T
hat horrid bad tequila and jalapenos feeling in the pit of my stomach was back, and it didn’t matter what Aeron, Dice, or Leif said to me. Dice and Leif came back around dinner, and we were back at the picnic table. We weren’t getting a pig roast again, but there was some sort of stew. Dice said it was rabbit. I’d never had rabbit before, but it wasn’t half bad, even if it was light on the meat. There were plenty of potatoes and vegetables to fill me up.
“We aren’t going to die, Ariel,” Dice said.
“It’s true,” Leif said. “We might have if Isaiah had wiped your memories and kept you in D.C. with him to warn him we were coming, but he made a massive mistake keeping you in that coma trying to tweak the Rage Mutation. I hate to say this because both scenarios are awful, but if he wanted to make absolutely sure that painting was going to come true, he should have wiped your memories and pretended like you didn’t know him so you would help him.”
That just made me feel even worse. Either situation was fucked up, but it would have been even worse if I had been back with him helping him because I couldn’t remember. Would it have even gone down like that? He couldn’t pretend around me forever. He’d have some sort of meltdown about something, and I’d see him for what he was. Even if I didn’t remember who he was, I’d know he was a bad person.
It would have been like growing up with him all over again, except now he was President and had men with guns doing his bidding. He had my fear and that padded room when I was growing up, but he wasn’t above letting every single one of those men rape me just to keep me in line.
I let out a shaky breath.
“Guys, this is the shittiest pep talk you’ve given me so far.”
I was suddenly enveloped in some massive three-part Horseman hug, and they were squeezing me so tight, I almost couldn’t breathe.
“How can we make it better, Speedy?” Dice asked.
“I have no idea. You all say my paintings always come true. I know it makes sense that I later drew us winning because of the decisions we all made, but I don’t know how all this works. What if we do something or Isaiah does something that makes the first drawing come true?”
I pressed my face into Leif’s chest, but he pulled back a little and tilted my chin up to look him in the eye.
“Ariel, do you have a clear memory of the first drawing?”
“I wish I could forget it. Satan is horrible.”
“I know. Forget him. Were you anywhere in that drawing?”
“No, I wasn’t. The Oval Office was totally trashed. There were walls completely smashed through, and it broke all the windows. The furniture was all totally destroyed. There were four men dead on the floor. I knew they were angels because their wings had been ripped off and were scattered around the room.
“I knew this was why he had built that padded room and locked me in there, but I didn’t want to draw anything else that could help him make it happen. I started plotting to run after that. I started stealing things Isaiah wouldn’t miss, but people would pay a lot of money for at school. I built up a little nest egg and ran when he couldn’t watch me. I was in gym class and said I really had to go to the bathroom. I grabbed my gym bag out of my locker, put a hoodie on, and walked to the bus station. I was terrified, but I got away.”
“Don’t you see, Ariel? If you hadn’t run, we would never have gotten close to you. We wouldn’t have your blood to create the vaccine or the kill serum. Things would have been totally different when we confronted Isaiah. We wouldn’t have waited to take him out because we were trying to find you. Isaiah would be the one with a Harbinger in his pocket, not us. You running changed everything!” Leif said.
“No way. You’re full of shit, Leif. I didn’t change the entire fate of the world because I ran away.”
Dice spun me around and looked me dead in the eye.
“Not alone, but you set things in motion. Isaiah made decisions too that sealed his fate, as did all of us. Isaiah saw your drawing and assumed he had already won, so he didn’t look for you and bring you back home. Aeron and Leif could have left you in peace since you didn’t live with him, and everything on paper said you were estranged from him. They decided to get close to you, and that brought you to us. Fuck, even Satan himself, made some grave decisions. He followed Isaiah’s lead when he was summoned because they were both going off your first drawing. It’s kind of beautiful if you think about it. A huge fuck you to both of them after what they did to you.”
I was perking up a little bit and feeling slightly better. I dragged my toe on the ground and bit my lip. I was totally acting like a child, but this was all a little too much.
“Did I really fuck over Satan?” I pouted.
The pep talk totally changed gears. They were all enthusiastically nodding their heads.
“Totally,” Leif said.
“You ruined centuries of planning, Speedy,” Aeron said.
Dice just cracked up laughing.
“I’d love to see ol’ Lucifer’s face when Isaiah gets sent straight to Hell, and he realizes he didn’t win after all this shit.”
Aeron started giggling.
“Oh, my god, he’s going to have one of his meltdowns. I’d pay good money to watch that if you could get Satan Meltdowns on pay per view.”
Leif let out a belly laugh.
“If you think Isaiah can pitch a tantrum like a toddler, he’s got nothing on Satan. Speedy, if it makes you feel any better, Satan is going to blame Isaiah for this going ass up at the last minute. Hell is not a pleasant place, especially if Satan has a personal beef with you. He won’t care Isaiah is his son. We’re talking eternal torture here.”
I broke into a gigantic smile. Shitty mood? Totally gone. I was still thinking about all the scenarios where things could go wrong in the Oval Office, but when you found out you personally fucked over Satan himself and your stupid father had some eternal torture coming his way, you just had to smile.
“Thanks, guys. We should totally celebrate fucking over Satan.”
All three angels broke into grins. That was what I loved about them. Whatever came out of my mouth, they’d be totally up for it, no matter how insane it was.
“What did you have in mind, Speedy?” Leif asked.
I wasn’t in the mood for crazy unless you counted taking on three naked angels totally insane, but no one who knew me could say I had a sane bone in my body. I was always fucking up and doing stupid shit. But hey, I did at least two things right. I got away from my father and trusted Aeron and Leif after I got to know them.
I gave them an evil grin.
“All of us, naked and together.”
They started dragging me towards the hotel. Yeah, always up for anything.