Tirade (Heven and Hell #3)(60)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I pulled away from Sam, going over to my dresser and opening the drawer, staring down at the envelope. Slowly, I reached in and pulled it out, holding it in front of me, wondering what was inside—if I was ready to know.

“Hev?” Sam said, coming to my side. “What do you have there?”

I held the envelope out for him to see. “Gran found this in the hospital room after Mom died. She brought it home and I put it in here because I wasn’t ready to read it.”

“But you are now.”

I wasn’t sure if I would ever be ready. I was terrified she put into writing all the horrible things she said to me. Hadn’t it been enough that I had to hear them echo through my head without reading them on paper as well? I sighed and went over to the bed and sat down on the edge, ripping the envelope open and pulling out a single piece of white paper, folded in half.

I unfolded the letter and began to read:

Heven,

I know I have hurt you. The things I have said to you—about you—are not things a mother should say to a daughter. I made mistakes in my life. Mistakes that I have lived with for a very long time. I tried to repent, to change. But I have learned that some mistakes cannot be erased no matter how hard one prays. When I could no longer deny that you were being punished for my mistakes, I tried to push you away. I thought that distance from me would protect you, but it only made things worse. It hurt you. Don’t ever think that I don’t love you. I do, more than anything. It is why I am doing this. I should have done it long ago. I will not allow you to suffer for my mistakes a moment longer. Please accept my apology and live your life in the light. I must go… He’s waiting. I love you.

Mom

I stared down at the words long after I read them. The tears in my eyes made the letters blur together until they were a giant ball of ink. What did it mean? Who was waiting? And what mistakes had she made that I was being punished for?

Heven? Sam spoke quietly in my mind, not wanting to disturb me, but no doubt curious.

I looked up at him, blinking back the tears. Without a word, I handed him the letter and stared off at nothing while he read. When he finished he sat beside me, the paper between his fingers. What do you think it means?

I sat there for a long time just thinking, staring down at the floor and shying away from the answer that just wouldn’t let me push it away. Finally, I looked up at Sam. I think the ‘he’ is Beelzebub. He killed her, Sam. He killed my mother.

He didn’t say anything for a moment and then he nodded. I think you’re right.

I took a deep breath. I think there’s a reason that my father didn’t know my mother had died. I don’t think she went to heaven, Sam. I think Beelzebub did something with her…

Suddenly, Beelzebub’s words echoed through my head. Soul Reaper. I reached out and grabbed Sam’s wrist. “He took her soul.”

Beelzebub dragged my mother’s soul to hell.

What’s worse? She let him.

*

I dreamed of chanting witches, of Kimber laughing and of a beast roaring. I dreamed of pain, searing pain against my skin and a feeling of longing so intense that I wanted to weep. I wanted to go home. I wanted to rejoin my family.

I opened my eyes. The room was dark. It was only a dream. You’re home, I told myself. I tried to calm the racing of my heart and to ignore the burning in my shoulder. I rolled, trying to get comfortable—I felt so hot—and thought about my mother. Where was she? Was my theory right? Had Beelzebub really killed her and taken her soul down into hell?

The letter made it sound as if she agreed with whatever happened, that she thought it would make things right. “Oh, Mom.” I sighed into dark. Making deals with Beelzebub was never going to make things right.

I reminded myself I was only thinking up theories, that perhaps I was wrong. Maybe that letter was a result of whatever happened to her brain when she fell and hit her head. Maybe she hadn’t known what she was saying.

I didn’t believe that. But maybe it was true.

Something inside me shifted, pushed forward, and Sam’s head snapped back. His eyes sprang open and they were pure, glittering gold. The hellhound in him was being disturbed by whatever Hecate trapped in my body. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and I waited for him to move from the bed. He didn’t move and I saw him struggling, so I began to back away. His eyes snapped open again and he pulled me back in.

No. Stay.

It’s hard for you. I’ll move away for a few minutes.

I’ve spent enough time wanting to hold you. The hound in me will have to deal. I don’t care if the devil himself takes up residence inside you. He gathered me close and I laid my head in the crook of his neck. I’m not letting go, he said, directed more toward the hellhound inside him instead of me.

He fell back asleep almost immediately and I marveled at the control he seemed to have over his own body. He seemed to grow stronger with each passing day. But me… I lay there haunted. Haunted by everything that was happening, haunted by whatever lived inside me and haunted by something that Sam had just said.

Exactly where was the devil and how come he never put Beelzebub in his place?

I pushed the disturbing thought away. The last thing any of us needed was to catch the attention of the devil himself. If Beelzebub was second in command to Satan and had this much power and hate inside him, I could only imagine what Satan himself must be like.

When I finally began to drift asleep, a vision of my mother swam before my closed eyes. It was from when she had been happy… from before life started spiraling out of control. I wondered if she would ever know happiness again.

Chapter Nineteen

Heven

Sam ate and ate and ate. He ate so much that Logan, Gran and I (who had long since abandoned our own plates) sat and watched, astonished.

“Didn’t your mother feed you?” Gran asked, watching him polish of his third stack of pancakes. “She must have. You look bigger.”

So it wasn’t just me that noticed.

Logan winced and Sam paused in chewing. “Yes, ma’am. But your cooking is so much better.”

Gran put another stack in front of him, which he attacked with equal vigor. Before the pancakes, he had eaten two plates of eggs, heaping piles of bacon, toast and a huge bowl of fruit.

“Should I make more?” she asked, rising from the table.

“No,” he said between bites. “But thank you. This was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

I resisted the urge to shudder. Anything would beat rats.

“I’ll get a roast in the oven for dinner. You’ll stay, Sam?”