think the girl had about as much musical talent as a lobster.

Lilith thought back to the boy she'd met the day before at Rattlesnake Creek. Out of nowhere he'd suggested she form a band. She'd tried to put the encounter out of her mind, but with Chloe going on about how to sign up to play at prom, Lilith was surprised to feel regret about the total nonexistence of her band.

Then the homeroom door swung open—and in walked the boy from Rattlesnake Creek. He sauntered down the row next to hers and took Chloe King's seat.

Heat coursed through Lilith's body as she studied his motorcycle jacket and the vintage Kinks T-shirt that fit tightly across his chest. She wondered where they sold clothes like that in Crossroads. No store she knew. She'd never met anyone who dressed like him.

He brushed his dark hair from his eyes and gazed at her.

Lilith liked the way Cam looked, but she did not like the way he looked at her. There was a sparkle in his eyes that made her uneasy. Like he knew all of her secrets. He probably looked at all the girls that way, and some of them probably loved it. Lilith didn't—at all—but she forced herself to hold his gaze. She didn't want him to think he made her nervous.

“May I help you?” Mrs. Richards asked.

“I'm new here,” Cam said, still staring at Lilith. “What's the drill?”

When he flashed his Trumbull student ID, Lilith was so stunned she fell into a coughing fit. She struggled for control, mortified.

“Cameron Briel.” Mrs. Richards read from the ID card, then scrutinized Cam from head to toe. “The drill is you sit over there and be quiet.” She pointed at the desk farthest from Lilith, who was still coughing.

“Lilith,” Mrs. Richards said, “do you know the statistics on the rise of asthma due to increased carbon emissions in the past decade? When you finish coughing, I want you to get out a sheet of paper and write a letter to your congresswoman demanding reform.”

Seriously? She was getting in trouble for coughing?

Cam gave Lilith two light thumps on the back, the way her mother did to Bruce when he was having one of his fits. Then he bent down, picked up the diaper, raised an eyebrow at Lilith, and stuffed it inside Chloe's purse.

“She might need that later,” he said, and smiled at Lilith as he walked to the other side of the room.

Trumbull wasn't a big school, but it was big enough for Lilith to be surprised that Cam was also in her poetry class. She was even more surprised when Mr. Davidson sat him in the empty seat next to her, since Kimi Grace was out sick.

“Hey,” Cam had said when he slid into the seat.

Lilith pretended she hadn't heard him.

Ten minutes into class, as Mr. Davidson was reading a love sonnet by the Italian poet Petrarch, Cam leaned over and dropped a note onto her desk.

Lilith looked at the note, then at Cam, then glanced to her right, certain it was meant for someone else. But Paige wasn't reaching out to take the note from her, and Cam was smirking, nodding at the face of the note on which he'd written in neat black script,
Lilith.

She opened it and felt a strange rush, the kind she felt when she dipped into a really good book or heard a great song for the first time.

In ten minutes of class, Teach has faced his blackboard an impressive total of eight minutes and forty-eight seconds. By my calculations, you and I could absolutely sneak out the next time he turns around and not be missed until we're already at Rattlesnake Creek. Wink twice if you're game.

Lilith did not even know where to start with this. Wink twice? More like drop dead three times, she wanted to tell him. When she looked up he was wearing a strange, tranquil expression, as if they were the kind of friends who did stuff like this all the time, as if they were any kind of friends. The weird thing was, Lilith skipped class all the time—she'd done it twice yesterday, in homeroom and biology. But she never did it for a fun reason. Escape was always her only option, a survival mechanism. Cam seemed to think he knew who she was and how she lived her life, and that annoyed her. She didn't want him to think about her at all.

No,
she scrawled back, right over the words of Cam's note. She crumpled it up and pitched it at him the next time Mr. Davidson turned around.

The rest of her day was long and dreary, but at least she got a break from Cam. She didn't see him at lunch or in the hallways or in any of her other classes. Lilith reasoned that if she had to have two classes with him, it was best to have them back-to-back first thing in the morning and get the squirrelly sensation he made her feel out of the way. Why was he so casual with her? He seemed to think she enjoyed his presence. Something about him filled her with rage.

When the final bell rang, when she most wanted to be slinking behind the carob branches to play her guitar alone at Rattlesnake Creek, Lilith trudged to detention.

The detention room was spare—only a few desks and one poster on the wall that featured a kitten clinging to a tree branch. For what felt like the three thousandth time, Lilith read the words printed beneath its calico tail:

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, BUT IF YOU DO IT RIGHT, ONCE IS ENOUGH.

The way to survive detention was to go into a trance. Lilith stared at the kitten poster until it took on an otherworldly quality. The kitten looked terrified, hanging there with its claws puncturing the branch. Was it supposed to embody “living right”? Not even the decor in this school made sense.

“Room sweep!” Coach Burroughs announced as he burst through the door. He checked in every fifteen minutes, like clockwork. The assistant basketball coach wore his silver hair in a greased-back pompadour, like an aging Elvis impersonator. The kids called him Crotch Burroughs, in honor of his borderline indecent shorts.

Even though Lilith was the only one in detention today, Burroughs paced as though disciplining a room full of invisible delinquents. When he got to Lilith, he slapped a stapled packet on her desk. “Your makeup biology test, Highness. It's different from the one you skipped out on yesterday.”

The same or different, it didn't matter—Lilith was going to fail this one, too. She wondered why she was never called into a counselor's office, why no one seemed interested in how her appalling grades were threatening her college prospects.

When the door opened and Cam walked in, Lilith actually smacked her forehead.

“Are you kidding me?” she muttered under her breath when he handed Burroughs a yellow detention slip.

Burroughs nodded at Cam, sent him to a desk across the room, and said, “You got an assignment to keep you occupied?”

“I can't begin to tell you how much I have to do,” Cam said.

Burroughs rolled his eyes. “Kids these days think they have it so hard. You wouldn't know real work if it bit you. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, the intercom is on, so the office will hear everything that happens in this room. Understand?”

From his desk, Cam winked at Lilith. She turned to face the wall. They were not on winking terms.

As soon as the door closed behind Burroughs, Cam walked to the teacher's desk, switched off the intercom, then sidled over to the chair in front of Lilith. He sat down and put his feet up on her desk, nudging her fingers with his boots.

She shoved his feet away. “I have a test to take,” she said. “Excuse me.”

“And I have a better idea. Where's your guitar?”

“How did you manage to get a detention on your first day of school? Going for a new record?” she asked, so that she wouldn't say what she was really thinking, which was,
You're the first new kid I can remember. Where are you from? Where do you shop? What's the rest of the world like?

“Don't worry about that,” Cam said. “Now, about your guitar. We don't have a lot of time.”

“Weird thing to say to a girl sitting in detention for eternity.”

“This is your notion of eternity?” Cam looked around, his green eyes pausing on the kitten poster. “Wouldn't be my first choice,” he finally said. “Besides, you don't notice forever when you're having fun. Time only exists in sports and sorrow.”