inferno | 18+

V

"Glory and gore go hand in hand."

- Lorde

DEVINA

"You made a deal with a psychopath?" Elijah bellows in my face. Josie is standing behind him not saying a word, and Malik sits on my couch with his arms crossed over his chest. They're all looking at me like I'm the one that needs medical help.

"Using his medical disorder as a way to make me regret my medical decision will not help Mr. Christ, nor will yelling at me. Mind I remind you, you are under my roof that I so kindly invited you under. I will not take this kind of disrespect for something you hired me to," I explain to him, and he throws his arms up in the air disregarding everything I just told him.

"She's asking you to shut up and stop yelling at her," Malik adds and Elijah looks at him with looks that can kill before saying something that sounds like arabic. Malik snorts and Josie looks concerned for me.

"Are you sure he won't kill you?" Josie finally says. I send her a warm smile and nod my head. She still isn't showing, but I notice the hand that goes to her stomach where her and her husband's baby lay. If she hadn't gotten out when Zakaria captured her she never would have been pregnant with Elijah's child.

As much as the Christ brothers try to disregard it, their brother is sick. He didn't ask to be born like that. I don't know if he likes feeling the way he does-if he even understands feelings.

"I understand your concerns, I really do," I speak out to all of them. Their faces turn serious, and I look around showing them I feel with them. "But ignoring his condition and the fact that he cannot communicate with a human other than someone he's had a past with, won't make it go away. He needs to be treated. Not exiled," I speak, looking at Elijah.

I don't know much about he and his little brother's relationship, but from what I have been able to pick up from their short encounters I sense they meant a lot to each other.

"Why does it matter that he can't communicate with others he's had a past with?" Elijah asks me, clearly aggravated that I'm making Zakaria into a subject in their lives again.

"There used to be four people he could talk to. His brothers who hate him, his brother's girlfriend that he is in love with, and his dead best friend. He has no one. I am not asking you to forgive him, nor would I ever put my personal opinion into my work, but I can't help him if he feels like the only people he can talk to hate him," I say with sincerity in my voice.

Elijah stiffens, and I see it very clearly. How a grey sky parks right above his head. Rage blooms in his eyes. Josie puts a hand on his forearm, but even that doesn't stop him from taking a step closer to me. I hear the couch behind me rustle, and I take it that even Malik senses something.

"He tried to kill her," he tells me, his voice strained. "He kidnapped her at our cousin's wedding. He had Ares abduct her. He made Ares hit her with his gun. He put sedatives in her IV so she wouldn't wake up. He faked her death. He allowed me to grieve over someone he knew was alive, every. fucking. day. He came to my apartment letting me cry my loss out on his shoulder."

I see the tears form in his eyes. Regret settles in me like piles of stone but still, I don't let it weigh me down.

"He's a monster. He deserves everything he's getting. You think I'd ever put my own flesh and blood through the shit he's going through right now? He's my brother. We share a mother, a father, a big brother. He is my everything. But I can't. I don't feel an ounce of remorse for him. Because the hole he's rotting in right now? He dug that himself. Medically sick or not."

Elijah turns his back to me, and I hear the couch rustle again behind me. Malik sighs and rubs his forehead, walking a bit back and forth. "Do we know if this was his first attempt at anything?" he asks, looking at me. My eyes meet Malik's and I see the hope in them. Hope that I can heal their little brother. Hope that I have the power to erase all this from the existence of earth-that I can make everything go back to normal.

"No, sir. He has been giving me resistance. A lot of it. All the times I've shown my face, he's wrapped his hands around my throat and tried to scare me off. I'll admit I ran off, but after reading some of his files I realised he needed my help," I answer truthfully.

"Motherfucker." Elijah cusses under his breath, and Josie looks mortified.

"It's all happening again," she says, heavy breaths coming between her words. "He's going to keep this up until he gets what he wants," she almost cries.

"Josie, we don't know what it is he wants yet." This is Malik's poor attempt to try and calm her down.

"We do," Elijah inserts. "We've known since the wedding. He won't stop this till he gets her" -Elijah turns and looks down at his fiancé- "and he will kill everyone that stands in his way," he finishes.

I exhale a sharp breath and look around in my living room. This house and its rooms never fail to surprise me. We have a normal living room where Rudra and I sit in, and a whole other one in the other wing of the manor for guests. This is the wing neither me or my husband touches at night. Never in my entire career have I let my clients see me like this; so confused on what to do. Unprofessional.

I mourn with them. To them it feels like someone they knew passed away. They've been living in stimulation their entire life, thinking their little brother was simply just a dork and childish. I mourn with them. For their mother who probably blames herself for not being able to keep their father around, or for raising her last born shabbily.

I mourn with Zakaria. He is not his disorder. Even he has given up on himself. Everyone he's ever loved, grown up with, shared secrets with, done dumb stuff with hate him, or blame him for someting he cannot undo nor control. Not everyone is born a psychopath. Some gain psychopathy later in their lives. But from what I've been told, Zakaria is definitely a born one.

"Do you have somewhere else you can go?" I look at Josie and her fiancé. She gives a confused look, and turns to Elijah.

"You want us to hide?" he barks at me. I want to scream yes, go, leave, live your lives but I just softly nod my head. "Why the hell would we hide? This is our home. I'm not letting him chase us out of it."

I can't even begin to imagine what he might be going through. Both of them. She's with child, and I'm telling them to run so they can avoid the worst. But as long as they stay, and he knows they're here-that they are in his reach-they won't be safe. And just saying that out loud makes me as terrified as the thought of him getting to them does.

"Go somewhere he doesn't know. Somewhere his people can't find you. Somewhere far. And when you're halfway away from this country, you keep going. When you think you're far enough, you go further. Nothing will stop the obsessive compulsion he has with Josie. Nothing," I quak.

All three of them look at me like I might have lost my mind. Until something washes over Josie's face. Her hand goes to her stomach again, and she nods her head looking at me. I understand what she means. She understands what I mean.

"If we leave he'll become more obsessed with where we are! Nothing you're saying is making any fucking sense!" Elijah thunders. I gulp. Josie gulps. She takes a step forward, and we all listen as her breath hitches.

"So we make him obsessed with someone else," she mutters looking at me, her eyes filling with guilt.

"Who?" Malik asks, looking at his brother, who's looking at his fiancé.

"Me," I say aloud. "We make him obsessed with me."