“Breakfast,” he says.
We do the same thing we have done every morning; we go through several portals so that we don’t get caught.
We don’t want anyone harming these women before it’s time.
We head towards a diner. The place looks like it has seen better days, but it’s got that charming family feel to it.
The woman who serves us barely lifts her head to acknowledge us and take our orders. I look towards Lucifer and see his face drawn into a frown.
“Something is wrong,” I whisper to him.
He nods his head. “She didn’t look like that the last time I was here,” he says lowly.
She comes back with our coffees. I look at her, and she looks like she’s on the verge of tears. We don’t say anything until she walks away again.
“What do we do?” I ask him.
“We will eat and then follow her when her shift is done,” Lucifer says.
I nod my head in agreement.
We eat in silence. I keep looking at the woman. She looks like she’s doing everything to hold herself together.
We wait until her shift is done before we follow her. Lucifer puts a cloak on us so she can’t see us. Now I have to wonder how many times he did that to me. I know he didn’t look all the time, which is how I got attacked and he didn’t know until it was over, but he must have sometimes been there with me while wearing the cloak so I couldn’t see him.
I frown as we seem to be walking forever; this is a long way to walk to work.
She walks to a yard which I assume is her house, but she collapses before she can make it to the steps.
We both take off in a run, and Lucifer checks her over before picking her up.
He gets us inside her home.
“You need to read her,” he says while placing her on the couch.
I look at him in shock.
“Why? That wouldn’t be fair to her,” I tell him.
“It’s not, but something is going on. I can feel her still breathing, but it’s like her life is clinging by a thread,” he says.
I glance over at him and can see that he is filled with desperation.
I finally understand; losing any one of his kids would break him. He lost the love of his life and losing any of us would be devastating. That’s why he checks up on the brides.
I reluctantly kneel beside the couch and look over at my sister. She looks pale and thin. I take a deep breath before grabbing her hand.
Everything tries to come to me at once.
She’s alone like I was before Silas came to me. All her family isn’t gone, but they gave her up as a baby. She has no idea who they are. She has no close friends or lover; it’s like she’s just living life to get by and survive.
I push through for her recent details. Seems she went to the doctor. She had a miscarriage, and her body hasn’t healed right. It is like she is infected on the inside.
I tug at my other power by placing my hand on her womb. I feel the sickness inside. Her body is close to giving up, the infection is so bad.
She can’t afford to miss work, so she hasn’t taken herself in.
I heal her without second guessing myself. I have a sense she isn’t next. If I don’t heal her then she will have to be recycled again before meeting her sin. That can’t happen.