Being left alone with my thoughts had never been so scary before now. Something was wrong. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, but whatever it was, it wasn't good. It wasn't just the dull, pulsing pain through my temples. Although, I was afraid it had something to do with it. It was more than this.
Addy was right. The demons inside of me were real. I could feel them as if they were pressing against the door of my mind, ready to bust inside. I believed that the pain in my temples was caused from the pressure Bane was creating by trying to resist the other demons, like Bane stood on my side of the door, holding it closed with all his might.
Sean was right when he had said that it was me as to whom I needed protection from the most.
I had been lying on my bed since Roman and Izzy dropped me off. And I had no intention to move, either. Not unless Bane came for me. Anyone else could just leave me alone to wallow in my thoughts. Now that I had a better understanding of the darkness within me and the bogeymen that prowled within, I was paralyzed by this revelation.
"They say it was suicide, but they're wrong. They are wrong! He was murdered! Murdered by the monsters!" Addy's voice came to my mind.
Lucifer's sons could kill me from the inside.
It was probably them who had driven me to the brinks of insanity and driven me to suicide my entire life. It was probably them who made me jump off the cliff. Thinking back on it now, when those moments came where I teetered on the edge of life and death, I was clearly aware now of how I felt I was on autopilot, like something else took the wheel from me and tried driving me to my death.
I didn't know much about my family, but I did know nearly every one in my family had killed themselves. I always believed that this was where I had gotten it from. Suicide just simply ran in the family. But it wasn't simple. And it wasn't suicide. I knew this now. Lucifer's sons had been killing the Lanchesters for decades. And they didn't even know about The Coven's secret that would gain them their freedom. They are demons, hell-bent on blood and pain and fear, and they didn't have to have a reason or logic behind what they did.
But they had a reason now. Now they knew that killing me would set them free. I was the last of my bloodline.
Then it hit me.
I shot up in my bed and blinked at the wall in front me. "Bane is that monster my mother accused of murdering my father!" I spoke to the silence of my room.
My flesh prickled with a hot chill.
Yes, even I had thoughts of murdering Barron, but this was different. The creature I was hopelessly in love with had killed my father. He killed Isis Blackhawk and Sarah Jenkins, too. He brutally slaughtered Mr. Dawson cattle, and what else? Who else? If he has been on this earth for hundreds and hundreds of years, what else has he done? What else was he capable of doing?
I shivered.
I was so totally sick in the head! How could have I possible been in love with a demon? And how could have I possibly believed that a demon could be in love with me?
This was my rational side, thinking. As small and insignificant as my rational side was, it definitely made some sense.
I remembered what Izzy said about how Bane could compel me into feeling or thinking whatever he so desired. Maybe I wasn't sick. Ohmygosh! Maybe I wasn't crazy. Maybe I didn't love Bane, and maybe my anger truly wasn't mine. Because, really, how could a demon live inside of me and I not feel a little crazy or angry? It would be so very easy to blame Bane for all the rage inside of me, to blame Bane for the darkness and everything that felt so wrong.
But I couldn't.
There was one thing that threw a wrench in the gears that were turning this theory around in my head; Bane loves me. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I knew that Bane loves me. I was, after all, inside his head when he almost ripped a hole in my neck. I saw it with my own beating heart that Bane was in love with me.
With a heavy sigh, I fell back onto the bed and covered my eyes with my arm. I realized something else. I could not blame anyone or anything for the monster I have become. The anger inside of me had been my own. I owned all of that. I earned all of that. It all belonged to me.
And so did my love for the demon son of Lucifer. With ever fiber of my being, I loved him. I owned that. I earned that. This love belonged to me.
And it always will.
I couldn't blame the sons of Lucifer for my suicidal tendencies, either. It has always been my will to escape them. Mine!
I needed to help Bane.
Bane wanted to be free from The Coven of Hallows, and it was within my power to help him!
I was going to help him.
There was no better way to die, in my opinion, than to die selflessly, to die so that someone else could live. Oh, yes, this would be the best way to go. Although, it wouldn't be entirely selfless. Ridding myself of this lifelong, torturous darkness had been a desire of mine for as long as I could remember.
As the pressure in my head intensified, the excitement in my heart made my pulse quicken. I shot up off the bed and went to the box near the window. I pulled out the Survival Knife and clutched it tightly with both of my hands. Without anymore thought or care or fear or anger, I pressed the blade to my belly.
I closed my eyes. I did not want to die with them open. I wanted the last thing I ever saw to be the dark, gooey, blackness inside of me.
Just as I was about to thrust the blade into my belly, Bane's voice lashed through my head.
"Drop it!"
My fingers automatically snapped open against their will. The knife fell to the floor at my toes. A dizzy, swirling feeling filled my head, like a tornado had formed inside my skull. I felt my eyes roll back, felt the hard crash of my shoulder hitting my bedroom floor. Then I felt nothing but nothingness.
****
Chapter Fifty
Bane