Welcome To My Hell
Lute shoved the Sinner further into the room as she slammed and locked the door. FuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK! Lilith had made it clear that if she got caught, she would be on her own, so she would have to figure out how to escape without backup. Her best option was to negotiate her way out of here, preferably with some sort of vengeance in hand. She looked over her shoulder at the woman who had retreated to the far corner of the room, curled up and rocking back and forth as she mumbled. She could just kill this woman, and get some satisfaction. But unfortunately, she was her only bargaining chip. If she killed her, then they would kill her. Though, honestly, she didn't want to kill the sad little woman.
“Lute!” The princess was yelling from the other side of the door, though it was muffled. “Please, just let Stitches go, and you can walk out of here, go back to Heaven!” Lute scoffed. No way was she walking out of here empty-handed, not after coming this far, and not with such a valuable bargaining chip.
“Fuck you!” Lute yelled back. “I’m not leaving without retribution, so choose: the maid or this woman! I won’t wait forever, and if anyone so much as thinks about coming in here, I will slit her throat so fast she won’t even know she was cut.”
Lute heard them arguing in the hall and turned back to the woman. She was rocking harder, seemingly lost in her head. Part of her wanted to comfort the woman, to tell her that it would be okay. The way she had sung earlier was still playing in her head, and she couldn’t bring herself to truly hate the little doll. But also… she was a Sinner, the enemy. All is fair in love and war, and Lute was deep in the trenches for both. It’s all for Adam.
She slid down the door until she was sitting, watching the woman as she waited for the group outside the door to begin negotiating again. The little Sinner had started shaking, her mumbling punctuated by hitched breathing as she sobbed. She noticed her starting to claw at her skin, the scratches getting deeper and dripping blood. But what really caught her attention was how the stitching along her joints was beginning to glow.
She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she would have to keep an eye on it.
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Brandi blinked, disoriented. She was in a bright room, the warm yellow sun falling upon her face from the window. She frowned. Hell’s eerie light was red, not yellow. As her eyes adjusted, she looked around the space, and her hand flew to her mouth as she choked on a sob. She knew this place, this room, this point in time.
This was the nursery in her old home.
She looked down at her very pregnant belly, rubbing reverent, human hands over it. She gasped when she felt her daughter kick against her hand, little Iris only a little over a month away from revealing herself to the world. She looked up and walked to the crib in a trance, raising her right hand to lovingly caress the baby blanket she had designed and sewn. How she missed this room, this feeling, this peace… before it all went wrong.
She spun around and saw her old phone on the changing table. She lurched forward and grabbed it, hands shaking as she pressed the button to wake up the screen. The date and time taunted her, and she froze, the phone slipping from her hand.
September 21, 20XX, 4:30 pm
Horror struck her like ice. The day everything had ended for her. Her hopes, her dreams, her future. All were destroyed in only a few hours. She wrapped her hands around her belly. Had she gone back in time? Could she change things, and stop the future?
The door to the nursery opened, and Kace walked in. Her spouse was dressed in nicer clothes than usual, the black jeans clean and new, the usual t-shirt traded out for a form-fitting flannel shirt. Their hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, the unruly curls puffing out from being brushed while dry. Their beard was neatly trimmed for once, fairly short, just the way she always liked it, nice and scruffy. Beautiful and lithe, yet no taller than her. Her love, her partner, her everything.
Kace wrapped her in an embrace, kissing her passionately before pulling away and staring into her brown eyes with their hazel ones. They looked bluer today, alight with joy and mischief, long eyelashes hooding them as Kace flashed her a cheesy grin. She was in awe, mesmerized…
Until the cheeky asshole took the chance to grab her ass.
“Kace!” she growled, scowling at him. “Why do you always have to make every sweet moment sexual!” Deja vu hit her like a tidal wave. Oh no, this happened that day too… she thought.
Kace rolled their eyes and huffed. “Not my fault you’re so sexy. Stop being hot, and I will stop touching you.” Their words stung, just like back then. Where was the person she married, who had respected boundaries and consent? Where was the person who was emotionally available and sweet, who would cuddle her for hours, more concerned for her well-being than their sexual gratification? Yeah, her libido had plummeted over the years, as she healed and grew from her past since her hypersexuality had been a trauma response, but was that really the only reason they had changed?
Brandi felt her body and mouth moving without her control. “Whatever, we need to get going if we want to make the dinner reservations. Be good, and maybe I’ll give you a blowjob or something later.” She walked past them, but they whined as she walked past, clearly not thinking that was good enough. She had been angry when this really happened and still was. “I am massively pregnant. If you want more than that, drop me off at home after and go to your boyfriends’s house. But I am getting my dinner tonight because you promised!”
She led the way to the car, listening to them grumble as they followed. Brandi tried to stop, to tell her body to stay home, to not go out! Let Kace go to their boyfriend’s instead; the whole reason they had agreed to be poly was so Kace had other people to satisfy their urges. She was fine with it, she didn’t care, really! She would even be okay if Kace left her, but, please, just let her stay home to protect Iris. Skip the dinner, everyone would stay safe! But this was a replay of the past. She wasn’t in the past; she was trapped in a flashback. Knowing what came next only made it so much worse.
She had a long way to go, and the fear of it made her wish to die.
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Alastor froze. Lucifer had just explained to him the situation, about why they were standing in front of a vacant room, why Lute had Stitches inside. He had returned from the Overlord meeting in relatively high spirits, looking forward to catching up on some tasks and then seeing if Stitches wanted to help him make jambalaya for dinner. He had been counting the hours until he could spend more time with the woman, get to know her better, and start working toward a better relationship. To start leaning into a more parental role.
But upon entering the hotel, he had been greeted by a screaming and crying Niffty, wrapped in bandages. She begged him to help Stitches, and he had gotten her to calm down enough to tell him where to go before shadow-walking to the area. The rest of the staff was huddled around the door, trying to get Lute to come out, to let them in, anything. That was when Lucifer pulled him down the hall to catch him up to speed.
Recovering, he moved back to the door and knocked. “Salutations, Miss Lute. I am the Radio Demon, Alastor! I wish to resolve this quickly, so we can go our separate ways.” He clenched his cane tightly. “Now, here is how this is going to go. You are going to exit the room slowly, and I will personally walk you to either the Embassy or to whatever rendezvous point you have set up to get home. So long as the young woman in your care is unharmed, so shall you be. Do we have a deal?”
A coarse laugh greeted him from the other side of the door. “No deal, freak! I am not leaving without my vengeance. You own that filthy maid, so give her to me, and THEN I will leave and you can have this bitch back.”
Alastor felt his demonic side slip, the air distorting around him with symbols and sound. “NO.”
Lute scoffed. “Well, hurry up and decide. Because while I haven’t touched her since getting in here, she’s a wreck. She’s starting to claw up her arms, and those stitches on her joints are glowing worse. They look almost like they are getting looser. Would be a shame if she just… falls apart while you argue with me!”
Everyone froze.
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Brandi and Kace left the restaurant, laughing and joking like two love-sick idiots. It had been a lovely dinner, a final hurrah before their baby was set to arrive. Bellies full, a lovely full moon lighting the street back to the parking garage, a gentle breeze with the promise of a lovely autumn… the night was perfect.
But on the inside, Brandi was screaming.
She knew exactly when everything went to shit, and instead of feeling more prepared, it only brought more terror than it had before. Because this time, she knew how it would go, how it would end. The moment she stepped past the alley on their left, she felt the hand clamp over her mouth. She heard her spouse try to yell past the hand on their mouth, trying to fight against the multiple men pulling them into the alley. She fought too, scared for them, for their unborn child. However, when they pulled her into the waiting van, she became docile, and instinctively wrapped herself around her swollen belly, desperate to protect her daughter.
Her spouse kept fighting, even as the men beat them, the sounds of flesh and bone being abused again and again. All she could do was lay there. Had she not been pregnant, she would have fought back and tried to escape. But she could only hope that submission and meekness would keep her and her child alive. She knew better now, but this was a memory. She could only experience it, not change it.
They finally tossed her spouse into the van beside her, and she reached out toward them. Their face was bloodied and swollen, nose broken, clothes ripped. They were coughing and breathing through their mouth, chest rising and falling with each shaky, painful exhale. Their eyes met hers, and they grabbed her hand, squeezing it. But there was no comfort there, no reassurance, no hope. Just a cold acceptance.
A goodbye.
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Lute had been pacing back and forth by the door for what seemed like hours. All negotiations had come up empty. The fucking hotel staff was refusing to give in to her demands, and the only reason they hadn’t broken into the room was because she was holding the doll demon hostage. But she also couldn’t follow through with her threats to just kill the Sinner, because then they really would storm in and kill her.
A stalemate. Fuck!
She paused to look at the woman. She had grown louder, her breathing uneven and panicked, her strangled sobs and mutters loud enough to catch some words here and there. Her eyes were wide open, yet she seemed lost, trapped in her own mind as her glowing amethyst eyes darted around. Her hands, slick with the dark red blood from her arms and legs, were on her head, pulling her hair painfully. However, that wasn’t even the concerning part.
All the threads holding her joints and stitches around her mouth were glowing and loosening. As they loosened, the parts became separated and stabilized only with a strange light. Her mouth was hanging wider as she panted, her mouth now larger, as though cut wider unnaturally, the stitching hanging in an intricate criss-cross pattern. So much purple, the thread a glowing deep royal color, and the light between her parts a light lavender. It would have been beautiful, in a creepy, macabre way in another situation. But here, now?
It was terrifying. Heartbreaking. Like seeing my inner turmoil reflected in front of me.
“No… No… Please… Stop… My… Baby…”
Lute’s head snapped up. The doll was writhing now, pushing and kicking away at air, eyes terrified. The stitching was loosened even more, whatever she was seeing in her head making her literally fall apart. Lute didn’t even consciously know she moved to her side, but she didn’t stop herself as she knelt next to her, putting her good hand on the woman’s back. “Hey, you’re okay, just-”
“YOU ALREADY KILLED MY SPOUSE! PLEASE LET ME GO!”
The woman started screaming, causing Lute to jump back. The glowing thread writhed like snakes, pulling fully loose from where it had been, the joints and pieces completely undone now, her form now only held together unsteadily by the light between the pieces.
There was pounding at the door and yelling. She ran to it and yelled. “She’s fucking falling apart!” She barely registered the panic in her voice. She just needed to leave, so they could help the woman. “Please, let me go! I will leave and never come back! Just help her!”
The door burst open, and Lute jumped back to the opposite corner of the room from the screaming woman. All eyes were on the screaming woman now, swarming her, trying to calm her, but she was too panicked to move, to try to slip out while they were distracted. All she could do was wait, hoping that they would just let her leave.
After several minutes, Lucifer finally looked at her. He stalked to her, his demonic form washing over him, his power immense and radiating off of him like a deity. He stopped right in front of her, voice low and demonic, tone even and commanding. “You will leave. You will not return.”
Lute nodded, mouth dry and legs wobbly. The devil opened a gold-rimmed portal, and she could see the Heaven Embassy’s meeting hall on the other side. Without a word, the King of Hell flicked his wrist, and the portal moved, sliding over her, and suddenly, she was standing in the middle of the angelic building and all was silent.
She tried to step forward, but her legs gave out from under her, and she fell. Shivering, she curled into a fetal position, covering herself with her wings. Strangled sobs left her lips as she cried. She had failed her mission. Adam would never be avenged. Her future was entirely at the mercy of Lucifer and whether or not he reported her to Sera. And a woman, beautiful and melancholy, innocent from all the things Lute had come to avenge, now unraveling and in danger.
What have I done!?!
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Brandi lay on the cold, dirty floor of the abandoned warehouse, naked and barely conscious. The unfeeling rays of dawn were shining through the filthy windows, falling on the corpse of her spouse a few feet away from where she lay, cold and lifeless. Her body hurt everywhere, the taste of blood, men, and bile heavy in her mouth. Not a single part of her had been untouched, as they had used her again and again for hours, rough and abusive. Then they had abandoned her for dead, broken and bloodied, her child long ago having gone still in her womb.
But the worst part is, she knew she was going to live. She had lived through this once already. She would be “rescued” soon, taken to the hospital, forced to deliver her dead daughter, and then spend months healing. She would be told by the cops that there was nothing they could do, discover the web of corruption and lies, find out they had been specifically targeted… Then she would tap into her darkness, and get her revenge. In the end, she would die. So why couldn’t she just die now?
As she heard sirens, she lost consciousness, and everything went black.