“I still don’t get it, and it’s starting to make me feel like an idiot,” I say on a sigh while running a hand through my hair.
Kai starts explaining. “When you’re a resident of hell, you can’t repent. You can hold only a certain amount of impurities—usually it’s a very high threshold. But if those impurities tip the scales, you’ll start going mad. Much like humans, only on a much more volatile and dangerous level.”
“Once you start going mad, there is no turning back,” Jude goes on, frowning. “At least not that I’ve heard of. It’s why we try to keep balance. If you preserve balance, you maintain balance within yourself. Affecting the balance of the universe without consideration for the balance will drive you mad.”
“Okay…” I draw the word out, looking around at them.
Gage continues reading. “These four were deranged, scarred from hell’s black heart where they were kept when they couldn’t be recycled.”
Kai groans, pushing his own food away. “We were in hell’s black heart?” he asks incredulously. “No one leaves there.”
“Hell’s black heart?” I ask, lifting a finger as though I’m asking a question in class.
I suppose I’ve never really attended class.
“It’s a place where they send the ones they can’t recycle. Madness keeps that from happening, because there’s no mad monster Lucifer wishes to create. There’s a chance the imbalance would just force them to cease to exist, but they seem leery of that option. So hell’s heart is where you’re left chained, alone, and forgotten for all eternity.”
“That sounds terrible,” I say as a chill slithers up my spine.
“Hell is not supposed to sound like an inviting kingdom,” Jude reminds me. “Unless you’re royalty or upper level, it’s actually quite the fucking opposite. Some spend centuries being brutally ripped apart as their soul takes a new form. That alone can drive one mad in a different way.”
Gage keeps reading, and I try not to interrupt this time.
“The four had been lost to hysteria, left alone, and chained in the dark chambers where the only sounds were their own screams or those of the souls who just wanted to die, but couldn’t. Because they were eternal now.”
He swallows thickly.
“The nightmares,” Ezekiel says quietly.
“We thought they were a vision of the future, when really it was just an echo of the past,” Kai says on a groan. “We’ve been chasing away a fate we’ve already endured. All that paranoia for nothing.”
“What?” I ask, but they ignore me as Gage continues reading.
“Apocalypse found the most damaged men she could. The ones who needed this relief with desperation. The only way to save them was to give them the power that could tear apart the world and shatter the balance completely if anything went wrong.”
“That doesn’t sound smart,” Ezekiel says with a grin, looking over at me. “We were mad.”
“Well, apparently I was too. The point is, did I make you slaves as my payment?” I ask, seriously worried just how horrible I truly was.
“No,” Jude says like he knows the answer. “It was a truly free gift. Besides, that would have been too easy and you secretly hate easy.”
“He’s right,” Gage says, drawing my attention back to him. “You healed their bodily wounds. You released them from the chains. And you pushed the power into their bodies one at a time. Then you hovered over them, caring for them for almost a century, as their minds and bodies continued to grow stronger. They slept under your watchful eye for the first time since the madness crept in. And they made up for the many centuries that sleep had evaded them. That version of you was enchanted by the effect you—and only you—seemed to have on them—on us.”
Ezekiel’s hands slide around my waist, almost as though he’s drawing some of that peace out of me. Rather ironic that I provide peace, given the obvious.
“The end of the world offers the four of you peaceful dreams. I’m starting to wonder just how mad you must have been,” I state dryly.
Jude’s lips twitch as he leans over to my ear. “That means we were really fucking terrible before you.”
Suppressing a shiver, I stare at Gage as he grins enigmatically.
“After a century of peaceful rest in her chambers, the four awoke ready to destroy the entire world so it would only be the five of them,” he says conversationally.
“Geez, you psychos,” I say on a breath. “You even scared the Devil’s daughter.”
Gage chuckles, handing the book off to Kai as though he’s amused. Kai grins broadly.
“Apocalypse, being ever so vain, refused to admit failure. Besides, she’d gotten so attached to the four after watching over them for a solid century that she couldn’t bear to hand them over to Lucifer to drain the power from and toss back into hell’s black heart.”
Kai pauses his reading, meeting my eyes.
“So she gave all four of them a piece of her sacred balance, disrupting her own stability in an effort to save them from themselves,” he adds, holding my gaze. “She tied herself to them, leaving her less than whole. When their bond suffered, she suffered twice as much.”
I swallow thickly.
I enjoyed killing an insignificant mortal man. I also left a fiery trail behind, burning the world around me uncontrollably. All because their bond to each other was hurting so much in the wake of my death.
“Simply put, you gave up bits of your much more powerful balance and infused it with ours in an effort to restore our stability by stealing from your own,” Jude says, brushing a piece of my hair away from my shoulder as he stares at me differently.
“The power did bond the four of us, uniting us in a way that helped stave off some of the madness, but it didn’t restore the balance like you’d assumed,” Gage goes on, also staring at me a little differently. “You had no idea just how unsalvageable we truly were when you came to care about us.”
“And you refused to send us back to our place in the black heart, and instead gave away something you didn’t even know if you could afford to give away. And to four men who were still unpredictable and could hurt you at their leisure by simply abandoning you and sending you on to live the fate we’d just managed to escape after the madness took you,” Kai continues.
I need a drink.
“Which is really freaking dangerous, considering I’m The Apocalypse,” I say on a breath. “Not to mention, the four of you are notably ungrateful, so it’s doubtful you felt immense gratitude for such an incredible self-sacrifice of my own.”
Jude chokes back a laugh of surprise, shaking his head. Clearly they must have been grateful if the world isn’t in ashes all these years later.
“The Apocalypse, as she often referred to herself, took the most selfishly selfless risk in doing so. Instead of betraying her, as she’d feared, they proved to be the most loyal harem she’d ever invited into her bed. And she was their first taste of pleasure in centuries,” Kai reads on.
His eyes flick back over me, raking down my face and to my body.
“It’s a wonder we settled for less even without our memories,” he murmurs to himself.