29. Twenty-Nine

Lucifer is dying. 

He knows he’s dying. He can feel it. The steady creep of cold through his veins. How hard it’s suddenly become to inhale and exhale. The darkness hovering at the edges of his vision. 

He thinks of another night, another death, and remembers how he prayed. He’s been praying since the moment he knew something was wrong in Los Angeles, but he’s yet to receive an answer. He prays again anyway. 

Protect Chloe. Please. 

“Lucifer,” the Detective calls. He can hear the panic in her voice, and it makes him ache. He never wanted to hurt her like this. He doesn’t want to leave her. Why does he have to leave her?

“Lucifer, look at me. Look at me, babe.”

He opens his eyes. She’s hovering over him. She smiles, but there’s no joy in it. The same panic that was threaded through her voice is dark in her eyes. She brushes her hand through his hair and he’s tempted to close his eyes again. He loves the feel of her fingers in his hair. 

Cause it’s witchcraft, Sinatra croons in the back of his mind. Wicked witchcraft. 

He wants to sing it to her, but he can’t seem to find his voice. He wishes he would’ve sang it to her earlier. He wishes he would’ve done a lot of things earlier. They could have had so much more time together if he hadn’t been such a bloody fool. 

She leans toward him. “You can’t go, okay?” she whispers. “I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”

Guilt sparks in his chest and spreads like wildfire. He thinks of Vegas. 

You’re just going to keep doing this, aren’t you? Leaving me. Breaking my heart. 

He wants to tell her that he’s sorry for leaving her again, for breaking her heart again, but the words die on his lips because they’re not enough. He’s not enough. He never has been. He gave her everything he had and loved her with every inch of his dark and tattered soul, but it wasn’t enough. They’re going to lose each other. 

The chain of the necklace he gave her in Denver is dangling between them. His eye catches on the ring, and he lifts his hand as steadily as he can to grab it. He wants to ask her to promise him that she’ll never take it off, but he hates the idea of her spending the rest of her life mourning him. She deserves so much more than that. 

“Time’s up, love,” he tells her quietly. Her eyes are filled with tears, and the guilt intensifies in his chest. “I’m glad it’s me,” he murmurs, wanting to remind her that it’s better this way. “The world needs you. The urchin needs you.”

She sobs, and he aches. He doesn’t want her to cry. He knows it’s unavoidable. She loves him too much, and she feels things too deeply. But he doesn’t want to cause her pain. 

“Don’t cry,” he murmurs, brushing his fingertips over her tear stained cheeks. “No more crying for the Devil.”

“You promised you’d come back,” she says, her voice trembling. “You said you’d always come back, remember? So when you get down there, if you end up in a loop, you walk right back out. You hear me? Remember what’s real and walk out. Come back to me.”

He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t know how to leave his loop. He doesn’t tell her that even if he does figure it out, he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to make it back to her. His wings are gone, and his prayers for help have all gone unanswered. 

He brushes his thumb along her jaw and tells her the truth instead. “I love you.”

“Promise me, Lucifer,” she says, reaching up to curl her fingers around his wrist. “Promise me you’ll walk out of your loop. Give me your word.”

He doesn’t lie. He never lies. But is it a lie to promise that he’ll try? Because he will. He’ll fight like hell to get back to her, loops and Michael and demons be damned. 

“Promise,” he whispers.

She scoots closer to him. He tries to stroke his thumb over her cheek, but his arm feels heavy. He can’t hold it up anymore. It drops to his chest, and she immediately reaches out to weave her fingers through his. He squeezes her fingers and tries not to think about how this is the last time he’ll get to hold her hand.  

“I love you,” he whispers. He pushes the encroaching darkness away and focuses on her face, on the blue of her eyes, on everything she is and everything she’s given him. “First and last and everything in between. Heart and soul.”

She leans forward to press her forehead against his. “I love you too,” she whispers. She kisses him gently. “Heart and soul.”

He can’t hold the darkness back anymore. He breathes her in one last time, and then death devours him whole.

Lucifer is standing in Lux.

Or, at least, he thinks it’s Lux. The layout is the same. The staircases are still there, and the booths, and the sunken floor in the middle where his piano used to sit and where clubgoers used to dance. But the televisions are gone, and so is most of the decor, including the brightly lit sign proclaiming the club’s name. There’s a raised platform where the bar used to be. And centered in the middle of the platform are two of the largest, most ostentatious thrones Lucifer has ever seen. 

Michael is sitting on the throne on the left. He’s dressed the way he’s always dressed, which is terribly. He’s holding a glass filled with clear liquid. He’s alone, but he’s smirking. Even when he lifts the glass to his lips to take a sip, he continues to smirk. 

Lucifer’s blood boils at the sight of his twin. He tries to stride toward him, desperate to make his brother bleed, but finds that his feet are rooted to the ground. He can’t move. He frowns down at his shoes, trying with all his might to peel them off the floor, but he can’t. 

He’s stuck. 

He looks up at Michael with a glare. “What have you done to me, you insufferable twat?” 

But Michael doesn’t acknowledge him. He just glances at his watch, and smirks a little deeper, and then sips his drink. 

Lucifer curls his hands into fists and summons his light, because even if he can’t move, he can at least do that. He’s going to burn his brother alive, slowly and painfully, and he’s going to revel in the screams.

But nothing happens. His hands remain cold and unlit. There’s no fire coursing through his veins. No heat thrumming just beneath the surface of his skin. 

Lucifer frowns down at his palms, confused. What happened to his light?

The memories come one right after another, like the staccato fire of a machine gun. The warehouse in New York. The Detective, chained to a pole with a Hell-forged knife at her throat. The sudden realization of what he had to do. The bereft feeling that enveloped his soul when he gave up his light for her, followed by the absolute certainty that he’d done the right thing as he knelt before her. Michael cutting off his wings, beating him and berating him, and then going in for the kill. The Detective, ablaze with glory and then awash in grief, holding him in her arms as he bled out and died.

He died.

He’s in Hell. 

He looks around with a new understanding of his surroundings. Honestly, he’s surprised. He didn’t expect to be in Lux. He knew he wouldn’t find himself in a repeat of his loop with Uriel. That guilt has been dealt with, and there’s nothing left of it but a scar on his soul. He knows if he’d died a week earlier, he would have found himself at that beach in Los Angeles, watching the Detective leave her child. But that’s been dealt with too. It’s another scar instead of an open wound. The Detective made sure of that.

So then what is this? Why is he here? He’s never been in Lux when it looked like this. He’s never seen Michael on a throne. How can he feel guilty over something that’s never happened?

Michael sets his glass down on the arm of his throne with a thud. Lucifer looks up. Michael’s smirk has deepened, and his eyes are focused on the staircase to Lucifer’s right. 

“Well there you are,” he says. “About time. You know I hate it when you’re late.”

Lucifer frowns, but before he can express his confusion, he hears a voice that stops him cold. 

“I don’t care what you hate.”

Lucifer knows, even without turning around, who that voice belongs to. He dreams about that voice. He loves that voice. 

He twists toward the stairs as best he can since his feet are still rooted to the ground, and cranes his neck to look toward the top of the staircase. If he was still alive, he knows his heart would be flipping in his chest because of what he sees. 

The Detective is descending the staircase. 

And she looks stunning.  

She’s wearing a dress. It’s black, and though the neckline is high and demure, the back plunges low enough to show off a considerable amount of skin. Her hair is shorter, just long enough to brush her shoulders. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, Lucifer’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. Her feet are encased in sky-high, black stiletto heels that make her legs go on for miles.  

“Detective?” he sputters. 

She doesn’t answer him. In fact, she walks right past him without so much as a glance. He’s too stunned by it all—by his remodeled club and his brother on a throne and the love of his life dressed to the nines—to reach out and grab her.

He watches as she crosses the club and then comes to a stop at the bottom of the platform. Michael rises to his feet and descends the stairs slowly. When he stops in front of her, his eyes trail over her body in a possessive way that Lucifer loathes. He calls on his light again, desperate to summon it back into his body, but nothing happens. His feet still won’t budge. He can’t move and he can’t fight and no one in the loop is acknowledging him. 

A few yards in front of him, Michael and the Detective are staring each other down. She folds her hands in front of her the way she does at crime scenes, and then tips her head back to look up at him in what appears to be defiance. Michael grins wolfishly at her, and then reaches out and twines a strand of her hair through his fingers. 

The Detective stiffens, but she doesn’t shove his hand away or step back. Jealousy oozes through Lucifer’s veins, thick and toxic.

“Now that’s no way to talk to your king, is it?” Michael purrs, leaning forward. 

There’s hatred written plainly across the Detective’s face, but she doesn’t contradict him. Her silence makes Lucifer nauseous. This isn’t the woman he knows, the one who so readily went toe to toe with his family at dinner. She looks fierce and resentful, but there’s something brittle about her defiance. Something weary. 

Michael drops his hand from her hair and traces his fingertips over her bare shoulder. She tenses again but still doesn’t recoil. 

“You look beautiful, by the way,” Michael says, running his hand down her arm. “The black was an excellent choice.”

The Detective shakes her head. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Michael smiles. “Well you could have chosen the red one, right?”

A memory floats across Lucifer’s mind. The Detective in a red dress at the opera, smiling up at him with affection in her eyes. 

“Detective,” Lucifer calls. If he could just get to her, if he could intervene and protect her from his brother, then he might be able to identify a way out of here. But he can’t. He’s stuck.

The Detective doesn’t turn to look at him when he calls her name. She shrugs away from Michael’s hand and takes a small step backward. 

“Why am I here, Michael? We agreed I don’t have to be present for your executions anymore.”

“Do you have something better to do?”

“Yeah, actually. Lots of things.” 

“Oh, of course,” Michael says with a sneer. “Your little pet project with the orphans.”

“They’re only orphans because of you.”

The accusation sparks like a match between them, and suddenly the air is thrumming with tension. The Detective doesn’t appear to regret what she said, but Lucifer can tell by the way her shoulders straighten that she’s readying herself for a fight.

Michael leans forward, looming over her like a predator that’s cornered his prey and has decided to play with it before devouring it. 

“Careful, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You hold a privileged place in this court, but I’m still your king. Now and always.”

They stare each other down. Lucifer glances between them, confused and furious and jealous, and then a commotion tears his gaze away. He glances up just in time to see a pack of men descending the stairs. They’re jostling and shoving each other, cackling about something like a group of adolescents, but Lucifer doesn’t get a chance to figure out what they’re discussing. He’s too distracted by the girl walking down the stairs behind them. 

Beatrice. 

She looks older. He can’t say for sure how much older, but she’s definitely not the same age she was the last time he saw her. She’s taller, and starting to look more like a young woman than a child. Her dark hair is streaked with purple, her ears are studded with several earrings, and she appears to have a tattoo snaking up her left forearm. There’s a backpack slung over her shoulder, and her nose is buried in her phone. 

The pack of men continue toward the booths, but the Detective’s offspring stops near the bottom of the stairs. She’s only a few feet away from Lucifer. 

“Beatrice?” he breathes, still staring at her in wonder. He doesn’t understand. He’s never seen her like this before. Why is she in his loop? What’s happening?

Beatrice doesn’t look at him. She keeps her eyes glued to her phone, her fingers flying over the screen, and then the Detective appears in front of her. 

Her proximity fills Lucifer with a new sense of desperation. He leans toward her, as close as his stuck feet will allow, and inhales. She smells the same. Like her shampoo and her perfume and something else, something he can’t name. He just knows it’s her. This is her.

It’s not, a voice disputes in his head. That’s not her.  

But it is. She’s right there, just a few feet away, and if he could just reach out and touch her, if he could hold her in his arms and breathe her in, then everything would be okay. The loop would fade. He knows it.

“Chloe,” he whispers, his hand outstretched. “Look at me, love.”

But she doesn’t look at him. 

“Hey, monkey,” she says. She’s smiling, but it seems hesitant. Like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to smile, or maybe like she expects that she won’t be smiling for very long. 

Beatrice doesn’t even look up, let alone return her mother’s smile. “Hey.”

“How was school?”

“Fine.”

“Your algebra test go okay?”

“Yeah.”

Pride flickers in the Detective’s eyes. “You aced it, didn’t you?”

“Mhmm.”

“What about—”

“Can we not do this?” Beatrice cuts her off, finally looking up from her phone. 

Hurt shivers across the Detective’s face. “Do what?” 

Beatrice gestures at her. “This thing where you act like you care about me.”

The hurt written across the Detective’s face deepens. “I do care about you. I love you.”

She reaches out to touch her daughter’s arm, but Beatrice yanks out of her grasp. “Don’t touch me.”

The Detective presses her lips together. They stand in silence for a moment, staring at each other, and then the Detective takes a deep breath. 

“You’re the most important person in the world to me, Trix. You know that.”

“Yeah?” Beatrice says. “Then why’d you marry him when I asked you not to?”

She jerks her chin in Michael’s direction, and Lucifer feels like someone has shoved a white-hot knife straight through his chest. 

“No,” he whispers. 

His eyes flicker down to the Detective’s left hand and, sure enough, there’s a massive diamond ring on her fourth finger. He glances up, but the ring he gave her in Denver is no longer around her neck. It’s gone.

He feels like the floor has fallen out from under his feet. Dark spots dance across his vision. His stomach lurches. He’s going to be sick.

“Married? ” he croaks. 

Neither of the Decker women look his way. The Detective glances over her shoulder toward Michael instead. He’s talking to the group of men by the booths, but his eyes are fixed on her. He’s watching her, but there’s no affection in his eyes. It’s just possessiveness. The way a greedy child would look at a shiny toy.

“I had to,” the Detective says quietly, turning back to Beatrice. There’s desperation drenching her voice. “It was the only way I could—”

“Keep me safe,” Beatrice snaps. “Yeah, so I’ve heard. But it didn’t help Linda or Ella, did it? They’re dead and you don’t even care.”

Dead, a voice taunts in the back of Lucifer’s mind. Dead dead dead. 

The Detective looks devastated. “Trixie,” she breathes. “If there was something I could have done—”

“There was something,” Beatrice interrupts angrily. “We could’ve run with Dad. We should’ve run with Dad. Living on the streets would have been better than this. Hell, I would’ve preferred death over this.”

The Detective shakes her head. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I do. I hate you for making us live like this. And you know what? I think you hate yourself for it too.”

The Detective doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. Lucifer can see the tears sitting in her eyes. He wants to shout at Beatrice, he wants to kill Michael, he wants to burn this horrific version of Lux to the ground and the entire loop with it. But he stands, helpless, and does nothing. 

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you,” the Detective says quietly. “Someday you’ll understand that.”

“That’s what you said about leaving me at the beach,” Beatrice spits at her. “I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.”

She gives her mother a disgusted once-over, and then turns around and marches back up the stairs. The Detective watches her go, her eyes brimming with tears, and the agony on her face makes something inside of Lucifer shatter. 

“Let’s go, Chloe,” Michael calls, heading for his throne. “You’ve kept me waiting long enough.”

Lucifer watches as the Detective takes a deep breath, swipes at her eyes, and then turns back to Michael. 

“Chloe,” Lucifer murmurs, trying to grab her hand as she passes. “Chloe, look at me.” 

But she’s just out of his reach. He can’t get to her. 

Michael reclaims his throne. Lucifer watches as the Detective climbs the steps up to the platform and takes a seat on the other throne. Michael grins at her, but she doesn’t return his gaze. She crosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap and lifts her chin, and Lucifer hates to admit it, but she looks every inch a queen. 

“Bring him in,” Michael commands. 

There’s another commotion. Two men appear at the top of the stairs. Lucifer doesn’t recognize them, but he knows they’re demons. He can see it in their eyes, a dark glint that speaks of evil intent. Sandwiched between them is a man with a dark hood covering his face. He’s dressed in all black. His arms, which are covered in intricate tattoos, are chained behind his back. 

When the trio gets to the bottom of the stairs, the man in the middle plants his feet. The men on either side of him set their jaws and yank him forward, frog-marching him across the club. Once they’re standing before the thrones, they force him down onto his knees. The chains clank loudly against the floor as he hits the ground and then bows his head and doesn’t move. 

“It’s a special day, my love,” Michael says, glancing at the Detective. 

Lucifer burns with hatred at his use of the pet name. He wonders if the Detective is angry too, but she doesn’t react. She appears to be staring at the wall on the opposite side of the club. 

“Why’s that?” she says, sounding bored. 

“Well because I finally captured the leader of the resistance.”

That catches the Detective’s attention. She snaps her head in Michael’s direction, her mouth falling open, and then her gaze turns to the hooded man kneeling before her. She catches herself almost immediately, though, and the surprise evaporates from her expression.

“You’ve said that before,” she says evenly. “But it’s never been true.”

Michael leans toward her, a predatory glint in his eye. “Oh, but this time I’m sure. You want to know how?”

The Detective meets his gaze head on. “Not really.” 

Michael stares at her for a moment like he’s searching for a weakness, but he doesn’t appear to find one. He rises from his throne. The Detective glances at the hooded figure briefly, and then refocuses on the far wall.

“The leader of the resistance has proven to be very dangerous,” Michael says, eyeing the hooded man. “He’s damaged my property and incited riots and caused chaos in my streets. He breeds discontent and discord among my subjects. But despite my considerable resources, he’s always been one step ahead of me. It’s almost like he has an inside man feeding him intel.”

He turns toward the Detective. “Or, perhaps, an inside woman.”

The Detective’s face remains impassive. She doesn’t look at him. When Michael descends the stairs and stops next to the kneeling man, though, she flicks her gaze toward them. 

Michael turns to face her and grins. “Today’s a special day, my love. Because I finally captured the leader of the resistance. And as it turns out, you two know each other very well.”

Michael yanks the hood off, and Lucifer’s jaw nearly hits the floor when he sees who’s kneeling at Michael’s feet. 

Daniel. 

Just like his daughter, Daniel looks older. There are specks of gray sprinkled in the facial hair adorning his jaw. He looks thinner, more lean and wiry than the muscular man Lucifer remembers. And it’s not just his arms that have tattoos. There’s ink snaking around his neck too, criss-crossing in patterns that disappear down the collar of his shirt. 

Despite the fact that he’s kneeling before an angel, he doesn’t look frightened. In fact, he doesn’t even spare a glance at Michael or at the group of demons who are sitting and watching from the corner booths. He just fixes his eyes on the Detective, and a faint smile tugs at the corner of his lips. 

“Hey Chlo,” he murmurs. 

She meets his gaze, but she doesn’t smile and she doesn’t return his greeting. There’s fear in her eyes.

“You know, maybe you were right earlier,” Michael says, walking slowly up the stairs toward the Detective. The hood is still fisted in his hand. “Maybe I should give you more choices. Let you exercise your free will.” 

He says free will like it’s a curse. He gestures at one of the men who have been silently watching, and the man gets to his feet and scurries away. Lucifer glances after him. He disappears into what used to be a storage room.

Michael stops in front of the Detective and throws the hood at her feet. She tilts her head back and glares up at him. Michael’s sneer turns into a snarl. He wraps his hand around her arm and yanks her off her throne. She stumbles to her feet, her eyes flashing angrily, but she doesn’t pull free of Michael’s grasp. He tugs her down the stairs so roughly she nearly trips over her high heels. 

Lucifer snarls and tries to lunge forward to free her, but he can’t. He tries to unfurl his wings, and then tries to light up his hands, but he can’t do those things either. He can’t do anything. 

He can’t help her. He can’t stop this.

Michael releases the Detective with a shove, and she staggers forward and comes to a stop next to Daniel. She puts her hand on Daniel’s shoulder to steady herself, and he looks up at her with his eyebrows furrowed in concern. He shuffles a little closer to her, still on his knees, and the Detective squeezes his shoulder.

The man Michael gestured to earlier reappears with something clasped in his hands. Michael meets him halfway and takes it from him, and then he turns and strides back toward the Detective. 

“You want freedom to make your own decisions?” he snarls at her. “You want to exercise your free will? Fine. Here’s a choice for you.”

He stops in front of her and holds up the object in his hands. It’s a Glock. 

“You can take this gun,” Michael spits, “and you can execute this traitor, or you can watch while I bring your kid back down here and kill her instead.”

“You son of a bitch! ” Daniel roars, lunging to his feet. The chains around his hands rattle against the floor with the movement. The two men who escorted him down the stairs dart forward to grab him and force him back to his knees. 

“You know what they say about the sins of the father,” Michael sneers. 

“Don’t touch my kid!” Daniel bellows, still fighting against the men who are holding him down. “Don’t you ever fucking touch my kid.”

Michael grins. “How do you know I haven’t already?”

Daniel spits and snarls and then lunges again. One of the men stumbles, and Daniel comes dangerously close to Michael, but his hands are chained behind his back and he’s yanked backward before he can do anything. More men come running, and Daniel continues to struggle even though he’s on his knees, and then the Detective intervenes.

“Move,” she says, shoving one of the men out of the way so she can get to her ex. She steps between him and Michael and lifts her hands to his face. “Dan, stop.” 

He goes still beneath her touch, but his chest is heaving. He’s glaring at Michael.

“Look at me,” the Detective commands.

He does.

“She’s fine. He’s never touched her. He’s just trying to provoke you.”

Daniel shakes his head but doesn’t reply.

“I just saw her,” the Detective murmurs, her voice low and soothing. She drops her hands to his shoulders. “She aced her algebra test.”

A long moment passes, and then a faint smile spreads over Daniel’s lips. “She’s smart like her mom.” 

The Detective smiles. “And tough like her dad.”

Daniel shakes his head. “Nah, Chlo. That’s all you too.”

They stare at each other for a moment, the Detective’s hands still on his shoulders, and Lucifer glances between them and aches. This is all wrong. They should be smiling about their offspring over coffee or beers. Not a Glock. 

“Well this is touching, really,” Michael says into the silence. “But I’ve already been kept waiting once today and I’m not interested in doing it again. Tick tock, darling.”

The Detective gazes at Daniel for another second or two, and then she turns to face Michael. She steps closer to him, moving into his space, and he looks down at her with lifted eyebrows.

“You don’t need to do this,” she tells him quietly.

“You’re right,” he replies with a grin. “I don’t. I just want to. I desire it.”

The Detective winces. Her reaction makes Michael’s grin deepen. She takes a deep breath, and then she reaches out and sets her hand on Michael’s chest. It’s her left hand. The ring on her fourth finger sparkles. It’s beautiful. Lucifer hates it.

“Please don’t do this,” she whispers. 

Michael’s grin fades. His eyes flicker over her face. “Is this a formal request from the Queen?”

The Detective doesn’t answer right away. Lucifer knows that look on her face. He’s seen it in dozens of interrogations. She’s sizing up her opponent and strategizing about the best way to get what she wants. 

She licks her lips and tilts her head back, gazing up at Michael from under her long eyelashes. “It’s a request from your wife.”

Michael arches an eyebrow. “And what do I get in exchange?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Chloe, don’t,” Daniel begs, sounding heartbroken.

She doesn’t acknowledge him. 

A slow smile spreads over Michael’s lips. “I already get whatever I want. Request denied.” 

The Detective drops her hand from his chest and takes a step back. All the color has drained from her face. She looks like she’s going to be sick.

Michael holds out the gun. “What’s it going to be, Chloe? Him or the kid?”

“Chloe,” Daniel calls. 

She turns toward him. 

He gazes up at her from his kneeling position on the floor. “We’ve got one non-negotiable, remember?”

Agony shivers across her expression. “Dan...”

“It has to be me. There’s no other option and you know it. It has to be me.” 

She shakes her head and looks down at the floor. A moment of silence passes, and then Daniel leans forward.

“Look at me, Chlo.”

She swipes at her eyes and takes a shuddering breath and then looks at him. 

“You already died for her,” he whispers. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Dan,” she breathes, tears spilling from her eyes. 

He smiles. “Tell her I love her, okay? And that I’m proud of her.”

She presses her lips together and nods. 

“I love you, too,” Daniel says. “I never stopped. And I’m sorry I wasn’t better when I had the chance to be.”

A sob shudders through the Detective. She steps toward him and bends forward to hold his face in her hands and press her lips against his forehead. Daniel closes his eyes. 

“I love you too,” she whispers. 

“Enough,” Michael snaps. He yanks the Detective away from Daniel and shoves the gun into her hand. “Shoot him or I’ll have someone go get the little brat.”

The Detective’s face is streaked with tears. She doesn’t raise the gun. 

“It’s okay, Chlo,” Daniel whispers. “Just do it.”

The Detective shifts the gun so that she’s holding the handle rather than the barrel, and then clicks the safety off.

“No,” Lucifer breathes. He strains against the invisible force keeping him planted to the ground, trying with all his might to get free. “Detective, don’t do this,” he calls. “You don’t need to do this.”

She doesn’t respond. She raises the gun with shaking hands, aiming it at Daniel’s chest, but doesn’t pull the trigger.

“It’s okay,” Daniel repeats with an encouraging nod. He smiles. “I love you.”

“Chloe,” Lucifer calls desperately. “Chloe, please.”

“I love you too,” the Detective whispers. 

“Chloe—”

The gunshot is deafening. 

Daniel crumples to the ground, dead. 

Over by the booths, the group of men cheer and holler and celebrate. The Detective stares at Daniel’s body, her eyes wide and horrified, and then glances down at the gun in her hand. She sucks in a breath and drops it as if it’s caught fire. It clatters onto the floor. 

Behind her, Michael grins in triumph. He slinks toward her and bends forward so that his mouth is by her ear. He nuzzles into her hair and she flinches. 

“See you tonight, wife,” he murmurs. 

The Detective closes her eyes, and tears spill down her cheeks. Michael brushes past her and strides toward the stairs with a gesture, and the men in the booths get up to follow. They’re still celebrating, and they don’t stop as they climb the stairs and leave. The sound of their voices fades, and then Lucifer is alone with the Detective.

He’s never seen her look so devastated. So broken. Rage and grief and agony swirl in his chest, building in intensity. He doesn’t understand why this is his loop, but it doesn’t matter. He needs to get out and get back to her. He promised. 

He closes his eyes. He tries to harness all the emotion that’s storming in his chest and funnel it into summoning his light, but then she speaks.

“Look what you did to me.”

He snaps his eyes open. She’s staring right at him. He looks behind him, and then around the club, but no one else is around. It’s just the two of them. 

“You can see me now?” he whispers.

“Look what you did,” she repeats instead of answering his question. She holds up her hands, and they’re covered in blood. “Look what you made me. I used to catch murderers. And now I am one.”

He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t cause this. This isn’t real.”

“You were supposed to protect me,” she says, starting to walk toward him. “I trusted you to protect me.” 

“I tried—” 

“You failed. You left me up there with him, and now look at me.” She holds her arms out, and the blood on her hands glistens gruesomely in the light. “I’m a murderer. I married a monster so he wouldn’t kill my kid. I’m the Queen of everything, of Hell and Earth and the Silver City, and there’s no escape. Even when I die, I’ll still be his.”

Lucifer shakes his head. “No.”

“Trixie hates me,” she continues. “Maze is dead. Ella is dead. Linda is dead. Everyone is dead, Lucifer, and they’re all in Hell, and it’s your fault. You didn’t protect us, and now we’re his.” 

Lucifer shakes his head, but he can’t seem to get any words out. 

She stops before him. “You said you’d never take me to Hell,” she says, her blue eyes lit with anger. “But you damned me to an eternity of it the moment you left me with him.”

“I didn’t want to leave you,” he says, his voice a plea. “I’ve never wanted to leave you.”

“If that was true, then you wouldn’t have,” she counters. “You weren’t strong enough. You weren’t good enough. You didn’t love me enough. You said you’d give me my life back. You promised. And instead, you gave me this.” 

It hits him suddenly, like a suckerpunch to the gut, and the breath rushes out of his lungs.

This isn’t a replay of his guilt-ridden past. It’s something worse. It’s a preview of a future he caused. He left her, alone and unguarded, in that warehouse. She was still stuck in Dream’s nightmare. She was still in danger from Michael and Circe and the demon army they commanded. She begged him not to leave her, and he did it anyway. He abandoned her.

Again. 

“Chloe,” he whispers.

“You ruined me,” she tells him. There are tears streaming down her face, and he can’t bear it. “You left me and now everything and everyone I love is poisoned. You filled my life with venom and darkness, and I can’t escape. This is my eternity.”

He collapses to his knees. He tries to crawl toward her, but he’s still stuck. He can’t breathe. “Forgive me,” he begs, reaching for her. 

She recoils from his touch. “You don’t deserve forgiveness. You’re not worthy of it.”

He hangs his head, his eyes flooding with tears as her voice rings in his ears. A moment of painful silence passes as his tears drop onto the floor, and then he feels her hands on either side of his face. He follows her unspoken command and lifts his head to look at her. 

She bends forward to look him in the eye. “I see you,” she whispers. “And I hate you.”

The pain in his chest is excruciating. The voice in the back of his mind whispering that this is just a loop fades. He can’t prove this isn’t real. He can’t prove that she’s not up there right now, living an even worse nightmare than this because he failed to protect her. He can’t prove that she doesn’t hate him.

He left her. He poisoned her and everything she loves. He ruined her, just like he said he would, and she hates him for it. 

The loop resets.

He doesn’t try to leave. 

During loop one hundred and five, as the Detective raises the gun to take aim at Daniel, Lucifer thinks of Beatrice.

She’ll never forgive her mother for this. Based on what she said earlier, she’s never forgiven her mother for leaving her at the beach either. 

Guilt gnaws painfully on his soul. What happened at the beach was his fault. He caused the first crack that broke the bond between them. She never would have left if he hadn’t suggested it. She trusted him to fix the dream, and he promised her he would, and then he died before he could. Her daughter is all that’s ever mattered to her, and he ruined them both. 

The loop resets. 

He doesn’t leave.

On the two hundred and eighty-second loop, Lucifer fixates on the word orphan.

“Oh, of course,” Michael says to the Detective with a sneer. “Your little pet project with the orphans.”

“They’re only orphans because of you,” she shoots back.

Lucifer wonders about Charlie. The Doctor is dead. Is Amenadiel dead too? Is Charlie an orphan? Is that who the Detective is caring for?

Guilt claws at him, ripping him to shreds. He robbed Beatrice of her parents, and now Charlie too. 

What kind of an angel makes orphans?

Not a good one.

The loop resets.

He doesn’t leave.

During loop number four hundred and three, when the Detective refers to herself as Michael’s wife and promises him whatever he wants, a horrifying series of questions skitter across Lucifer’s mind. 

Was there a proposal? Did he offer her a ring and tell her that if she didn’t take it, her child would die? Was there a wedding? Did he parade her through the streets of Los Angeles as his queen, knowing how much she would hate it?

Was there a wedding night?

“See you tonight, wife,” Michael hisses in the Detective’s ear. 

She closes her eyes and flinches, and Lucifer’s traitorous brain conjures up a million images of her naked in Michael’s arms and then crying alone in the shower afterward. She can never wash him off, and that’s Lucifer's fault. 

The loop resets.

He doesn’t leave.

He breaks when the loop resets for the six hundredth time. 

The Detective appears at the top of the stairs, and he yells for her. He screams her first name over and over until he’s hoarse and there are tears in his eyes, but she doesn’t look at him. 

He collapses to his knees when the gunshot rings out. 

“Look what you did to me,” the Detective murmurs. “Look what you made me.”

He curls forward and presses his forehead against the floor. It’s hot, nearly scalding, but he doesn’t pull back. He doesn’t care. Why should he care? He ruined the only person he’s ever loved. He finally lived up to his name. He’s venom, and he destroyed a miracle. 

“You were supposed to protect me,” the Detective says. He doesn’t have to look up to know she’s walking toward him. She’s walked toward him hundreds of other times, and each one is worse than the last. “I trusted—”

Lucifer, Chloe’s voice echoes in his mind. 

Shock sends him bolting upward from the floor. “Chloe?” he says. 

The Detective is still walking toward him, but it’s not her voice he heard. He heard a prayer. He knows he heard a prayer. Chloe prayed to him. 

I love you, Chloe prays again. 

He stands for a moment, frozen in shock, and then he sobs with joy. She’s praying to him. He died and left her and went to Hell, and she’s praying to him. 

She still loves him. 

The Detective stops in front of him, but Lucifer looks right through her. What is he still doing here? Why hasn’t he left? He made Chloe a promise. He gave her his word, and he’s a Devil of his word. 

He tries to lift his feet, but they’re still stuck. He’s still trapped. 

The Detective in front of him glares, her blue eyes cold and hard. “You weren’t strong enough. You weren’t good enough. You didn’t love me enough. And I hate you for it.”

Chloe’s voice echoes through his mind with another prayer. 

Remember what’s real. 

He swallows around the tightness of his throat and closes his eyes.  

He sees her standing above him in Vegas, her hands on either side of his face, her eyes filled with affection and light. I see you. And I love you. 

He sees her driving the Escalade, one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding his. The last person you love. The one you love so much that you never fall in love with anyone else ever again. She turns to look at him, and smiles. You’re mine.

He sees her sitting in a candlelit restaurant, dressed in red and wearing his ring. I’m yours.  

He sees her standing in a dimly lit hotel room, her hand pressed against his chest. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. Heart and soul, Lucifer. 

He sees the reflection of his Devil form in her eyes, but she’s not afraid. I’m going to love you until the day I die. And then I’m going to love you for all of eternity after that.  

Say it to me, she whispers to him in Doctor Linda’s kitchen. Tell me what’s real. 

“You,” he breathes aloud. And then he shakes his head. “Us.”

He opens his eyes. The Detective is glaring at him. “You don’t deserve forgiveness. You’re not worthy of it.”

He struggles through the guilt and grief and agony that’s swallowing him like quicksand and forces the words from his mouth.

“This isn’t real. I’m going home.”

She shakes her head. “You have no home.”

The words hurt like hell, but he ignores her. He concentrates with all his might on lifting a foot—just one foot, just a single step—and wills himself forward. 

He doesn’t move.

Frustration wells up in his throat and comes out as a desperate, broken groan. Why isn’t he moving? Why can’t he leave? He remembered what’s real. He knows the woman before him isn’t his Detective. He knows Chloe is up on earth, waiting for him to keep his promise, and he wants to keep his promise. He’s never wanted anything more. So why is he still trapped?

Another memory floats through his mind. 

You have to stop taking responsibility for things you can’t control. Lucifer, you need to forgive yourself. 

The loop resets. 

He knows what he needs to do.

“I hate you for making us live like this,” Beatrice spits at her mother. “And you know what? I think you hate yourself for it too.”

She does. Lucifer can see it in her eyes. She hates herself, and he hates himself for putting her here.

“No,” he says aloud. No one can hear him, but it doesn’t matter. He’s saying it for himself. “I didn’t do this. I didn’t make her hate you.”

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you,” the Detective says quietly. “Someday you’ll understand that.”

“That’s what you said about leaving me at the beach,” Beatrice snaps. “I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now.”

Lucifer made the Detective leave that beach. He made her get in that car and drive away when Beatrice begged her to stay. He delivered the first blow. He caused the first wound.

“No,” he says through gritted teeth. “Chloe made that choice. She chose to leave.”

She made that decision because she trusted you, a voice hisses in the back of his mind. She trusted you to fix it and you didn’t.

“I tried my best,” Lucifer replies. “And it’s not over yet. I’ll fix it. I’ll walk out of this loop and fix it.”

Beatrice storms up the stairs. The Detective watches her go with tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t do this,” Lucifer says. “I forgive myself.”

“Oh, of course,” Michael says to the Detective with a sneer. “Your little pet project with the orphans.”

“They’re only orphans because of you,” she shoots back.

How many orphans are roaming the streets of Los Angeles under Michael’s rule? How many children cry themselves to sleep every night thanks to the new world order that Lucifer allowed his brother to usher in?

“I didn’t allow that,” Lucifer says. “I died to prevent it.”

That’s why it happened, the voice in his head hisses. You failed and died.

“Then I’ll resurrect and set things right,” Lucifer says. “But that doesn’t change the truth.”

He watches the Detective and Michael stare each other down, and he curls his hands into fists. 

“I’m not responsible for this,” he says. “I forgive myself.”

“See you tonight, wife,” Michael hisses in the Detective’s ear. 

She flinches and closes her eyes, and once again, a horrible image materializes in Lucifer’s mind. 

The Detective is standing on the balcony of the penthouse, still wearing that black dress, her hands wrapped around the railing. She looks out at the city, and then up at the stars. Michael stands behind her and slowly unzips her dress. She closes her eyes, and a tear rolls down her cheek. 

“This isn’t real,” Lucifer says, barely able to speak around the tightness of his throat. 

Michael leans forward and presses a kiss against the Detective’s bare shoulder. 

“This is a lie,” Lucifer says. “I’m not responsible for things that might happen. I’m not to blame for things I can’t control.”

The image fades, and he’s alone in his loop with the Detective. 

“I forgive myself,” he whispers.

Facing her is the hardest. 

She looks so much like his Chloe. She sounds the same. She smells the same. He wants to hold her so bad his bones ache with it. 

But she’s not real. The real Chloe is waiting for him on earth. He needs to get to her, and he knows that he can’t leave this loop until he no longer believes that he deserves to be here. He’s forgiven himself for everything, but there’s still something holding him here. 

He relives the loop over and over, trying to figure out what it is. She kills Daniel again and again, and then she crosses the club to stand before Lucifer with blood on her hands, and he cowers every time. Her words hit him like the lash of a whip, and he feels the sting of them deep in his soul. 

“You ruined me,” she whispers. She’s crying, her eyes shining with grief as tears spill down her cheeks. “You left me and now everything and everyone I love is poisoned. You filled my life with venom and darkness.”

He believes her. He’s always believed her. She’s the only thing he’s ever...

No.

This is wrong. He’s wrong. He doesn’t believe what an apparition of her says. He believes her. He believes in the only human who has ever known him well enough to pray to him. And if he believes in her, then he believes what she believes.

He closes his eyes.

They’re sitting at his piano in the penthouse and there are bullet holes in her shirt. I told him you’re a good man, she says to him. I told him that I see you like no one else does, so I know you better than anyone else, and I know that you’re good.

They’re in the Escalade outside a diner in Utah, and her hands are wrapped around his as he struggles to summon light. I believe in you.  

They’re on a blanket underneath the stars in Nebraska. There is. I see it every day. 

They’re in the basement of a bar in Illinois, and she’s holding his face in her hands. You’re not venom, babe. You’re light. Be light.

He opens his eyes. 

The Detective stands before him. She’s not real. He thinks of Chloe—beautiful, brilliant, miraculous Chloe—and his soul ignites with her belief. His belief. Their belief.

“I’m light,” he whispers with absolute certainty.

And then everything explodes.

Lucifer is standing in white nothingness. 

Lux is gone. There are no more thrones. No more demons. No tattooed and angry Beatrice, no Daniel in chains, no Michael as king. 

No Detective. 

Everything is just...white. And light. There’s nothing around him, and yet everything seems to be glowing so brightly that his eyes ache from it. He scans his surroundings, his eyebrows furrowed, and then he sees it. 

There’s a door. 

It’s directly in front of him, just a few yards away. He can see the outline of it clear as day, and there’s a door handle just waiting to be turned. He takes a deep breath and looks down at his feet. 

He takes a step forward. 

And then another.

Triumph and pride and relief course through his veins. Tears fill his eyes but he laughs, loud and free. 

He’s free. 

He strides to the door, and puts his hand on the handle, and turns. The door unlatches easily. He swings it open wide, and steps out into the darkness and ash of Hell, and then closes it behind him. The door seems to shiver, and then it disappears. 

His Hell loop doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone.

He’s free. 

He turns away from the blank wall. Hell is just as dark and awful as he remembers. He hears screaming in the distance, and then laughing. The air smells like rotting flesh and sulfur. Ash falls from the sky and dusts the shoulders of his black suit. He looks down at himself in surprise—when did he put on this suit?—and then shrugs his shoulders with another laugh. Who cares? He’s free. 

And then he remembers. 

Chloe. 

He hasn’t kept his promise yet. He needs to get back to her. But how? No one is answering his prayers, and his wings are gone. 

Or maybe not. 

He thinks about what Amenadiel said to him once about his theory of self-actualization. He said angels become what they believe they are, and that they can do whatever they believe they can do. That’s why he was finally able to summon light in his loop. Because he believed. 

So why can’t he believe he has wings again?

He smiles as he closes his eyes. He knows exactly which memories will spark this belief. 

He sees Chloe standing in a dark alley in Los Angeles, her hand buried in the feathers of his wing and her eyes filled with awe and affection. He sees her in a hotel room, her gaze trailing over his wingspan and then lifting to meet his with a smile. 

I love this part of you.

Warmth flickers to life between his shoulder blades. It builds and spreads and grows hotter and hotter and hotter, nearly agonizing in its intensity, and then he hears the soft whoosh of his wings unfurling. 

Lucifer opens his eyes and glances to his left, and then to his right. His wings are spread behind him, magnificent and stunningly white against the backdrop of Hell’s darkness. 

He smiles and then tips his head toward the sky. Toward her.

He’s got a promise to keep.

Michael tries to flee. 

He unfurls his wings and bends his knees, and Chloe knows he’s going to try to escape. He’s a coward, and that’s what cowards do. They run. 

“Oh no you don’t,” she snarls. 

He launches off the ground, wings flapping, and Chloe shoots out her hand. A golden rope of light bursts from her palm, barreling outward and upward so fast it’s a blur. The end of it curls around Michael’s ankle and tightens. 

He jerks to a stop in mid-air. He clenches his jaw, shooting her a glare as he strains toward the broken skylight, his wings flapping furiously. Chloe grits her teeth, wraps both hands around the rope, and summons the newfound power within her to yank him back. 

He careens toward the ground, arms and legs and wings flailing, and crashes onto the floor with a smack and a cry of pain. The rope of fire is still wrapped around his ankle. Chloe tugs on it, reeling him in like a fish. He slides across the floor, his fingers clawing helplessly at the concrete, and when he skids to a stop at her feet, she presses her boot onto his chest. 

“You want a war?” she spits, pressing all her weight down onto her foot. “You got one.”

The rope of light dissolves and her hands burst into flames. 

Michael’s eyes widen in panic. He grabs her ankle and rolls away, yanking her leg with him, and she collapses on top of him in a heap. He immediately pushes himself up onto his hands and knees. She slides off his back and hits the floor, and he scuttles away from her. 

She rolls onto her side and looks up just in time to see him reaching for the black band he uses to summon demons. She shoots a blast of light from her palm. It slams into his hand before he can get the band around his wrist. He howls, collapsing onto the cement and clutching his hand. 

Chloe lunges after him. She grabs the band off the floor and flings it away, and then she shoves his shoulder so he’s flat on his back beneath her. 

“What’s the matter, Michael?” she taunts, pinning his arms to the floor when he struggles to get up. “Afraid to fight your own battles?”

His wings whip upward on either side of her. She lets go of his arms and catches a wing in each hand before they can strike her, and then lights up. He screams as she burns her handprints into the upper edges of his wings. His pain doesn’t deter her. She wants to leave a mark. 

“You like to whisper and instigate and threaten,” she says, bending toward him, “but when shit gets real, you make other people fight for you. You’re no king. You’re a coward.”

He snarls at her and then pulls his uninjured hand back and punches her in the face. 

Pain explodes through her skull, and fresh blood pours from her lip. She’s disoriented enough that she loosens her grip on his wings. He takes advantage. He wraps his hand around her throat and squeezes hard.

“Your little parlor trick doesn’t change what you are,” he hisses as she chokes. He rises slowly until he’s sitting up and she’s in his lap. “You’re still a worthless, mortal little human who can bleed.”

Chloe lifts her hand, wraps it around his forearm, and summons heat. His skin starts to smoke beneath her touch, and he screams in agony. His grip on her throat loosens. 

She spits the blood from her mouth onto the floor next to him and then grins. “I’ll remind you of that when I’m done kicking your ass.” 

He bucks beneath her and rolls. They grapple for a few seconds, snarling and punching and fighting for dominance. Eventually he pins her, his knees on either side of her hips. He wraps his hands around her wrists and holds them against the floor. 

He leers down at her in triumph. “I think I’ll put you in Hell-forged cuffs this time.”

Rage burns in her chest and then explodes, and with it comes a blast of light. It radiates out of her with the force of a grenade, and Michael’s body flies backward and somersaults in the air before crashing onto the floor. 

Chloe gets to her feet. “No one puts me in cuffs except Lucifer.” 

She lifts her hands and light bursts forth. Michael rolls to the side, narrowly avoiding her blast. Chloe keeps firing, striding toward him as beams of light fly from her palms like bullets from a machine gun. Michael tries to evade her, but for every beam he dodges, another hits its mark. She gives him a wound in his shoulder, and then in his thigh, and then down by his calf. She blasts a divot into his left forearm, and then a light beam sears past his right cheek and leaves a bleeding gash carved into his skin. 

He bends his knees and rockets toward the skylight again. Chloe wills the power of her heat to intensify, following his ascent with her hands, and then blasts a pair of fireballs straight for his wings. 

His dark feathers ignite with a whoosh. He screams as his body spirals downward, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake. He lands on his feet but immediately stumbles and then falls to his knees. He’s flapping his wings furiously against the ground in an attempt to extinguish the flames. 

As soon as he succeeds, Chloe ignites them again. He took Lucifer’s wings. And now she’s going to take his. 

Michael screeches in agony. He flaps his wings but the flames only burn brighter, so he tucks them close to his body and rolls. The fire sizzles and hisses and he screeches again before it finally extinguishes. All that’s left behind is charred feathers, gruesomely melted flesh, and glimmers of gleaming white cartilage and bone.

Chloe’s not sorry.  

Michael struggles up onto one knee, his ruined wings hanging uselessly at his sides. He’s drenched in sweat and dusted with ash. His breathing is labored. 

She strides toward him, fire and rage coursing through her blood, and he holds out a hand.

“Please,” he gasps. “Mercy.”

The audacity of the request makes her steps hitch. “Mercy?” she echoes, her voice thundering through the empty warehouse. “You tortured Lucifer for millennia. You murdered him. And you think you’ve got the right to ask me for mercy? ”

She closes the rest of the distance between them. He cowers away from her, but she doesn’t let him get far. She darts her hand out and wraps it around his throat. He paws weakly at her arm with his uninjured hand. She wills her skin to heat to a temperature that’s hot enough to scald him. 

She bends forward to look him in the eye as he chokes on a whimper. “Not a chance in hell.” 

She releases his throat and then punches him across the jaw with her fist aflame. His head snaps to the side.

“That’s for the nightmares.”

He blinks up at her, dazed, and she punches him again. 

“That’s for making my kid cry herself to sleep every night.”

His lip is split open and leaking blood. She doesn’t care. He should bleed. He made Lucifer bleed. 

She takes a step back. “And this?” she snarls. “This is just because I feel like it.”

She kicks him the way she’d kick a door down during a raid. Her boot hits his chest with a thud, and he grunts as his body flops backward. 

He lands on the floor on his back. She steps forward and stands over him. He twitches as if he plans to get up, but she’s quicker than him. She lifts her hands and sends a beam of light out of each palm. Ropes of fire burst outward and then wrap around his wrists and pin his arms to the floor on either side of him.

“You sent a nightmare to destroy me,” she spits at him, her hands blazing with fire. “But all it did was turn me into yours. You picked the wrong human, Michael. And I think it’s time I put you out of your misery.”

She glances down at her right hand, remembers what Lucifer told her about how he shaped his light, and then wills a flaming sword into existence. It bursts to life in her palm, stretching out and transforming into a blade that’s nearly identical to the one Michael used when he tried to kill her, only this one is made of flame instead of Hell-forged steel.

She looks down at him. “When you get up there, tell your family they better send someone to get Lucifer out of Hell. Because if they don’t, I’ll come for them next.”

“You don’t want to do this,” he rasps. 

“You’re wrong. I really, really do.”

She lifts the sword high above her head with both hands, the pointed edge hovering just above his chest. 

“This is for Lucifer.” 

She’s bringing the sword down to stab him right through the heart when a hand wraps around her wrists and stops her. 

She glances up in surprise and then freezes. There’s a ring on the middle finger of the hand that’s holding her back. It’s a silver band with a black stone. 

She knows that ring. 

“Chloe,” a voice murmurs.

Her heart skips to a stop in her chest. She knows that voice. She loves that voice.

She follows the line of the arm that’s holding her, from the wrist up to the elbow and then the shoulder, and then her gaze settles on a face she knows and loves too. 

“Lucifer?” she breathes.

Lucifer smiles at her, soft and affectionate, and shakes his head. “He’s not worth your soul, love. Let me take it from here.”

He lowers her hands for her, and she darts her gaze over his body, drinking him in like he’s water in the desert. He’s wearing a suit, black with a white shirt and a red pocket square, and he’s so beautiful she wants to sob. There are no bruises on his face. No blood leaking from various wounds. He looks flawless, unhurt and unfazed, and the wings that are unfurled behind him are a blinding white.

He’s alive.

Her brain stutters over the realization. She closes her eyes, and then shakes her head and opens them again because this can’t be real. She held him in her arms when he died. She felt his last breath leave his body. This is a trick. A dream. 

But she can feel the pressure of his fingers on her wrist. She can smell his cologne, and she can see the flames of the sword she conjured reflected in the familiar brown of his eyes. He’s always felt larger than life to her, a presence that’s imposing and comforting at the same time, and when he went still not long ago, she lost that sensation. She couldn’t feel him anymore. 

She can feel him now though. 

“Are you real?” she breathes, still afraid that it’s a cruel joke. 

The corner of his mouth quirks upward. “Yes. I’m real.”

“How?” 

His smile deepens, and he lifts his hand to her face. “You,” he whispers, his thumb stroking over her cheek. “Always you.”

She stares at him in wonder, trying to put two and two together, and then it sinks in. 

“You walked out of your Hell loop,” she says on an exhale. 

He nods, still smiling. “I walked out of my Hell loop.”

The flaming sword in her hand evaporates and she throws herself into his arms with a sob. 

He catches her, stepping backward from the force of her body hitting his, but he doesn’t stumble. He wraps his arms around her and holds her tightly, his embrace just as warm and strong as she remembers. Her heart is beating so fast it’s a thrum. Her hands are shaking. All of her is shaking. There are tears pouring from her eyes and she fists her hands into the back of his suit jacket and clings to him like he’s a life preserver in an endless ocean. 

He buries his face in her hair and inhales, and she sobs again. God, she missed him. He smells the same and he feels the same and she was only without him for a few minutes, but she missed him like it was centuries. 

“Bloody hell, I missed you,” he whispers as if he can read her mind. His voice is uneven, drenched in grief and relief, and she wonders how long it’s been for him. Minutes for her, but how long for him? Days? Weeks? Months?

It doesn’t matter. He walked out of his loop and came back to her. He came back.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers into his chest, squeezing him tighter. 

“Me?” he says with an incredulous laugh. 

He pushes her gently backward so they can see each other. She looks up at him and finds that he’s crying too, his eyes brimming but bright with joy. He lifts his hands to her face and brushes his thumbs over the tears on her cheeks. 

“Look at you,” he murmurs, his eyes trailing over her body in awe. “You made a bloody flaming sword.”

She laughs, and it feels like freedom. Like she’s just shed something awful and dark, and now she’s stepping out of the shadows and into the sun with him at her side. 

“I love you,” she tells him, wrapping her hands around his forearms and leaning closer to him. “I love you so much, Lucifer, and I—”

He ducks forward and cuts her off with a kiss. Her busted lip sears with pain from the pressure but she doesn’t care. He tastes like fire. Like sunshine and stars and the light that’s coursing through her veins. Like home.

“I love you too,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead against hers. “I love you, Chloe.”

He kisses her again and she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back, straining up onto her toes as he tugs her even closer. 

“You idiots,” Michael hisses. 

The moment shatters. Chloe and Lucifer break apart. They turn in unison, but Michael isn’t where she left him. He’s a few yards away, and his fingers are pressed against the black band around his wrist. 

Demons materialize all around them. There are dozens and then dozens more and then hundreds, all of them snarling and armed to the teeth, and joy flickers and dies in Chloe’s chest.

“You see, this is the problem with love,” Michael says. “You stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about each other, and it ends up getting you both killed.” He grins at Chloe. “You should’ve finished the job when you had the chance, sweetheart.”

Lucifer takes a half step in front of her, his wing stretched out behind her and his shoulder in front of her chest. He’s shielding her as best he can given that they’re surrounded, and she loves him so much it hurts. 

“It’s over, brother,” Lucifer says. “You can’t win. You know they’re no match for our light.”

“Oh, but I’ve summoned them all,” Michael sneers. “For every ten you kill, a hundred more will take their place.” He flicks his gaze to Chloe. “And light or not, it’s only a matter of time before they get to her.”

Chloe glances around the warehouse. The demons are inching toward them, their bodies tilting forward in anticipation. She sees a shadow moving across the floor, and she glances upward and sucks in a horrified breath. There are demons in the air above them too, flying with wings that look identical to Lucifer’s devil wings. They’re all staring at her, and there’s murder in their eyes. 

“Lucifer,” she murmurs. 

He glances at her and then follows her gaze upward, and all the color drains from his face. 

Michael glances up too, and then he grins. “Like I said,” he says gleefully. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe whispers again.

He looks down at her. 

She weaves her fingers through his, and then presses the palm of her other hand against his knuckles so that she’s holding his hand in both of hers. 

“We do this together,” she murmurs. “Just like everything else.”

He studies her, his eyebrows furrowed. She knows he wants to protect her. She knows he wants to fly her somewhere safe and hide her until all this is over, but he can’t. They’re surrounded and trapped and his invulnerability can’t protect her from demon blades. 

He lifts their hands to his mouth and kisses her knuckles. When his lips press against her skin, both their hands burst into flames. Celestial light races down their arms, over and across the rest of their bodies like wildfire, and within a matter of seconds, they’re both ablaze. She doesn’t know how he learned to share his light and keep it for himself, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not just his anymore. It’s theirs.

“Together,” he echoes with a smile. 

He drops their hands back to their sides and folds his wings away. They turn, in unison and silent agreement, so that they’re standing back to back and facing the hordes of demons. 

“Kill them both,” Michael snarls.

The demons charge.