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Lilith staggered into Camila’s room, sticky with blood and too exhausted to speak. She couldn’t stand the sight of herself, couldn’t bear to look at or think about any of it. Suddenly helpless, she looked over to see Camila jumping up from her desk where she had evidently been praying, the beads of her rosary slipping from her fingers to land on the floor.
“Lil…Lilith?” She sounded shocked and unsure and more than a little scared.
For so long Lilith hadn’t had anyone to take care of her. The last few months had been torture living in isolation. Yes, she was with Adriel and he helped her see what she had been blind to for so long. But after what had happened over the past several days . . .she didn’t even want to think about him and his manipulation.
She needed someone familiar, someone comforting. Someone whom she knew without a doubt would take care of her when she was unable to take care of herself. And while she couldn’t admit it outright or aloud – or at all – she could see the understanding sink into Camila’s expression as she stared at her. Her shock morphed not of pity, but into concern and something akin to…relief? She must be reading that wrong. In any case, she was now stepping up to her and Lilith could see her fingers tremble slightly as they reached out towards her, wanting to comfort but unsure of where to land.
She didn’t know what to say to even begin to explain herself. She had turned her back completely on those who had become her family and somehow ended up on the side of the fight she thought to be right. She was wounded in many more ways than just physical and couldn’t quite wrap her mind around all that had changed. Adriel was gone. Ava was gone. The Halo was gone. The Order had been all but blown apart.
For hours directly after Ava disappeared, Lilith huddled in Adriel’s lodgings. In the room he had given her that was little better than a prison cell now that she really looked at it. She thought he’d opened her eyes to the truth.
How had she been so wrong?
And now, after the blood crusted around wounds that no longer existed, and scales that stiffened everywhere they met her skin, she could fight it no more. She needed help. She needed comfort. And she needed these damn clothes off of her skin or she might suffocate in their stench of blood and betrayal. All of her fight, all of her anger, had left her now. All she had left was a hollow sense of despair; and as she stood in front of Camila, guilt prickled uncomfortably when she saw the mistrust and the pain swimming in her eyes.
Truly taking her in for the first time since she’d arrived, Lilith saw tears glistening on her flushed cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. Camila had been crying. Of course she had. She was grieving for the loss of sister warriors, Ava, and the Halo too – if in a different way than Lilith. But it was Lilith’s fault – she had caused Camila’s grief. Her black curls lay wet atop her head, several of the strands framing her eyes. She was wearing her habit but not a blood-stained battle one. She was wearing their everyday habit, and it was clean. Camila was clean. She had showered. Lilith felt a sharp tug in her chest, a near-desperation for the tang of blood to stop clogging her nostrils and the tack of it to be washed from her skin.
Then the prickling guilt lurched sickeningly and she took a step back. “I shouldn’t have come – I –“ she found herself speaking suddenly, second guessing her decision to come here. She should go. She didn’t need to burden Camila with her issues. She was hated anyway, so why on earth should Cam want to help?
“No, wait,” Camila said as Lilith turned on the spot, all the better to leave without seeing the tragic look in her once-sister’s eyes. She froze at her words, gaze locked onto one of the flagstones beneath her feet. There was a droplet of blood in the middle of it. From her, or Camila?
“What are you doing here, Lilith?” Camila sounded less frightened than before, a new steel in her voice she hadn’t heard before. Since when had Camila bloomed above her status as a rookie? When Lilith failed to answer her, she changed tact. “What do you need?”
“A shower.”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. At Camila's half-disbelieving chuckle, she wished she could take them back.
“A shower? Um. Okay. . .?”
What Lilith really needed was a friend. Someone she knew she could rely on. And while she knew she had burned every last one of her bridges connecting her to the OCS and the family she’d once had, something told her that maybe Camila wouldn’t dismiss her out of hand. And so far, she’d been right. But it wasn’t as if she could just say that, so instead she said, “All this. . .blood,” she gestured weakly to herself, hoping Camila might understand what she was asking for.
“Oh, you need help,” Camila said with an air of sudden understanding.
The thing inside her that balked at admitting weakness had her shaking her head. “No.”
“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, Lil.” Camila’s voice softened into its familiar warm cadence then, free of misgivings. She still looked wary but stepped up to her once again, this time to rest a hand on her shoulder. Lilith winced. Not in pain, but in memory of the pain where Ava had slashed her with the sword. But then Camila met her gaze again and Lilith felt a trickle of relief along with a resurgence of the tears she had cried whilst alone in Adriel’s lair. Stomping on the emotion, she gave her a weak shrug before she felt her knees buckle.
“Okay – okay, come here.” Camila said, catching her sagging weight and turning them towards the door of the bathroom.
Against her fashion, Camila said nothing as she turned on the water and knelt before Lilith, who now sat on the lid of the toilet. Once her shoes were off, they worked in silent tandem to peel her fighting clothes from her skin. She had spent so long fighting, had spent so long alone, that she hardly knew what to do when Camila took the lead.
Neither of them acknowledged her nakedness whatsoever as she stepped out of every bit of clothing, shedding bits of dried blood as she went. As she was undressed it felt as if Camila was peeling back the layers of herself she kept locked away under the surface. Getting underneath her skin. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
Still encrusted in blood and sweat, Lilith fought back a sigh of relief when she stepped under the stream of hot water. Camila was unbearably gentle in her movements as if she were worried she might break under too much pressure. Her fingers kneaded her scalp, lathering her hair with shampoo. They slipped along her skin and scales, washing away all evidence of her crimes without a second thought. Most of the blood wasn’t hers, anyway. The grime covering her was a mixture of Adriel, Ava, and Michael’s. The last vestiges of beings that no longer existed. She was a walking tapestry of the dead.
It didn’t escape her notice that while Camila’s movements never faltered, her gaze lingered on every bit of skin that was now covered in those blue-black scales – especially the ones across her abdomen where it had all begun. She took in her new appearance like a map she was expected to memorize. Lilith couldn’t help but wonder just what Camila saw. Did she still see her sister in arms? Or did she see a demon, corrupted?
But no matter what Camila saw or didn’t see in her, none of it showed in the way she washed her and Lilith began to relax incrementally with each stroke of the sponge, each droplet of water that cleansed her like holy water. When she got to her face, however, she heard Camila suck in a quick breath.
“I’m sorry, Camila,” Lilith said in a voice so soft she may as well have whispered. Camila’s gaze met hers and for a moment there was no movement save for the water showering down upon them. And then Camila gave a tiny shake of her head and handed her a washcloth.
“I’ll get you a towel, be right back.”
And then she was gone and Lilith was once again left in the echo chamber of her thoughts. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up into the water, allowing it to wash away the final vestiges of battle. By the time she reopened them, there stood Camila with a towel over one arm and a set of soft clothing over the other. “I found you a spare pair of sweats and a sweatshirt from the box of clothing in your old room. Thought you might like something familiar.”
Something unidentifiable bloomed in her chest, and she had half a mind to smile back at Camila as she set the clothes on the countertop and held the towel out to her. Lilith took it, wrapping the soft fabric around her. “I’ll be in the room when you’re ready,” Camila said then, turning to step back out of the small bathroom.
As Camila closed the bathroom door behind her Lilith sagged against the wall for a moment, unable to identify if she felt good or not, being back here. This was what she wanted, right? For someone to take care of her, however briefly? Then why did it feel as though she was betraying some intrinsic part of herself? Why did it feel as if she were going against the lessons her mother had drilled into her?
Taking stock of her now cleansed body free of blood and restrictive clothing, Lilith felt her power humming beneath her skin, an adrenaline spike but tenfold and constant. Her hearing was sharpened, enabling her to hear the distant voices of people miles away and the scrabble of claws on stone from the mice that crawled the walls. Her power lay dormant but alive, and she knew with half a thought it would file her nails into blackened, dagger-like claws and reveal her wings. She felt no more alive than when that power rose to the surface, eager to fight, to hurt. It also felt like something fundamental had shifted in her; as if she were losing a part of her humanity to whatever was in the Tarask claw that had made her this way. How did she keep living now that her humanity had been stripped away?
Inspecting her hands once more, she ran the pad of her index finger along the edge of the rounded, pale nail of her thumb. They had done so much damage. Much more than she could have imagined, fighting for a cause she wholly believed in at one point in time. But. . .might her hands be good for something other than violence? Might they ever be soft, gentle, comforting? She doubted it.
Just below the surface of her skin her power quieted, and Lilith let loose a breath as she dropped the towel and began to change. Because no matter how much power she had, she had to admit that right now, she just felt cold and tired and altogether achingly human.
Her earlier thought rose to the surface – why did it feel as though she was betraying herself by seeking Camila’s help? The answer came to her immediately. Because if she showed her weaknesses then that meant someone could take advantage of her. If she didn’t take care to protect herself in every way she could, she may as well be doing nothing at all.
After all, she found a sort of solace and relief in following Adriel. He made her feel special, important. She was his right hand, and it finally felt like she was living up to the potential her family was known for. Until everyone saw her as the villain, too. Until those she was closest to shunned her for changing her views. But it didn’t matter anyway, none of what she’d done with Adriel did. Because he also showed her that without fear, power meant nothing.
Her subsequent disillusionment was what had brought her here. Back to the person she least expected to run to while on the verge of falling apart.
Lilith considered this as she dressed and reentered Camila’s room slowly. The change in temperature chilled her – the convent and specifically their rooms had never been warm to begin with – but she hardly reacted to it. Camila was sitting on the bed looking small and scared. As she stepped back into the room, a pair of brown eyes met hers.
“Why did you do it, Lilith?” Camila asked, the same steel in her voice that had been there before. She was in the wrong and had been for several months now, too consumed with finding approval to consider the damage she was doing. Why, then, did it still sting that Camila looked at her like she didn’t know her anymore?
“Why did I do what, exactly?” Her words came out barbed and defensive; Camila flinched. A sickening mixture of vindication and regret swelled in Lilith’s chest at the small movement.
“Why did you leave us? Why did you run away when you could have come home?”
Because she felt betrayed. She felt unwanted, unworthy, useless if she wasn’t the Halo Bearer. And that was before the Tarask had sunk its claws into her, irreparably altering her into something unrecognizable; before Adriel and his gilded lies; before the Arc spat her out like a piece of gristle – too tough to chew. Lilith didn’t know to which event Camila was referring, but she answered anyway. “Because I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough for anyone here, nor good enough for the Halo, so I found my own way.”
Camila frowned at this, looking puzzled over her answer. Lilith perched stiffly against a chest of drawers until, to her surprise, Camila slid sideways on her bed and patted the space beside her. For a moment she didn’t react until she patted it more insistently, and Lilith moved to sit beside her, careful not to touch. Camila broke that barrier immediately, drawing an arm around her waist like she’d done it all her life and taking her hand with her other one. “That was never the problem. You’ve always been enough. But you’ve also always held yourself at arms length to the rest of us and I still can’t figure out why.”
“I didn’t come here to talk.” Lilith didn’t meet Camila’s searching gaze now, far too preoccupied at all of the physical affection she was receiving. Camila’s arm was warm around her, her hand a steady presence. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been held by someone like this.
“But you came here for something, didn’t you?”
“I told you – a shower.”
“A shower in which you could barely hold your own weight upright for ten minutes,” Camila chided softly. “It’s a strength, not a weakness to be vulnerable, you know. What did you come to me for?”
Clearly, Camila was not to be dissuaded. “I wanted. . .company, okay? I don’t have anywhere else to go now Adriel’s gone.”
“But he’s not gone. Not in any way that matters.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Lilith asked, leaning away and beginning to disentangle herself from Camila’s arms. She wasn’t going to sit around and get grilled by her for answers she herself didn’t have. She’d gotten a shower and felt somewhat better in her own skin – she could figure it out from there.
“No – no, don’t leave. I’m sorry for all the questions.” Camila clung tighter, keeping her fully attached to the bed and to her. “It’s just. . .we have none of the answers right now, and you’re the last person I expected to show up here and I wanted to know why. But we don’t have to talk about that, I guess, if you don’t want to. Just stay, Lilith. Let me keep you company for a while.”
They fell into a silence that she couldn’t describe as comfortable, but it wasn’t unbearable. It still felt like a breath of fresh air after she’d been forced to hold her breath for far too long. The sensation of Camila’s thumb tracing gentle circles on the back of her hand, and the warmth of her body against hers felt foreign at first. But when Camila showed no signs of moving away, Lilith carefully and slowly allowed her cheek to come to rest on the crown of her head. Camila sank deeper into her at this small movement and sighed as if relieved to have some reciprocation.
“There is safety in power, you know,” Lilith said a few minutes later, breaking the silence. “And if I don't have power, then I’m defenseless.” She had hardly admitted it to herself, but that was the truth of why Adriel’s seduction had worked so well on her.
“No, you’re not. You have us – the OCS.”
“I ruined that.”
“You will always have a home here if you want it, Lil. Remember that.”
Exhausted and broken and wanting desperately to believe her, Lilith nodded. She curled tighter into Camila’s shockingly comforting embrace and wondered if there would ever be a day where she would feel at home anywhere, within herself or otherwise. But maybe this was a start, and she took a small comfort in that.