Signed & Sealed

{S i x}

When I opened the front door of my brother's apartment, I expected to see Trina standing there with a welcome smile. Instead, I found Lucifer with a grin. Closing my eyes and heaving a sigh, I stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind myself so that neither Benjamin nor Noah would see my company.

"How did you know where to find me? Did you follow us?" I asked first.

Lucifer chuckled and replaced his grin with a false frown, "what? No welcoming hello?"

"No. Why are you here?"

"So hostile, perhaps you have forgotten who I am?" Lucifer stepped closer, nearing his chest to mine until my back touched the closed door.

"I don't know you in the first place, and you could be a killer, a stalker it seems," I admitted, but Lucifer raised a hand so he could grip my chin in his fingers. Lifting my face, so we were level, he leaned closer, but our eyes locked instantly. Those golden orbs beamed down into my soul, and his gaze did not falter, "I am no killer, and you made a deal with the devil, of course, you are a ping on my radar."

Without wasting another second, Lucifer stepped back, and the overwhelming aura he pushed on me was relieved. "So what can I do for you, Mr. Lucifer?"

"Oh- I like this Mr. Lucifer, perhaps you can call me that when I take you from-" he cut himself off, cleared his throat and shook his head, "actually I came to collect you. Sadly your little girlfriend has been indisposed and couldn't make it."

"Trina? What did you do to her?" My eyes closed into an intense glare fixed on Lucifer. The way he manipulated Noah has not been forgotten and now suddenly Trina is, how did he put it, indisposed? It made no sense, at the hospital she said she was on the way.

Not having my cell phone is complicating communication, and now Lucifer shows up unannounced, and I have no idea what he even wants from me. "I only told her that I would come to collect you, as a loving boyfriend would," he said the words and my eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. Boyfriend? Has he lost his mind?!

"Look, I don't know what games you are playing, but you are not my boyfriend. Quite frankly, I don't believe anything you say because I don't know you. You come at me with some contract signed with blood, and that alone is creepy. Now you want to collect me, and I'm your girlfriend?"

With an expressionless face, Lucifer glanced over my shoulder at the door which opened leaving me to stumble and catch the frame. Benjamin must have heard us talking because he wore a look of confusion when I turned to face him. "Elaine, who is this?"

"A stranger, he got lost-" I started, but Lucifer interjected and finished, "I am Lucifer. I'm here for Elaine Theodore."

"Lucifer? Really? Like the devil?" Benjamin chuckled at the false reality that neither of us believed. Shaking his head and looking to me, he asked, "so this is your boyfriend? I didn't know you had one."

"Neither did I," I frowned and mumbled under my breath.

"Well come on in then, we are just saying goodbyes. You need to tell Noah, now-" Benjamin suggested to me after inviting the enemy inside.

How dare my brother invite Lucifer to come inside with the impression that he is something significant to me. The truth is that I don't understand. I have no idea who this man is claiming to be the devil. He takes the deal with the devil seriously, and it seems he has the means to do as he wishes.

Noah sat on the couch still, his empty wrappers at his side from the fast food place. "Can we talk a minute monkey?" I pressed the mute button to silence the television while taking a seat on the sofa next to Noah. My cast kept me from sitting comfortably so instead of curling my legs up beneath myself; I kept them straight out. "Okay sissy," Noah responded and bounced in his seat with excitement.

"This is hard to explain, but Benjamin is going to keep you for a little while. I need to rest a lot and let my leg heal so we can get back to having fun like we always do!" I tried to put the situation into terms he could comprehend. The frown on his face, however, told me he didn't like this arrangement and that breaks my heart.

I know this will be hard; he lost his parents. We all did, and now he is changing the constant we have accustomed to as of late. How could I make this any easier? If we had just waited until morning to travel to Benjamin, then we wouldn't have gotten caught in a storm, and we wouldn't have gotten into a wreck. Most importantly, Noah wouldn't have died in my arms. How could I prevent that? Instead, I begged God for mercy, and instead of an angel, the devil came. Which I don't entirely believe is the devil anyways. He isn't all red and scaled, nor does he have horns and a tail or even a pitchfork.

What the hell is wrong with me? The devil? A deal? A blood signed contract? Everything is just ludicrous. "I don't want you to go without me sissy, why do you have to leave me?" Noah began to cry, his shoulders hunched with pain and sorrow at my request.

"Look monkey; I can't play with you every day or make breakfast and tuck you into bed. I need time to recover, but bubba is going to take care of you until I can do that again," I tried to explain a bit better, my chest constricted with unease.

"Can't I please go home with you?!" Noah grew angry in an instant, and a full reddened one replaced his sad face.

"Look, Noah, let's go get some ice cream? Yeah?" Benjamin offered and gave me an incredulous stare before shifting his gaze to Lucifer. All the angst he showed me was wiped away towards the vile stranger who just complicated my life entirely. "Go," Benjamin whispered in my ear as he shuffled to push Noah from the room to give me space.

As the door closed behind my brother's, I turned to look at Lucifer who leaned against the back of the living room sofa which made him face the doorway to the foyer. "Look, I hope everything goes well with you, but you need to leave. You caused enough trouble just showing up unannounced, please go," I crossed my arms angrily over my chest.

"Hmm, I think you missed a few parts. See I am already running behind schedule by stopping to pick you up, so if you would kindly-"

"You don't get it- do you? I'm not going anywhere with you." I made my choice, and he would need to kidnap me if he planned on dragging me anywhere alongside him.

"Oh come on- I don't have time for this Elaine," Lucifer snarled with a booming voice that echoed through the small apartment living space. The air around us darkened with his deepening aura of pure form, and suddenly the expression he wore turned sinister. With bright reddening eyes that glow with light, his facial features began to morph into that of a demonic face. Like seeing the devil, he indeed is coming forth, and the sight of that scared me so badly that before I could help it, my body collapsed to the floor in darkness.