“You’re bluffing,” Cam said. It didn’t matter what the devil said. There was no chance of Cam backing out of their deal. “I won’t abandon Lilith. I can’t go on without her.”
“I applaud your perseverance,” Lucifer said as the numeral 4 lit up under the Away side of the scoreboard. “But you don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you even know why Lilith is one of my subjects?”
Cam swallowed. The question had haunted him since before he got here, since Annabelle had told him where to find her.
“Suicide,” Lucifer said, slowly, enunciating each syllable.
“She wouldn’t—” Cam whispered.
“You think you know her? You don’t. And you don’t have a chance.” Lucifer glanced down at the desolate campus he had created. “And everyone—even all those silly kids down there—knows it but you.”
“Tell me what happened,” Cam said, hearing the tremor in his own voice. “When did she take her life? Why?”
“You have till the end of the day to forfeit,” Lucifer said, his eyes a wilderness of evil. “Otherwise? Things are about to get dirty.”
“For a change?” Cam asked.
The devil flashed him a dangerous look. “You’ll see.”
Cam paced the parking lot, waiting for the buses to arrive, for another day at Trumbull to begin. The devil’s warning had put him on edge.
He needed to see Lilith. He closed his eyes and tried to picture her walking to school, but all he could focus on was the suicide Lucifer had mentioned. When had she done it? Where?
Could Cam have been responsible?
From the moment he’d met Lilith, Cam had known there would be no way to disentangle her existence from his own. She was his one true love. If Cam had learned anything from Luce and Daniel, it was this: When you find that soul you cherished above all others, you do not let it go.
The high-pitched squeal of brakes announced the arrival of the school buses. When the yellow fleet had filled the circular drive, kids marched down their steps and flowed toward the school, just as they did every day. But something was different this morning. Something dark was in the air.
The students spoke in whispers, and when their eyes fell on Cam, they stiffened, they recoiled, they turned quickly away.
A girl he’d never seen spit as she walked past him. “How do you sleep at night, pig?!”
As more and more suspicious gazes fell on him, Cam’s wings began to burn within his shoulders. Lucifer had warned him that things would get ugly, but what exactly had the devil done?
He made it to homeroom a few minutes before the bell. There were only a few kids in the classroom, but all of them turned their backs toward him when Cam walked into the room.
A girl with long black hair and freckles glanced over her shoulder and scowled. “I can’t believe that monster was nominated for prom court!”
Cam ignored everyone, sat down, and waited for Lilith.
She walked in as the bell rang. Her hair was still wet, her clothes were wrinkled, and she was clutching a half-eaten apple. She wouldn’t look at Cam.
He waited fifty torturous minutes, then pulled her aside right after class.
“What?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s not my business who you were with before you knew me,” Lilith said, her eyes wet with tears. “But that girl killed herself.”
“What girl?” Cam asked.
“Why do I have to explain this to you?” Lilith said. “Have you been with more than one girl who killed herself?”
“Where are you getting this from?” Cam asked, though, of course, he didn’t have to ask. Lucifer must have whispered some trumped-up story into one kid’s ear, and now Cam was the school pariah.
“Everyone on my bus was talking about it this morning.” Lilith noted the glares aimed at Cam. “Seems like the whole school knows.”
“They don’t know anything,” Cam said. “But you do. You know me.”
“Tell me it isn’t true,” Lilith said. Cam could hear the pleading in her voice. “Tell me she didn’t kill herself because of what you did.”
Cam looked down at his boots. Lilith was in Crossroads because she’d killed herself, but had she killed herself because of Cam?
“It’s true,” he said, in agony. “She took her life.”
Lilith’s eyes widened, and she backed away. Cam understood that she hadn’t actually been expecting the truth.
“Is he harassing you again, Lilith?”
Cam turned to find Luc, his hair slicked back and perfectly coiffed. The devil took Lilith’s arm, flexing his bicep. “Shall we, gorgeous?”
“I’ll make it on my own.” Lilith pushed away from Luc, but she was looking at Cam as she spoke.
“Meaning,” Luc murmured as she turned away, “don’t follow her, Cam.”
Cam clenched his fists.
“Last chance to fold,” Lucifer said.
Cam shook his head in silent rage. As he watched Lilith walk away, he feared he’d finally lost her for good.
“It’s not all bad,” Luc said, and pulled a folded note from his back pocket. He handed it to Cam. “The principal will see you now.”