Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

“One.” The voice began the countdown, but the pain was drowning him. He clutched at his hair as the pain became a million needles pushing into his skin. Remember … the girl said … remember me …

“Remember … ?” Diel groaned, pleading for answers. He thought of the boy screaming for his sister, fighting, clawing to get to her, to save her.

Remember me … she said, looking Diel straight in the eyes.

A black hole erupted inside Diel, a blazing black hole that spread like a tumor. It was erasing every mental block that was in his way, smashing down the wall that had been built within him for so long.

“Two,” the voice said, but Diel was floating, pain seeping from his pores … from the scar around his neck. It pulsed, it burned, it stung and throbbed, and Diel opened his mouth to scream. But no sound left his mouth as the final parts of him were exorcised of whatever had possessed him. He bellowed and screamed. Then the pain began to subside; the bricks of his internal wall reduced to rubble, too-long separated sides colliding into one.

Finn … help me … remember me … The girl’s voice was stronger now. She no longer sounded as though she were in a vacuum. The high timbre hit his ears and moved right to his soul.

Finn … Finn …

Diel froze, his heart stuttering to a standstill as that name began to penetrate his flesh.

“Finn,” Diel said, his lips wrapping awkwardly around the name. But he said it again. He said it again and again until it was no longer foreign, no longer strange, until it began to sound familiar, until his heart lobbed back into a steady beat—until it recognized the name.

“Finn,” Diel said again, and the air he breathed in afterwards sat purer in his lungs. “Finn,” he repeated, the last of the pain and aches in his head fleeing, leaving him comfortably numb, leaving his blood flowing freely though his veins, streams not rapids. “Finn.” His hands began to shake. “Finn Nolan.” Recognition fired down his spine, and the boy’s eyes shone in his mind.

Eyes just like Diel’s. No, not just like Diel’s …

Diel gasped as he remembered the boy’s hair … hair just like his. His inner monster, the darkness, the head tics, the blinking … the—

“Cara.” Once the name slipped from his mouth, he knew. Tears flooded his eyes and spilled over his cheeks. “Cara,” he rasped again. The little girl. The little girl with the birthmark, with one blind eye … Cara, Finn’s little sister.

A fist plowed through his chest.

Diel’s sister.

“Three,” the voice said, and Diel was ripped from his subconscious. His eyes snapped open to reveal his bedroom in the manor. But his heart was a heavy-metal drum thrash. He breathed and breathed like he’d just run around the perimeter of the manor’s grounds at breakneck speed.

Finn Nolan. He was Finn Nolan. And Cara …

“Cara!” Diel jumped from the bed, fury energizing his muscles. His body was alert and ready to fight, to search the fucking earth for his sister, his little sister who they had taken, who that Brethren fuck had said was evil!

“Diel.” Someone was calling his name, but he didn’t know who.

He was coming out of his skin, all the memories he had lost as a kid slamming into him like a hurricane, swirling around him as they filled every cavern of his too-long numbed mind.

The Brethren had taken them away, sent Diel straight to Purgatory. Sela was the first brother he’d met in the dorm. Then the monster took its hold of him. The monster had roared as they abused him, exorcised him, and it had jumped to the forefront of who Diel was. It had pushed Diel back to protect him, taking away the pain … taking away any memory of his former life so he could simply survive. Memories of her. Of his little sister. Where the fuck was his little sister? What had the Brethren done with her? Had they killed her?

Grief, instant and strong, gutted him.

Diel’s arms fell to his sides, and suddenly Noa was there, hands on his cheeks and tears in her brown eyes. “I have a sister,” he whispered, lips shaking and voice raw.

Noa nodded. “I know, baby. We heard it. You talked us through it all while you were under the hypnosis. You told us everything.” Diel lifted his head. All his family were gathered around him. He met the eyes of his brothers. He could see the fury in their faces, the tension in their bodies. Gabriel came toward him, pale, sadness in his every step.

“Brother.” He pulled Diel to his chest. Diel closed his eyes, but all he could see was Cara’s face. Her arm stretched out, trying to reach for him. But he hadn’t saved her. He hadn’t protected her.