“Shea!” I shouted.

“Over here!” my best friend replied somewhere to the right.

My head snapped in her direction, and I saw she was holding the back door open for people. Noah and Blake were with her, ushering everyone outside.

Lincoln and I took off running just as the Abrus demon lunged for us. Lincoln threw his hand out behind him, and another brilliant white light shot from his palms, smacking the demon in the face.

Whoa. He definitely aced his studies of light class.

Once we’d made it safely across the ballroom, Darren popped up in front of us. “We’ve got an Abrus demon, two Brimstones and a handful of Castor demons,” he reported to Lincoln.

Lincoln nodded to Darren, then grabbed the back of my neck gently, turning me to face him. He ran his thumb along my jawline softly, looking my body up and down, seemingly admiring my dress. “You clean up nice. I’m sorry your date got ruined.” He said ‘date’ like it was the plague.

He totally liked me. The bastard.

I grinned. “Thanks. It’s all the yoga I do.”

He chuckled, but then a scream tore his gaze from me and he looked strained. “Go back to school with Blake and Noah, and text me the second you’re safe. Sit in Raphael’s office and wait for me.”

My brow furrowed. “No way. Come with me.”

He looked behind him. The Abrus demon had dissolved the necktie, and was grinning wickedly at us.

Lincoln turned back to me. “I don’t run from demons, Brielle. Go. I need to know you’re safe.”

“I don’t run from demons.” That was both the cockiest and hottest thing he’d ever said.

“I can help,” I told him, holding Sera up to him.

He shook his head. “Take her,” he whispered to someone behind me, and then I was being forcefully dragged away.

“No! Lincoln!” Whoever held me had a firm grip; I bucked and thrashed to no avail, ultimately giving in, and looking back in Lincoln’s direction.

With me forgotten, he swung around and thrust his sword in the air. Blue shards of light burst from the tip and the two Brimstone demons were brought to their knees. Just as I was sucked out the back door, the Abrus demon charged for him.

“Lincoln!”

I didn’t realize tears were streaming down my face, until whoever held me eased their hold, and wiped them.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me,” Fred apologized.

Then he shoved me into the open door of Noah’s SUV and closed it. His melancholy face was the last thing I saw that night, as the SUV peeled out of the parking lot.

Chapter Seventeen

I screamed for Noah to turn the car around the entire drive to Fallen Academy, but he insisted he was following orders, that the Fallen Army was inbound, and Lincoln would be okay.

I’d numbly texted Lincoln when we arrived, and then was ushered to Raphael’s office, though he wasn’t there. Noah instructed me to wait on the couch, that it was the safest place for me, and he would guard the door from outside. Shea wasn’t permitted to wait with me, so she ran back to the dorm to hide, and we texted back and forth for over an hour, until, by some miracle, sleep finally took me.

It was the early hours of the morning, still dark out, when the murmured voices woke me.

“What is she? They want her because she has demon powers, but so do a lot of kids at this school,” Lincoln whispered.

“She’s awake,” Raphael informed him.

Dammit. Freaking psychic archangel!

I peeled my eyes open and sat up quickly, taking in Lincoln’s disheveled appearance. He hadn’t slept, that much was clear, and I could see by the fresh dressing on his shoulder, and the full sling, that he’d been to the healing clinic.

“Are you okay?” I bolted to a standing position, the last remnants of sleep fading.

Patches of his skin were still welted from the beestings.

“I’ll recover.” His blue eyes roamed over my body as if checking me for injuries.

I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I could feel my sanity dancing in a chicken hat at the edges of my mind, threatening to jump off the cliff.

“You have to tell me everything you know. I can’t live like this. Why do they want me? Why are my wings black? What am I?” I shouted the last part, and ran a shaky hand through my hair. Raphael had answers, and I needed them, or I was going to lose my mind. The unknowing was more terrifying to me.

The archangel sighed, shared a long look with a confused Lincoln, and then walked toward me. With each step, his presence pressed in on me like a balm to a burning wound. My energy settled as he reached for my shoulder, resting a calming hand there.

“When you took the angelic blood test, it showed some demonic powers.” His words came like a punch in the gut. Every. Single. One. I mean, I’d guessed that I’d been demon gifted with the black wings, but I’d been in complete denial until right then.

I wasn’t angel blessed. I wasn’t like the other Celestials.

I shrugged out of his touch and crossed my arms, facing the wall for a moment to compose myself.

“So what? Her own mother is a Necromancer. Half this school has some form of demon power in them. Why do they want her?” Lincoln was trying to downplay it, which made me fall for him even harder in that moment.

Raphael cleared his throat. “Because of the prophecy. Because of whose powers she has.”

My whole body went rigid as I tried to remind myself to breathe. I slowly turned around, my eyes snapping to the archangel’s face. “What did you just say?”

Prophecies were never good. I’d never heard of a prophecy where someone forecasted peace on Earth, or that starting in a certain year, everyone would be happy.

Raphael sighed again, seemingly resigned. “Right after the war, when we’d realized what it had cost the humans, we found our first Sighted. She was an older woman, about sixty years in age, and she told of a prophecy that each Sighted after her has repeated verbatim, despite never being told about it.”

No.

My thoughts immediately went to James and those few minutes before the Awakening ceremony. He’d told me to be careful, and what else? I couldn’t remember, and we’d been interrupted before he could tell me more. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. Now that I thought of it, I hadn’t even heard about him. What happened to him after the Awakening? I’d have to ask Shea if she saw him at Tainted Academy. The Sighted received the rarest of the powers; I didn’t think I’d even met one at this school.

“What’s the prophecy?” I asked, wishing I had Teddy, my stuffed bear with one eye and a split neck from when Mikey tried to kill him with a bow and arrow. He was somewhere in a landfill right now, but I desperately wanted him back.

Raphael looked to Lincoln, who was just glaring at him with barely contained anger.

“Prophecies are fickle. If I tell you that you’ll trip and break your leg, and you do, then did you break your leg because you were meant to, or because I planted the seed in your mind?” Raphael asked.

“Sir.” Lincoln bit out that one word, and it was enough to set the tone.

Tell us or we’ll unleash the full rage of two people who don’t like being kept in the dark.

Raphael nodded. “The prophecy states that a young girl with black wings will go into the underworld, and kill Lucifer, ending the war.”

This isn’t happening. I’m still sleeping.

I laughed then. A maniacal, “I’m losing my mind” laugh. Lincoln was staring at me with worry, eyebrows furrowed, mouth dipping in a slight frown.

“That doesn’t mean it’s you, or that the prophecy will come to pass. The future is always changing—”

“Why do I have black wings? What am I?” I’d asked many times, and he’d always danced around it, conveniently leaving that part out.

Raphael took on the face of a father then, one who was about to tell a child their cat had been run over. “You’re a beautiful soul who was empowered with gifts from me, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel and…”

He paused and I leaned forward, though I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

“Lucifer.”

He actually said it, spoke my worst nightmare out loud. Not that I could conceive of such an awful thing, but pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to a human—being endowed with powers from Lucifer himself—had happened to me. Hooray….

I shook my head vigorously. “No. No, you’re mistaken.” Bile rose in my throat.

Denial. I would fly and live there forever, because there was no way I was accepting that as truth.

My eyes flicked over to Lincoln, who stood there slack-jawed, staring at me like I’d sprouted an extra head.

Raphael moved closer to me, and I took a step back. “I don’t want comfort. I want the truth!” I shouted at him.

He frowned. “Of course.” Then he walked over to the desk, and produced the box and knife from my blood ceremony. “Lucifer’s emblem, the snake, lit up when I tested you.”

Shock ripped through me at such concrete proof, my eyes filling with tears as denial turned to shame.

“That’s not fair!” I yelled as the tears overflowed, and trailed down my cheek. “I didn’t ask for this. You love talking about free will, well I didn’t will any of this. I was an innocent five-year-old girl when you”—I jabbed my finger at him as the rage built within me—“and the rest of the angels started a war, infecting my people. Innocent humans were turned to freaks because of you!” I shouted.

Hurt crossed Raphael’s face. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

Lincoln winced. “Brielle.”

“No. Leave me alone.” I turned and burst out of the door, blasting past Noah, Blake and Darren, who were stationed on either side.

I was dark. Shea had made me promise I wouldn’t let her go dark, and I was the one who did. Not just any dark magic ran through my veins—his did. Lucifer’s. The Devil. Freaking evil incarnate. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it.

I ran harder, pumping my legs to take me to the open field where I knew I could be alone. Everyone was still sleeping, the sun just starting to rise. I wanted to fly far away from there, to another country, and never speak of it again. Live an entirely new life.

If I was Lucifer’s weird little stepchild, would the demons ever stop coming for me? Especially if they believed in some prophecy, where I was going to kill him?

Really? Me, an almost nineteen-year-old girl, go into the depths of Hell and kill the Devil? I laughed as more tears streamed down my face.

Footsteps sounded behind me, and I whirled around to Lincoln. I just stood there, chest heaving from running, tears covering my cheeks. I was a hot mess, and I was still wearing my dress from the ball.

“I’m evil,” I whimpered. I had to voice my fears out loud to someone—why not him? He was probably there to lock me in my own area of the school, where they could keep an eye on me.