Deep Redemption (Hades Hangmen Book 4) (4 page)

I stayed completely still, until the plane was empty. The guard flicked his chin. “Follow me.”

I stood on trembling legs and straightened my dress. Brother Stephen led the way, dressed in his best tunic, his black hair cropped and smart. I followed. Sister Ruth, dressed in her finest long gray dress and white headdress, brought up the rear.

The air became stickier and hotter the closer we got to the door. When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw a large black vehicle at the bottom. Four guards waited in front of it . . . all with their eyes fixed on me.

I ducked my head and made my way down the stairs.

When I reached the hot asphalt, I glanced up at the guards. “It is true, there
is
another Cursed,” one said, excitement flashing across his face. “The prophecy
will
be realized.”

I could feel the building excitement pulsing from the men in waves. Brother James gestured for the other men to move aside. He opened the door of the vehicle and ordered, “Get in.”

Brother Stephen, Sister Ruth and I climbed in. Brother James got into the driver’s seat. I turned my attention to the window to escape the scrutiny of the guard, who was staring at me in the mirror.

We traveled down a gravel road, lush green trees blurring past. Everyone in the vehicle was silent. It seemed as if we had been in it for an eternity before we stopped outside a block of stone buildings.

We were led into a small stone building set to the left of a longer gray one. As we entered, two men, dressed in black, rose from their seats behind a table. Immediately, their eyes focused on me.

My stomach lurched when I recognized that they were in charge. They were the men closest to the prophet. The darker of the two stepped forward and spoke to Brother Stephen. “You are the brother who lived with her?”

“Yes, sir,” Brother Stephen replied. “And so did Sister Ruth.”

The guard raised his eyebrows. “But neither of you declared that you had a Cursed in your commune? You kept it from the prophet? You ignored a direct order to turn over any potential devil-whores to New Zion for inspection?”

“We did not suspect Sister Harmony of being a Cursed,” Brother Stephen explained.

The guard pushed past Brother Stephen and unclipped the veil from my face. The humid air kissed my bare cheeks, and I felt them pale as the disciple guard’s eyes drank me in. He pushed the headdress from my hair, the blond, waist-length strands cascading down my back. The guard stepped away, his head tilted to the side.

Keep calm,
I reminded myself.
Do not break.

An angry expression set on his face. “Not once did you think that this woman was a Cursed? I have been in her presence less than two minutes yet I can see her unrivaled beauty and feel her sinful pull. Her innate evil practically pollutes the purity in this room.”

Brother Stephen and Sister Ruth were silent. The guard stepped closer to me. “How old are you?”

I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and whispered, “Twenty-three.”

His eyes flared. “The perfect age. The prophesized age.” The guard glared at Brother Stephen and Sister Ruth. “The Cursed Sister will be kept in seclusion until she is needed. We cannot risk her tempting the men of the commune before her wedding to the prophet.” The guard’s eyes drifted back to stare at me and travel down my body. “She is far more attractive than even Brother Ezrah divulged. The prophet will see this and brand her with the official Cursed status, I am sure.” The guard flicked his wrist. “You will both be secluded too, as punishment. Armageddon approaches, yet you hide our only chance at redemption in your grasp.” He shook his head in fury.

Turning to a lesser guard, the disciple guard ordered, “Take them to the cells. One has been prepared for the potential Cursed. Put Brother Stephen and Sister Ruth in another.”

A slimmer man pushed Brother Stephen toward the door. Sister Ruth quickly fixed my veil and headdress in place before we walked outside. I felt the guard’s eyes on my back the entire way as he took us to the long stone building. As we entered, I almost choked on the dank humid air that filled its every inch.

The guard opened a door. “You are in here,” he said to Brother Stephen and Sister Ruth. Sister Ruth squeezed my hand gently as she passed. I squeezed hers back. The guard shut the door behind them and said, “You will be given your orders soon.”

He walked to the next door. It was already open. Inside there was a bare mattress on the floor, a curtained-off toilet and basin, and a high window, with bars. My heart fell. I was to be trapped.

“Quarters fit for a Cursed whore,” the guard snapped, his voice dripping with disdain. He flicked his head toward the room, silently ordering me to get inside.

I stepped forward, and the door slammed shut behind me. I could hear the dripping of water from behind a wall to my right, which was separating me from what I assumed was another cell. I stood in the center of my cell for too many minutes to count before I walked to the makeshift bed. I sat down on the hard, stained mattress and leaned my back against the rough wall.

I closed my eyes trying to chase away the distress that was threatening to rise. I reminded myself of why I was there. I had to be strong. People were depending on my strength. My family was depending on me.

You will not fail
.
You will not fail your family . . . not again.

So I kept my eyes shut, chasing the claws of fear from my mind.

I was here.

To marry the prophet.

And that was simply that.

Cain

A large wooden door opened and the guards threw me forward. My legs gave way at the unexpected push and I fell to the ground. A searing anger flooded through my veins. My hands balled into fists as I forced myself to lift my torso off the ground. I tasted blood in my mouth and realized I had hit my lip as I fell. I barely felt it. Every damn part of me felt numb. It felt as if no time had passed before the guards had come for me again.

I’d passed out. When I’d awoken, I was being dragged back to this building.

I struggled to see in front of me; my matted hair and beard covered most of my face. A flash of white caught my attention just as the door behind me slammed shut. I knew the guards had left me, but I wasn’t alone. I could feel someone else was with me.

I pushed my hair aside. I flinched at the bright light above me, but tried to focus on that flash of white. After four blinks, the shape of a person came into view . . . a person I knew as well as I knew myself.

Or at least that was what I used to believe.

Judah sat on some high steps at the end of the room, a smirk on his face. His arms were draped casually over his bent knees. His long, brown hair was groomed, and his beard was now the length that I always wore mine. My stomach fell. I had been holding on to the vain hope that our people would see through his disguise. But he looked exactly like me. Sitting before me now, a small proud glint in his eyes, he knew I was seeing it too.

Judah’s plan had worked.

Judah was Prophet Cain.

Spurred on, unwilling to forfeit the will to fight, I made my weak arms lift me until I was sitting up straight. I breathed heavily, my energy depleted, but my eyes never left my brother.

His hard, unyielding eyes never left mine.

A confusing mix of emotions swelled inside my chest. Judah was my brother, born into this life as I was. We were made to be the leaders of The Order. We were taken from our parents when we were young, too young to remember them. All we’d ever had was each other. He was my lifeblood, my best friend . . . he was my twin. But as I looked at him now, he felt worlds apart from the brother I kept in my heart. The twin to whom I was once so close was drifting away from me. I knew how to stop it, but I just . . .
couldn’t
.

“Judah,” he said, his voice echoing off the thick stone walls. Despite my tiredness, my head snapped up.

Judah
.

He’d called
me
Judah. His delusion was worse than I’d feared.

My body vibrated with anger at the sound of
his own name
coming from his mouth. I licked along my dry cracked lips. I swallowed, just to allow some liquid into my throat, and rasped, “
Cain.
” Judah’s dark eyes flashed with fury. It only urged me further on. “Cain,” I repeated. “My name is . . .
Cain
.”

Judah’s smirk dropped and his entire body tensed. I slowly placed my hand over my chest. “
I
am
the prophet . . . not you . . . not . . . you . . . ”

Judah’s cheeks flooded with redness. I dropped my hand, unable to keep it lifted. Judah watched my limb fall limply to my side. His flush faded and he leaned forward. The tension thickened as he stared me down, the air feeling too hot to breathe.

He didn’t say anything for several seconds, simply keeping our gazes locked. Finally, a wide, cruel smile set upon his lips. “You know, brother, when we were children, I was convinced you were the greatest person in the world. Even above Uncle David.”

In my quick exhale I could hear a faint husky whistle, evidence of the toll my beatings were taking on my body. My throat was raw and sore, but what hurt most was the pain in my heart as I heard the nostalgia in Judah’s voice. Because I remembered it. I remembered how, when we were children, he would look at me as we lay on The Pasture’s perfectly manicured lawn under the summer sun. We would talk about how I would one day ascend, with my brother by my side. Always by my side, as God had designed it. I squeezed my eyes shut. We were innocent children then, looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. We had no idea of the path that lay before us, the treacherous roads that we would travel.

It was strange. I could still feel the excitement we both felt back then surging within me. I remembered my fear of my personal path: becoming the prophet.

But I’d always known I could do it, because I had him.

Our unbreakable bond had been shattered mere months after my ascension. Shattered by his greed. Obliterated by his pride . . . destroyed by his need for revenge.

Jaw tightening, muscles growing rigid with hate, Judah continued, “But as we got older, all you did was frustrate me. We both studied the scriptures, yet I grasped the lessons more easily than you. We were brought up in the same way, yet only you were ever punished. You made mistake after mistake, stumbling through sermons and fumbling over our sacred passages like a blind fool.” Judah’s head tipped to the side, and his narrowed eyes ran over my inked sleeves. My Hangmen ink. I knew he hated that I had them. I knew he hated that I had been picked to carry out the task our uncle had deemed so important.

He hated that he wasn’t me.

A strange expression came over his face. For once, I couldn’t guess what he was thinking.

“Then Uncle sent you to infiltrate the devil’s men.” Judah sighed. He ran his hand down his face, just the way I did. He shook his head . . . just like I did. He must have studied my habits and mannerisms.

A question circled in my head: how long had he been planning this takeover? Enough time to have studied my every move. Long before I gave him cause. My blood chilled. My brother, my twin . . . seemingly he had doubted me all along.

“You know, when you were taken from The Pasture and placed with those men, I was relieved,” he said. “My days were spent in isolation. I studied and studied, and every day I became stronger in my faith, more knowledgeable about our movement. I strengthened my ability to lead our people.” Judah got to his feet. I had to tip my head back to look at him as he towered over me. I was on my knees, looking up at Judah above me. In his eyes, I saw the rush of power it brought him. The true prophet kneeling at the feet of the brother cast aside.

He smirked, a smug expression engulfing his face. He crouched down to meet my eyes. “I could never understand why Uncle had sent you, his ‘chosen heir’, into Satan’s grasp.” His hand dropped to trace the tattoo of Hades on my forearm. “But now I know.” Judah nodded, as if he was convincing himself whatever theory he had in his head was true. “He was testing you. He was seeing if you could resist evil’s pull.” Judah dropped my hand and shrugged nonchalantly. “It turns out you could not.”

“I did,” I spat back. “I lived among them for five years. I gathered intelligence, I made us strong. Without that information we would have failed in our mission!” I winced as my throat throbbed with pain. Pushing through it, I added, “
You
would have died in a matter of weeks of being amongst those men. You are too weak. I stayed strong. I did what I had to for our cause.” I gritted my teeth. “I killed for them. I took lives, innocent lives. You would have crumbled!”

Judah’s expression didn’t change, yet I saw by the tightening of his eyes that my words had hit their target.

“You did not stay strong, brother,” he said in a taunting voice, pulling his anger back from the brink. “You fell. You held a Cursed in your grasp and let her go because you believed you loved her.” He tipped his head to one side. “In reality, you were cast under her spell like everyone else. Like all the weak men that had fallen before. Your weakness led those men to our commune and got our savior killed.” Hatred for Judah swirled inside me. He had no idea what the hell he was talking about!

Judah leaned forward. “Then even when I brought all three to you, a gift on a silver platter, you still could not secure them. Instead you let them go. You were blinded by their beauty
again,
ruled by your lust and sin. That,
brother
, is not the mark of a prophet.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he interrupted me. “It became clear to me on that journey home why you had been sent to the Hangmen.” He was toying with me, making me wait on my knees for his conclusion. “Because our uncle knew you would fall. He knew you would be swayed by evil.” Judah’s eyes gleamed with righteousness and he nodded his head. “He took you away so I could remain in seclusion. He knew you were a distraction to me.” A slow grin pulled on his lips; my veins turned to ice. “
I
was the destined prophet after all. This was all meant to be
mine
. I see that now.”

My hands balled into fists. Losing my already frayed composure, I said, “You preach nothing but hate! I can hear you from my cell. You have announced The Rapture to the flock. You have signaled the end of days. You have sent them into hysteria!”

“Because it
is
, brother. The time has come,” he replied calmly.

I shook my head in frustration. “That would have been
revealed
by God. You would have had a direct message from our Lord. You cannot just announce that on your own! You cannot put innocent lives in danger because of your need for Hangmen blood!”

Judah smiled wider, and my heart dropped. “I have,” he said proudly. “The moment you deserted your faith by freeing the Cursed Sisters from that mill, I felt the change in me. I felt the burden of leadership fall on my shoulders, transferring from yours. And I have since received revelation after revelation from the Lord, just as our uncle did for so many years.” Judah nodded slowly. “And I have been told to prepare our people for The Rapture. It is time, brother. The time we have prepared for our entire lives has come.”

My eyes widened in shock, and I studied Judah’s face. I searched for his deception, for evidence that he was lying.

But all I saw was truth and conviction on his face. I shook my head, unable to believe it. He couldn’t be . . . no, it wasn’t possible . . .

Judah’s hand landed hard on my shoulder. “Brother,” he said softly. In an instant, his eyes had changed from hard to kind, angry to loving . . . from the prophet’s to my brother’s.

I wanted to speak, to throw off his hand and tell him I knew he was lying. But I didn’t. Because I
knew
him. I knew when my twin lied . . . I didn’t know . . . I couldn’t focus . . . he looked like he was telling the truth . . . my head was too sore, my instincts failing me . . .

“Brother,” Judah tried again. This time, I tiredly met his gaze. “Today is the fortieth day of your punishment. You have atoned for your weakness and misjudgment.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s been thirty-five.” I didn’t know why I was arguing the point—how many days had passed wasn’t even important. But I just needed something to be
real
. Nothing was real to me anymore.
Nothing
.

I had thirty-five tallies on my wall.

Not forty.

Thirty-five.

“You have not always been conscious, brother. Some of your punishments kept you out cold for a long time. More in the beginning, when your desertion from us was fresh and the punishments were harsher. It has been forty days and forty nights, as required by our holy books. I stayed away from you while you faced your punishment. Your sins had to be atoned for, just like when we were children. In isolation from those you love. I am here today to see you repent and bring you back into the fold.” His face softened. “To my arms and trust.”

“Repent?” I asked, confused. Every part of me felt numb: skin, flesh and bones. But my head began to throb again at everything he was telling me.

“Yes,” Judah said gently. “For your sins. For losing faith in The Order . . . in me.” My stomach clenched as he stared at me with such compassion. As his features softened toward me. As he looked at me like a brother.

Judah’s hand reached down and clasped hold of mine. I stared at our joined hands—mine dirtied and injured, his unmarked. I choked back a cry when his fingers gently squeezed mine. I let my gaze drift to his. His brown eyes were glistening. “Judah,” I rasped, feeling the fight drain away from my heart.

“Repent, brother, please. Please . . . I . . . ” He cleared his throat. “I need you beside me.” He laughed softly. “Like we always were . . . like we are always meant to be. Brothers bound by God, blood and faith.”

I was tired. I was so tired. His hand lay in mine, the warmth of his affection seeping onto my skin. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I was sick of being alone.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore,” I whispered.

Judah’s forehead pressed against mine. “Then do not be, brother. Come back to us. Free yourself from Satan’s grip and come back to us. You have a home here with me. A home that is waiting for you to return. Repent, brother . . . simply utter those two liberating words.”

My lips twitched as I felt my resolve flutter away. I wanted a family again. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be whole again.

Judah held his breath as my mouth opened . . . but nothing came out. Instead, my mind raced with images. Flashes of activities I’d seen here in New Zion. Judah’s videos of children dancing seductively. Judah inviting me to choose one to take as my consort. The awakenings that I knew Judah had participated in. The taking of young girls. The sex, the acts of endorsed depravation. I could see the Cursed Delilah’s scarred face as if she were before me, could see her fearful, terrified gaze.