When I Look Up At The Stars

23 | scorpius

"Reasons that are valid enough," he mutters, disdainfully, "Angels simply sit back and watch as humans let darkness infiltrate this planet while," he scoffs gesturing to the people behind her, "humans like these, think they're some sort of heroes- swooping in, and locking away criminals. They don't need to do their job for us when they've got so much darkness in themselves."

"Are you even hearing yourself?" Stella whispers, peering up at him in disbelief, "They're ridding the planet of darkness, can't you see that?"

"Out of nearly eight billion people on their planet," Lucien says impassively after a beat, "A few thousand souls are pure light. The rest have all got darkness in them- a bit ironic that they're trying to act like they're the better than some others, is it not?"

He eyes the tip of her dagger that was pointed in his direction, before giving her a look- his eyes softening and the frown lines disappearing.

"I warned you against this descent, did I not?" he says, in a manner that was supposed to be gentle, "You should have listened to me when I told you to stay."

"You didn't warn me," Stella hisses lowly, "You told me you had a bad feeling-"

"-A bad feeling that I might have to fight you, yes," he interrupts breezily before she can finish, "I knew you would not understand my side, and I knew that you would make this a lot harder to get over with."

What he says next, however, confirms her worst suspicion.

"That human," he nods in the direction of Axel, "was supposed to be long dead, along with several others in this unit. The human under my instruction, however, seems to have successfully avoided any suspicion so far, hmm?"

Oh no.

"The other human under my brief instruction," Lucien's face scrunches in distaste as he continues, "the one who was assumed to be the intruder wound up dead- his bullet wasted on another. Pitiful."

And Stella can only stare at the angel in front of her, the one she had once considered her best friend, in disbelief.

It all starts to come back to her. The bits and pieces and strings of everything – and this time, it makes a lot more sense.

With the assistance of an angel, a human could turn invisible if they wanted to.

The traitor had remained undetected this whole time, because of the assistance of an angel. More specifically, Lucien.

And Lucien... she remembers how he had been furious when he had found out that Axel had lived. She remembers how he had been insistent on her not descending, and he had been even angrier, according to Rain, when he found out she had revealed herself to Axel.

But he hadn't descended. He had refused to, in fact.

Under the pretense of not wanting to be among humans, when really-

-he was trying to conceal the truth. The red eyes.

She had been naïve enough to think that everything he was doing, was because he was concerned for the way things would span out for her, but she had been so, so wrong.

Axel... he hadn't been disoriented for no reason, the day he was shot.

Lucien was messing with his head- just the way he was probably messing with hers all this time- making her miss out on the most obvious clues; the distinct treachery that lingered around him like dark wisps.