Lucy parks at the far end of the school parking lot and pulls out her phone.
"Look who uploaded a new song," she says, showing me a paused video with a picture of Delilah holding her guitar. The video has over one million views and was only uploaded ten hours ago.
Lucy hits play on the video and I hear the pain in Delilah's voice as she says through Lucy's car speakers:
"I'm Delilah Lor and this is my song, 'The Devi's Storm.'"
She begins to play and it sounds like two different guitars are playing at the same time. But it's just her. It's a beautiful melody she's picking with her fingers while strumming and providing a rhythm. Then she opens her mouth to sing and my God:
"The rose I gave you were the truest red that I have foreseen
Till you sliced your flesh on its thorn
You grimaced and I kissed you
And I kissed your cuts and we both laughed
Both unaware of the gathering storm..."
She begins to play the chorus, and when her voice sings it, you can hear the agony and sorrow within it. I've never seen Delilah sing with this much emotion before.
"Here comes the snow, here comes the snow
It will break apart the gates
A blizzard made of fear and pain takes us far away
Screams destroy our dreams until nothing else remains
How do I fight the Devil inside of me?"
She plays the beginning part again, and I don't know what it is but it sounds better this time around. More alive. She then continues into the second verse:
"Now sequestered in darkness
The sound of your breath, it breaks my heart
Your skin like a rose in my bleeding hands
And I can't help but wonder
Why does everything fall apart?
Why does my faith feel like a fist full of ice?"
She sings the chorus once again, then descends into a solo of intense strumming and picking of her strings. Each stum is like a breath in and a breath out. Only if you were having a panic attack and everything around you was falling apart.
After that intense solo, she sings the chorus once more and ends the song with a tear falling down her face. Lucy then pulls her phone back to her and begins to read the comments to me. Everyone loves her.
"Anything about me in there?" I ask.
"You sure you wanna know?"
"Yeah."
She then reads the comments that mention me, A.K.A Jesus Freak, A.K.A Delilah's Ex-boyfriend, and a slew of other vile nicknames. I'm not sure if it was Delilah who told everyone about what had happened, but everyone at Hawkin's hates me even more now.
"Why so grim?" Lucy asks.
"Everyone hates me," I say, looking at the dashboard.
"Good. Bathe in it. Let it empower you. Their hatred is your strength. Remember how everyone bullied Delilah for dating you? Now everyone's on her side now. And she's more popular than ever before. They need to hate you so they can love her."
"You're still trying to help her too?"
"I'm the Devil! Of course, I am!"
"But what about my end of the bargain? How am I being honored in this?"
"Oh sweet Judy," she says, pinching my left cheek, "Trust the Devil's timing."
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Before we walk into school Lucy stops me at the door.
"Grab my hand," she orders.
"Lucy."
"Do you want this to work or not?"
I grimace and take her right hand. When we enter the school, all eyes are immediately trained on us. Lucy walks with absolute unbridled pride while I can't bear to look at anyone. My hands begin to feel clammy and my heart starts to beat heavier.
"Judas the betrayer!" A booming voice screams out from behind us. We turn around and see Delilah with Squid standing to her left and Daniel standing to her right.
"You self-righteous son of a bitch!" Delilah says, storming towards us, "I cared about you! And left me for some punk-rock smoker chick that thinks she's the Devil?"
I don't know what to say. I open my mouth but no words come out.
"That's fucked up what you did," Daniel says as he arrives in front of us.
"I can't believe I got baptized with you," Squid says.
"And you!" Delilah says, pointing at Lucy. Lucy's face lights up and she puts a hand on her chest, "You're not well. You need serious mental help," Lucy nods, a freakish grin creeping upon her face, "You won't get away with this."
Delilah storms off. Lucy throws her arms in the air and Daniel follows Delilah. Squid then steps in front of me and holds up a wooden cross necklace. The cross itself is about four by three inches. It looks handmade. When I take it up in my hand I notice the cross is hollow and there's something inside of it clanking around.
"Hopefully this will remind you to give to your father," Squid says, walking away.
Lucy comes up from behind me and takes the cross out of my hand.
"What's this?" she asks.
"A cross necklace. Squid gave it to me."
She shakes it and gasps, "There's beads inside it!"
I watch Delilah arrive at the end of the hall and see her turn around to glance at me one last time. That was... weird. Delilah knows for sure what's going on. Squid was close to uncovering the truth, and Daniel stole my phone. Is it possible that one of them is working with Lucy and the other two are trying to work undercover? If so, which one of them is on Lucy's side and which one is "My Protector"?
At least two of them are trying to get me out of this mess. Now why would Squid give me that wooden—
I look at the wooden cross in Lucy's hand. She's still playing with it. Whatever is in that cross might be the key to our freedom. I just have to figure out how to get it back, get in a position where I'm alone, and open the cross to see the contents of it.
"Let's get out of here," Lucy says, wrapping the cross around her wrist, "I got a place."
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I was expecting us to go off campus but instead, we find ourselves in a hallway with no lights on and a locked door at the end. But of course, Lucy approaches the locked door, pulls a paper clip out of her mouth, and begins to jimmy the clip into the lock.
"Did you just pull that out of your mouth?" I ask.
"Uh-huh. I have no gag reflex. Shit's like an extra pocket."
The door makes a satisfying click sound and she opens the door to a part of the school I've never been in before.
"Ladies first," she says.
I step inside and realize I'm in an old mining tunnel. Lucy then lights an oil lantern from behind me and we proceed into the darkness together. After a few minutes of walking, she decides to sit down and I sit across from her.
"So, how's it feel being the most hated person in school?" Lucy asks.
"I don't know. I thought it would feel lonely, but I have you to share in it."
"That's what I'm here for," she says sticking a cigarette in her mouth and lighting it. Seeing her puff on one makes me crave one too.
She catches me looking and pulls one out of the carton.
"I shouldn't," I say.
"Do what you please, Judy. You only live once."
She holds the cigarette out in front of me. I hesitate before I take it out of her hand and let her light me up, the same way she did in the bedroom.
"It's not like this is going to keep you out of Heaven," she jokes, pulling away, "It's actually going to bring you closer to it."
"Ah. I don't really care about Heaven."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I don't care about Heaven. Or Hell. Or any afterlife really."
"Don't believe in them?"
"It's not that I don't believe in them. It's just that I don't care if they exist."
"Why?"
"My intentions aren't on a reward. My intentions are here."
"Explain."
"Well—if you're Christian because of the reward, Heaven, then what's your intention? Are you just being a good person so you can get off of this dirt ball of a planet and into paradise? For me, I'm Christian because I want to make this place that I'm on, that I'm breathing and living on, like Heaven. I want to make this place a better place before I leave. Because life on Earth can be Heaven. But it can also be Hell."
"That's beautiful," she says, blowing smoke out of her mouth. We sit there for a bit, the only light coming from our single lamp and the cigarette cherries.
"So if there's no afterlife," she starts, "Then what? What happens when you die?"
"What happens when you die?" I start, "Well—I don't know what happens when you die. But speaking for myself? When I die my body will stop working. A shutdown. All at once or slowly—my heart stops—my breathing stops. Clinical death. And a little later—five to ten minutes pass—my brain starts dying. Meanwhile, in between, maybe my brain releases a flood of DMT. It's a psychedelic drug slash chemical in our brains that releases when we dream. So I dream. I dream more than I've ever dreamt before because it's all of the DMT—the last dump of it. All at once—my neurons are firing and I'm seeing this beautiful display of memories and imagination and I'm zooted out of my fucking mind. Because my head is rifling through the memories—short and long term—and the dreams mix with the memories. And then... it's over. The dream to end all dreams. One last great dream as my mind empties down the drain into nothing and then I stop. My brain activity ceases and there is nothing left of me. No pain. No memory. No awareness that I ever was. No memory of my mom abusing me. No memory of me being bullied. Everything is, as it was, before me. And the electricity in my brain disperses until it's dead tissue. And all the little things that make me up; the microbes and bacteria and billions of little critters living on my face and in my hair and my mouth and my skin and in my eyes, they just keep living. And eating. And I'm serving a purpose. I'm feeding life. I'm broken apart and all of the little pieces of me are recycled and I'm moved to billions of other places and my atoms are in plants; animals; bugs. And I am like the stars in the sky. There one moment and then just scattered across the universe."
She doesn't say anything. Her eyes just stay focused on mine.
"God, I really want to fucking kiss you right now," she admits.
I laugh and avoid eye contact while rubbing the back of my neck; my cheeks feeling heated.
"Hey, do you mind if I have that cross necklace?" I finally ask.
"Feeling sentimental?" she asks.
"You know me."
She smiles and unwraps the cross from her wrist and tosses it over to me. I slip it around my neck and pray for clarity and wisdom.163Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPO2EqUOsqK
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