Tirade (Heven and Hell #3)(70)
Author: Cambria Hebert

She jerked like I slapped her and folded her arms across her chest. “You were in my head?”

I nodded and gave her a very brief explanation of what I could do. I made sure to leave out the part about Cole asking me to do this.

“Those were my private thoughts.” Her face actually flushed. “You had no right.”

“I had to know if you loved him.” I pushed away from the railing and stood tall. “He’s my brother. I can’t stand to watch him hurt.”

Her shoulders slumped. “You can’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’ll throw it all away to be with me. He can’t do that. He has no grasp on what eternity really means, of how long it is.”

I shrugged, pretending it didn’t bother me. “If that’s his choice…” I let my words fall away.

“You would let him give it up, then?” Gemma asked not unkindly.

I sighed. “I don’t know.” Gemma looked triumphant so I added, “But I think he should get a say in how he spends eternity.”

“I could leave right now and never come back.” Gemma warned.

The idea hurt me. She cared about us all. I hadn’t understood just how much until I felt it—heard it—in her own words. Cole wouldn’t be the only one to miss her. I would too. Sam would.

“We all feel the same, me especially,” I said.

“What?”

“The way you feel about us, we feel the same about you. You’re family.”

She didn’t seem to know how to react to that.

“You could go, but we’d still feel the same way.”

“He would be better off.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. What about you?”

“I don’t matter,” she said quickly.

“I think you do,” I said, stepping closer. “You deserve to be happy too. I think you belong here just as much as the rest of us.”

Gemma just stared at me with her wide, unblinking gray eyes.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen between you and Cole. That’s for you two to work out. He isn’t the only reason I want you here. My mother’s soul is trapped in hell. I’m going to need all the help I can get to set her free—to set all of them free.”

As I spoke, an idea, a purpose, filled me. “If we could find and set all the souls free, we would diminish hell’s power; we would diminish Beelzebub’s power.”

Gemma nodded. “And all those poor tortured souls would be free.”

I grabbed her wrist. “Oh my God, Gemma. I think I just realized what I have been meant to do all along.”

Gemma smiled. “I don’t want to, but I like you, Heven.”

“I like you too.” I smiled

Gemma shook her head and started to walk by me, assuming the conversation was over. It wasn’t.

“You keep saying you have nothing,” I said softly, but she heard because she stopped in her tracks. “But that is so far from the truth. You have everything. My brother loves you. I’ve never seen him this way about anyone before. And you have me… me and Sam, who consider you family. Please don’t take that away from Sam. His parents turned him out; they pushed him away. Please don’t take away the family that he’s finally found. Even Riley cares about you.” Gemma snorted and I held up my hand. “You know as well as I do that Riley is meanest to those he cares about most. He’s afraid to get hurt.”

“I’ll think about it,” Gemma said and went to the door. I knew I won her over when she looked over her shoulder and said, “I can’t promise anything about Cole. There’s too much at stake and I love him too much to take away his eternity.”

“Tell him that. You owe him at least that much.”

She didn’t seem convinced, but I let her go. I was tired and dropped down onto the step for a moment of rest. I had found the answer my brother was looking for, but I was very afraid it wasn’t going to be the answer he wanted.

I had also found my purpose.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Heven

“Oomph.” Riley jerked from his sound sleep when I hit him with a pillow.

“Get up,” I ordered. Part of me was even surprised he hadn’t left. According to everyone, Riley only cared about himself. Riley was cursed; he had a mean and angry streak inside him. Sam was convinced he was only here because he wanted something, because being here would somehow get him what he wanted.

I hadn’t believed any of them.

But I was starting to.

Ever since I saw Riley’s reaction to the things Gemma was saying and how he seemed to enjoy killing the demons, I began to doubt him. And then he picked a fight with my brother. I never denied Riley had a mean streak, that he had done some very bad things and not shown an ounce of remorse. But I never really thought he was bad—evil. I caught glimpses (as fleeting as they might be) of another side to him. A softer side—a nicer side.

Two sides of the same coin. The words Airis spoke the last time I saw her floated through my mind. They jolted me. And just like that, I understood why I liked Riley, why I never wanted to believe the worst in him.

Because he was just like me.

We were both one person, a whole body, but there were two sides to us. The side that was connected to darkness and the side that fought that darkness. I was better at fighting that darkness—maybe because I wasn’t entirely sure how I was connected to it. But Riley, he knew. He was cursed. He was a hellhound and he was indebted, thanks to his grandfather, to someone who would ask him to do heinous acts. But there was that good side to Riley—that light. But I think he sometimes forgot it was there.

“What are you staring at?” Riley demanded, his eyes narrowing.

I shook myself, not wanting to give away what I was about to do. “Sorry, I’m still not feeling that well.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. It was getting harder and harder to calm that beast living inside me. It was only a matter of time until it shredded my insides. I needed a way to get it out.

But first I wanted answers.

“Where is Sam?” Riley asked.

“He had somewhere he had to be.”

“While the cat’s away the mice will play?” Riley took a prowling step toward me. I did not back up. “Hmmmm?”

“Something like that,” I said as he stepped closer. “I wanted to talk without Sam around for you to fight with.”

Riley shrugged. “You can’t blame the guy for being jealous.”