Secrets And Sins Part 3: Happy ever after

Chapter 14

~Lilith~

"How do you think it's going?"

Lilith looked up from the burger she was painstakingly removing the pickles from, to see Mary watching the Sinclair manor curiously.

"I can't feel anything so can't be too bad." She shrugged, turning her gaze back down to her dinner.

An Oasis song started on the radio and even though she couldn't remember the name of it, she tapped her foot along to the beat anyway. Although they were sitting in a rental car eating soggy burgers, disgustingly full of pickles, on a chilly Autumn Friday night in London, Lilith was strangely enjoying herself. Even being constantly on guard for disturbances in Halo energy wasn't diminishing the warm bubbles of happiness tickling at her chest.

She knew it was all because of the woman sitting in the driver's seat, Mary had joked about this being an unofficial first date and it was all Lilith could think about.

"So... you used to live this kind of life?"

Lilith's eyes shot back up, Mary was studying her now, the ghost of a smirk on her face.

"You know I did." She replied carefully, there was an angle here, she just wasn't sure what.

"And were pickles beneath you?"

Lilith rolled her eyes, "Is that your way of asking for my pickles?"

"Maaaybe." Mary said, grinning appreciatively when she offered her the lid of the container that she had been meticulously stacking bits of pickle onto, "But I'm also wondering why you don't really talk about that life?"

Lilith grimaced a little, she hadn't thought about, let alone talked about it for years. The fleeting and very unpleasant visit to her mother while she was working for Adriel was the only contact she had had with any of her family for a very long time.

"Hey..." Mary whispered, nudging her gently with her elbow, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to...I just wanted to learn more about you, about your past."

She sighed, "It's okay, Mary. It's just not a very happy story."

Putting her half-eaten burger on the dash of the sedan, Lilith wiped her hands on a napkin before meeting Mary's questioning gaze, "I was brought up in an elite, nauseatingly wealthy household. My family were great supporters of the Church and the OCS... the Villaumbrosia's had already contributed six Halo bearers to the cause, I was raised to be the seventh."

Mary nodded silently, Lilith knew she had said nothing that her girlfriend didn't already know, not yet. The next part was the uncomfortable part. Lilith didn't like being pitied, and in her experience when people knew more about her history, that's all they did.

But it's Mary... She reminded herself, Mary respected her as an equal and saw Lilith for who she was.

She took a deep breath to steel herself.

"And when I say that's how I was raised I mean that's the only way I was raised..." Lilith sighed and looked away, "There was no socializing with anyone outside of the OCS, I was actually homeschooled right up to high school, at which time the Church insisted my parents allow me to live in the real world, else be ill-equipped." Mary frowned at this, but remained quiet, "My only purpose was to prepare to take the Halo. I trained and studied only for that. It was my life from the moment I could walk till I was dragged to the Otherside by that tarask."

"But you were just a kid?"

Lilith shrugged, "Didn't matter. I had a destiny to fulfil."

It wasn't a kind upbringing; it was cold, clinical, with little warmth from either of her parents, as well as constant pressure to perform to the best of her ability. Her relationship with her mother and father was entirely transactional. Lilith had a job to do, a purpose to fulfil, that was all she was, a tool to be sharpened for its job.