1873
The thieves lay in pieces in front of Priscilla's small house. I kicked at a loose limb, watching the leg roll away, detached from the body. I smirked because I thought it was funny; the shoe had begun to slip off, revealing a heel with a tattered sock. The thief needed to steal socks, not target young women at night.
"You killed them."
I snapped around at the sound of Priscilla's voice. She didn't look afraid, though I thought she should've been. There were three dead men in front of her door. Two of them were scattered around the third. As I looked at her, at her light, I stepped back, glancing at my hands. It was the first time I thought of my actions—had I gone too far? Should I have killed them? Was tearing them limb from limb necessary?
Was her presence making me question myself?
"You killed them to protect me." Priscilla touched her lips before looking at my face with her bright eyes. "I never thought that would be an option for anyone."
It wasn't an option. At least, not for most mortals. Most would plead with God when horrible thoughts filled their heads. The few who killed did it with pleasure or rage, and few of those repented. I wasn't the Sin to bring about death, but I inflicted it out of necessity. And at times, out of joy,
Should I repent? No, I was a sin. I should relish this moment,
"What will we do when my father returns?" Priscilla extended her hand for me to follow her back inside the house. "How can we clean up such a mess?"
A gentle energy pulsated from her fingertips. I looked down at her nails and delicate wrist, before reaching for her hand. The moment we touched, she pressed her fingers between mine.
"I just killed three men," I whispered as I stepped inside her home and watched as she latched the door behind me, "and you aren't frightened."
"No." Priscilla licked her lips. "I have seen men do worse with no reason behind the action. You, Octavio, are a man with morals, even if they are unconventional. You did what you could to save me, protect me, and I find that honorable."
Again with her purity, her innocence. I felt it in rays, pushing off her like the waves on the ocean.
"I'm just unsure of what to do..." Taking a deep breath, Priscilla placed both hands on her lips. Her brows knitted together with worry. The same urge to protect her came over me. I didn't want her to be upset and riddled with fear. A beautiful soul like hers was born to be happy. Alive.
And yet... I still had to kill her.
Would there be a way I could skip my assignment and let her live?
"What if we run?" Her eyes snapped up to meet my gaze. "We can't stay here with the bodies; there is too much blood to clean. The animals would have smelled it by now. There are wolves out there." She bit her lip. "We can run to protect ourselves and find a way from this crime."
Before I could say a word, even agree or decline, Priscilla grabbed my hand again. She hurried over to her shoes and slipped on both feet without letting me go. Then she glanced out the front window as if looking for someone. All the rapid movement caused her curls to fall in front of her face. With her mouth opened with excitement, nervousness, fear, or a combination of the three, she pulled strands of hair from her mouth.
"Let us run so I can protect you, too, Octavio," her quick footsteps put her against my chest, "and we can keep each other's secrets."
Each other's secrets? Mine ran deeper than the murder of three dishonorable men. And they were words I vowed to never utter in front of a mortal unless I planned to kill them. But as Priscilla's breasts pressed up against my chest, and her bright eyes held my gaze, I didn't want to kill her. I wanted to run with her, hide with her, and have her, love her, keep her... if she let me.
"All right," I whispered, cupping her cheek, "where to?"
***
Fuckin' demons...
My heart pounded in my chest as adrenaline began to slip away. I'd slid onto my knees with Greed's bloodied body partially on my lap. I couldn't tell if the red on me was mine or his, but at this rate, it didn't matter; he was dead, and I was hurt. Bad.
Looking down at my trembling fingers, I opened and closed them twice to ensure I was still alive. Everything hurt, but I knew that didn't matter. This man did. This stranger with a demon pistol I'd never seen and the fact that he knew what we were.
Fuckin' demons...
The man looked at the ice on the floor, stomping so it crunched on his feet. He shook his boot with a scowl because Greed's cold stuck to his heel. For a second, he turned back to glance at me, and we locked eyes.
Dark skin with matching eyes. A glare that could scare any mortal. A triangle and star tattoo sat on his right temple, bold and thick like a scar. And under his long trench coat, I could tell there was more than muscles and strength; he had to have more guns, right?
"Priscilla!" The man pocketed his Sin-killing pistol. I tried to spot others, but his coat flipped quickly, and I couldn't see anything but the shimmering gold of his belt. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to stand as he stepped deeper into the apartment. "Priscilla, come out!" he shouted.
He's dangerous, Octavio.
"Wait—" Taking a breath ripped through me. Shit. I couldn't remember the last time I felt this way. Maybe when I was mortal and on my deathbed. Wrath and Lust did push me to the brink of death, and Greed added to it. As the thrill of the fight faded, I could only focus on now.
But now was this guy and the fact that he knew Priscilla. The fact that he knew demons and had a gun just for us. I'd never heard of him or anything like this before.
Reaching forward, my bloody hands reached for his sleeve. "Hey, wait," I hissed.
He stopped, eyes passing over me. "You're bleeding. You should probably get that taken care of," he said. "And I'd like it if you didn't touch me, thank you."
I was bleeding. That was fucking obvious. But there wasn't somewhere where I could get looked at. An injured Sin returned to the temple for things like this, but those from the temple did this to me.
Sucking in a deep breath, I looked over my chest. The shirt Priscilla had given me was tattered and ripped, the bandages underneath exposed. Red soaked through both sides; with Greed's powers remaining around parts of my skin, I looked like a snow cone covered in raspberry syrup.
This wasn't a good look. Not for me. And my diagnosis had to be worse.
The man cupped his hands over his mouth. "Priscilla, ten seconds!"
The door to the room opened quickly. Priscilla let her head peak out first before the rest of her followed. Her arms were wrapped around her, her phone still in one hand. Her eyes passed over the damaged, icy floor before falling on the man in front of her. "Gabriel," she whispered with a weak smile.
Gabriel, the guy she knows, huh?
Then her gaze panned over to me, and that smile faded. Her phone fell from her grasp as she slipped on the ice, hurrying over to me. She cupped my face while looking over my body. The amount of fear and worry on her face both warmed and hurt me. I was happy she cared, but I never wanted her to be afraid, not with me. "Oh my God, are you okay? This happened because what?" Her eyes slid up to my face. "Because of me? Did he come for me?" She looked back at Gabriel. "He came for me, didn't he?"
"What?" I whispered. Greed didn't come for her. He came for me. But that fact that she believed she was a target was a possibility meant that she knew what Greed was; and if not exactly what he was, she had a pretty damn close idea.
Which made me worry... if she knew who I was, and what I was.
"He didn't come for you." Gabriel passed his hand over his low fade and sighed. That hand then slid away, pointing at me as he sucked his teeth. "That demon came for him."
I blinked. Shit. If she didn't know before, she knew now. And there was no getting out of this, was there?
There goes your chance, Octavio. Some things aren't meant to be.
"What?" Priscilla looked back at me and frowned. Despite what Gabriel told her, that didn't stop her from touching my face. The concern didn't fade; she was hurting as she looked at me. I felt it in her touch, in her aura. I wanted to tell her everything was fine, but judging by the state of her apartment, it wasn't, nor would it be.
"Are you a pure soul, too?" she whispered.
My brows shot up high. She knew what she was in the realm. She knew about her soul. And that was why she thought Greed came to kill her. "I, um—" How could I tell her it was the other way around? He came to kill me because I didn't kill her; that's what I was sent to do.
"No, Priscilla, he isn't a soul." Gabriel scratched the side of his face as he came close to us. "He hasn't been for a long time, and because of it," he eyed her before clenching his jaw, "I need to get you out of here and away from him."
I didn't blame him. It'd only been a few hours, and not only had I failed my mission, my whole 'I can protect her,' thought process was crumbling miserably. Being next to her was putting her in more danger. First, it was Wrath and Lust, then Greed. At this point, Sloth was probably sent to kill me, and with how he moved, she and Gabriel had time to escape.
Her eyes widened as she looked back at me. "You're a demon?" she whispered. "The demon?"
"I don't...." I sputtered. I didn't know what 'the demon' meant, but I could only assume she knew much more than I thought. Was this what she meant by she had secrets, too?
"Priscilla," Gabriel's hand reached for her arm, "I don't want you to think about the stories I told you. I need you to think about yourself, your soul, and the life you have left. So can we—"
"If you didn't want me to know, then you shouldn't have told me all of it," she hissed, then looked back at me. "You're Envy, aren't you, Octavio? You're the demon from my dreams." She bit her lip and stepped back. "You are. Oh, shit, well, this is embarrassing."
Embarrassing because she wanted to fuck me?
I gulped. My heart plummeted into my chest. Parts of me felt numb, and I wasn't sure if it was because of the amount of blood I was losing or the fact that I was more shocked than I thought demonly possible.
Moving my gaze away from her and onto Gabriel, his name alone only made me think he was one thing. One person. And not someone I should have met in my immortal life.
We said he was dangerous, Octavio.
"You're an angel, aren't you?" I asked. And if he said yes, that explained why I couldn't read him like an open book.
"Yup," he said, brows lifted. That was all I needed to know. And enough for me to leave.
My heartbeat slowed. As did my breathing. The edges of my vision blurred red for a moment, and I knew, more than ever, that it was time for me to leave. Not only would it be to protect Priscilla, but it would also be to try and save myself. I wasn't sure how I'd do it; more bandages could do the trick. But with the amount of blood I lost, the gaping wounds under my clothes—or lack thereof—I needed to do something.
Still touching my face, Priscilla looked back at Gabriel. "If he's Envy, you need to help him, right? You did before. You might as well do it again."
Fuck me. He did what? An angel did what?
"No." Gabriel bit his bottom lip as he shook his head. "For the last twenty-three years, my responsibility has been you and only you. Babysitting a rebellious sit isn't on my to-do list."
"But he was going to protect me!" she whined, turning so her back was to my chest. "He killed that demon to keep me safe!"
"Correction." He shook his head again. "I killed the demon. And from my point of view, it didn't look like he was trying to protect you," a disapproving gaze slid in my direction, "he was trying to fuck you."
Priscilla gasped. I held my breath. If he knew all of that was going on—not that it would've gotten that far—then he must've known Greed was close by. He let Greed attack the building.
"He wasn't, he—were you watching me?" Priscilla's hands formed fists at her side. "That's an invasion of my privacy!"
"Not when it's a Sin with you. My job is to keep you from them!"
"But not him!" Her hand shot back to reach mine. I flinched because this wasn't like earlier in the day. I was covered in blood. The last thing I needed was for her to get my blood on her... again. "You're the one who told me the story, so you will protect him as you protect me, and I'm not taking no for an answer."
Everything happens for a reason, Octavio.
At this point, I didn't know what was going on. There seemed to be a lot of information going around about me, and I was unaware of them. I had no clue what story she'd been told and why she looked at me like I wasn't an issue. When she asked if I was Envy, her eyes showed a glimmer of hope. I was a demon; I was meant to be feared.
Gabriel leaned back, brows lifted. The look of irritation on his face matched his voice, "You don't even know him."
"No. Yes. No." Priscilla pressed a hand against her cheek. "I don't, but I do, and you know I do." She pointed at him. "So, either protect us as a duo or the plan you and the demon had gone up in flames."
Oh, fuck me. What else was there? Standing behind her still, I wasn't sure what to do. But I wasn't one to sit back and let confusion control me.
Gently placing my hand on her shoulder, I pulled her back to look at Gabriel. I exhaled sharply through my nose. "I don't know what's going on, but what's this plan, and who's the demon?"
Gluttony warned me not to take this assignment. I felt like he knew more than what he was willing to share and somehow was connected to this angel.
As much as I wished I listened to him, I was glad I didn't.
Gabriel hissed as he motioned toward the broken door. "I'll explain what I can in the car, but we need to go," he said, looking at Priscilla and me, "If the demons don't come, the cops will, and there's no normal way to explain," he motioned and gestured at the mess and destruction in the apartment and out in the hall, "this."