Cam leapt into the air, spreading his poor, feeble wings. All he needed to do was close the distance between himself and Lilith. She shrieked and scrambled backward, toward Lucifer and away from the expanding crater.
Cam landed at her feet. The end was coming. He would lose. He had not convinced her to love him again, so there was only one thing left to do.
He fell to his knees before the devil and raised his hands in supplication. “Take me.”
Lucifer smirked. “We shall be very busy.”
Cam shook his head. “Not as your second in command.”
Lucifer roared. “Our deal was clear.”
“This is a new deal,” Cam said, rising to shield Lilith as the stage shook beneath their feet and the lip of the crater approached his boots. It was nearly midnight. This was his last chance. “I stay down here in exile. I take her place in Hell, as your subject. And you set her free.”
“No!” Lilith shouted. She grabbed Cam by his jacket collar. “Why would you do that—sacrifice yourself for me?”
“I’d do anything for you.” Cam reached for her hand, amazed when she didn’t pull away.
The crowd’s screams grew deafening as the crater made by Cam’s tear reached into the audience, swallowing students by the dozen. But Cam couldn’t see them: The air had grown thick with smoke, and everything was cloudy and chaotic.
His heart raced. He had to hurry. “I’ll do whatever you want, go wherever you want me to go, suffer any punishment you want me to,” he said to Lucifer. “Only free Lilith from this Hell.”
As he spoke, he noticed a change in Lilith’s expression. Her features softened, and her eyes grew wide. Even when the walls around them stretched and twisted and started to cave in, Lilith didn’t take her eyes off Cam.
“You have changed,” Lilith said. “You have given me so much these past two weeks.”
“I should have given you more.” Cam reached for her, trying to find her hands through the thick, dark smoke.
“I’m not going to let you take my place here in Hell,” Lilith said. “Wherever you are is where I want to be.”
A well of tears fell from Cam’s eyes, streaming down his cheeks and burning away the world around them. He couldn’t have stopped them if he’d tried. “I love you, Lilith.”
“I love you, Cam.”
He embraced her as the crater grew and the stage disintegrated beneath them. Shrieks erupted from the audience as the thick walls of the new Colosseum shuddered and collapsed.
“What’s happening?” Lilith gasped.
“Hold on to me,” he said, gripping her tightly.
“Mom!” Lilith screamed in horror, gazing in the direction where the audience had been, though by then it was impossible to see her family, to see anything more than a few inches away. Her lungs filled with smoke, and she began to cough. “Bruce!”
Cam had no words for her loss. How could he explain that everyone Lilith knew was one of the devil’s pawns, that her freedom came at the price of losing them? He cupped her head and held her close.
“No!” she screamed and wept against his chest.
The Colosseum and the school beside it disappeared behind great plumes of smoke, the structures curling like burning paper. Moments later, everything around Cam and Lilith had been consumed. The world became a heap of ash that fluttered, then blew away.
The parking lot, the school, the desolate stand of carob trees marking the entrance to Rattlesnake Creek, the roads leading nowhere, the night sky that had inspired so many songs—all of it was on fire. The flames in the hills had closed in, encircling Cam and Lilith. The flames of Hell.
He focused on holding her tightly, shielding her from the sight and from the demons who flew overhead in a frenzied mass of golden wings.
A flash of silver entered Cam’s vision. Arriane swooped before him, her glamorous iridescent wings as bright as starlight.
“Arriane!” Cam called out. “I thought you’d gone.”
“Abandon you in the final moments?” Arriane said. “Never.”
“Glorious,” Lilith whispered at the sight of Arriane’s wings. “You’re an angel.”
“At your service.” Arriane grinned and bowed. “Cambriel, you pulled it off. With a little help.” She nudged Lilith. “You guys smoked it.”
Cam held Lilith closer. “I let you go in Canaan. It was my biggest mistake, bigger than joining Lucifer’s ranks. Losing your love is my only regret.”
“And finding your love is my redemption,” Lilith said. She touched his chest, his face. “I don’t care what you look like. You’re beautiful to me.”
“Touching,” Lucifer said, swooping above them, flames licking the backs of his wings. “Touching nonsense.”
Cam shouted up at Lucifer. “We fulfilled your terms! She loves me. I love her. We have earned our freedom.”
The devil was silent, and Cam noticed something strange: his wings looked thin, almost translucent. Through their fibers, Cam could see the twisting flames behind him.