Deep Redemption (Hades Hangmen Book 4) (5 page)

“Brother, listen to me,” Judah continued, his grip growing tighter and tighter on my hand. “We just had it the wrong way around.
I
am the prophet and
you
are the Prophet’s Hand. It was why you struggled to cope. Because we were meant for different roles.”

Judah sat down before me, meeting me at my level. At this height he appeared my equal once more. But I knew that wasn’t possible. Too much had happened, too many things had blotted stains on my faith to ever make things return to the way they were before.

Nothing could be the same. The knowledge I had now made sure of that.

“No,” I whispered dejectedly, before I even realized I had spoken. I lifted my eyes to see Judah watching me intently. “No,” I said again, stronger this time, feeling adrenaline surge through my body, bringing life to my bones and clarity to my mind.

“No, what . . . ?” Judah asked, frowning.

“No to it all. I won’t repent.” Judah tried to snatch his hand from mine but I held on tight. “And repent for what, for saving us? Keeping the Cursed Sisters would have led to the Hangmen raiding our commune again. The Cursed Sisters are all betrothed, married or bearing children. They are no longer spiritually pure enough to be the prophet’s bride, even if we did get them back.” I took a much-needed breath and continued. “And I won’t stand by and allow children to be violated by grown men, Judah. I still believe in all of this, in our cause. But I will stop the practice of awakenings. It’s . . . barbaric. It’s just plain wrong!”

“No,” Judah replied through clenched teeth. “It is the way of the prophet, revealed to him by the Lord!” He pushed to his feet, ripping his hand from mine.

I fought with what to say next. I knew the impact it would have . . . I decided to say it anyhow. “I do not believe that practice was revealed by God. How would any God condone that?”

Judah’s eyes widened. “Now you choose?” Judah said and staggered back to sit on the stone steps. His eyes narrowed as he watched me, as though he was staring at a stranger. His face clouded over. “Now you choose to question the scriptures, at our most crucial and significant time? When I need you with me most?”

I stayed silent and stared back. Judah’s lip twitched in agitation. “Tell me,” Judah said and paused, drawing it all out. “If you had succeeded in getting the Cursed Salome to stay in the commune, would you be feeling these things?”

I felt as though my twin had punched me in the gut. He knew how I had felt about Mae. Now he was using it against me. Judah leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Well? Would you?”

I thought about his question, truly thought about it. I pictured Mae’s beautiful smile, her long dark hair and her ice-blue eyes—always my favorite feature. But then I closed my eyes and I saw her in Styx’s arms. I saw the way she looked at him. I saw the way she now looked at me. Pity, maybe even hatred.

Never love and respect.

What the hell was I doing?

Everything was a mass of confusion in my brain. I tried to imagine being married to Mae here in New Zion. I would never have taken another. But Mae would have never have suffered this life. She hated this place, and I had once loved her enough to not want it for her.

Hell, I had no idea what I felt anymore. The longer I had stayed in that cell, hurting and in pain, the more my feelings for her had dimmed. Who wanted someone who despised you? Who wanted a woman who was repulsed by everything that you are?

Mae had wanted me as her friend, and all I had done was stab her in the back. A dull, unbearable ache settled in my stomach. Besides my brother, she had been my only friend.

I needed a friend right now.

Sucking in a slow, labored breath, I met my brother’s eyes. “I would never have kept her.” Judah’s head drew back. I’d shocked him. And just as I sensed no deception in his revelations, I knew he sensed no deception in mine. “She was never meant for our world.”

Judah seemed to radiate rage. It started as a low ember, growing to a molten fire. “Why?” he shouted, rising from his step like a demon from hell. “Why are you
being
this way? We were made for this life, but you are turning your back on the path, your people. Your brother! For what?”

I didn’t speak. Judah walked to where I sat and grasped my arm, sending pain ricocheting down toward my fingers. But Judah’s eyes were on my ink again. “I never let myself believe it. But you
were
truly corrupted. If you were still pure in your beliefs, you would not be fighting this with such venom.” He bent down and asked coldly, “Do you want to be put back in that cell? Do you want the punishment to continue? Do you want to be alone for the rest of your sinful life?”

A flicker of the old Judah sparked in my brother’s eyes. Buried beneath all of the power he held, below the faith that protected him like a shield, he was sincerely imploring me to repent. In that moment, I saw that he was just as afraid of failing in his leadership as I had been.

Judah’s hand slipped down my arm and landed in my palm again. I swallowed back the rush of emotion that came flooding forth. For the longest time I had been starved of faith in others. His hand was a lifeline. I was drowning, and he was trying so desperately to save me.

We’d only ever tried to save each other.

“Repent, brother,” Judah begged, his voice soft and pained. “Together we can make our people great. We can prepare the faithful for The Rapture. Heaven will be ours.” His fingers tightened around mine and he dropped a kiss on my head.

“If the end of days has come, then we will perish regardless. We have no pure Cursed Sister to save us through marriage. We’re doomed either way, Judah. All is lost. It is over.”

Seconds passed in silence. “No, it is not,” he said. I froze. Judah sighed in excitement. “I have found another.”

I reared my head back and searched his gleeful face. “What?” My voice was raw with shock.

Judah’s hands landed on my shoulders. “Repent, brother. All is not lost. Everything is going exactly to plan. Our people are training. They are learning how to fight. The devil’s denizens will not take us before we rise.” Locking eyes with me, he said once more, “Repent. Repent and return to stand beside me. It was always meant to be you and me. Let us finish this as we began.
Together.
”

Shock rendered me speechless. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to agree. I wanted to bathe, to sleep, to eat in the mansion. I wanted everything my brother did . . . but not how he wanted it.

I couldn’t.

I pulled away from his touch. “I won’t repent for what I’ve done. I was right. Our practices must change. The Cursed Sisters don’t belong here with us.”

In a flash, the loving brother I knew was gone and in his place was the pretender prophet once more. Standing, he turned from me, only coldness in his stance. “Brother Michael! Brother James!” Judah called. The door behind me opened. My heart was breaking, but I held still. Judah addressed the men behind me. “He refuses to repent. He is a sinner and his punishment must continue.”

“Yes, Prophet,” Brother Michael replied. I stared at my brother, willing him to look at me again. He didn’t. He walked out of the room, never looking back.

Large hands wrapped around my arms and I was yanked to my feet. I bit my tongue to stifle a shout of pain. The disciple guards dragged me to the punishment room, struggling to carry my limp body. I was taller and broader then both these men. But I was weak. I couldn’t fight back.

Like every day, I was made to stand, and the punches came. Fists plowed into my ribs, kidneys and chest . . . but I didn’t feel anything.

I forced myself to remain standing. They left my face alone today, but with every strike and blow to my body, they smiled, and I could see the disdain on their faces. But I could not hate them. I had been like them once. They believed in our cause, one hundred percent. In their eyes I was a sinner that had been swayed by the devil.

Maybe I was.

I knew the devil was real. Panic whipped around me. Maybe I
had
fallen victim to evil. Maybe my soul was destined to burn in hell.

I just didn’t know. As the questions circled in my head, I realized that, in that moment, I didn’t even care.

Brother Michael delivered one final rapid punch to my back and I fell to the floor, my knees buckling with the pain. My palms pressed down on the stone floor as I fought for breath.

Brothers Michael and James wrenched me back to my feet and pulled me from the punishment cell. I shook with every step I took. And with every new step, my anger grew. I could feel it infusing every part of my body, bitterness seeping into my veins like an intravenous drip.

The door to the cell house opened. Sensing someone was near, I lifted my head to see two new guards standing at the entrance. They were both dark haired, with dark eyes. They were heavily muscled, with short hair and dark-stubbled cheeks. They looked as if they were related. Each of them held an AK-47 in their hands, and they were dressed in the typical black clothing and heavy boots of the disciple guards. They flicked their chins at the guards holding me. When their eyes fell to me, their lips curled in disgust.

As I was dragged back to my cell, I noticed an older man and an older woman preparing food at the end of the long hallway. They both looked toward me, but quickly turned away when the guards from the entrance ordered, “Work!”

The guards threw me into my cell. As my cheek slammed against the stone floor, I couldn’t contain my rage any longer. Using the residual adrenaline pulsing through me, I launched myself to my feet and let out five weeks’ worth of screams. I paced around the room in staggered steps, my legs stinging and throbbing as blood rushed to my muscles.

My gaze locked onto the wall of tallies. I counted them. “Thirty-five,” I growled, my voice now husky from overuse. I picked up my sharpened rock from the floor and slammed it against the stone wall, the sharp edge slicing into my palm. I let the rock fall to the ground.

I was back in this cell, left to rot, caged like an animal. Stepping back, I picked up the bloodied rock and, with shaky hands, brought it back to the wall. Starting a new tally, I scraped five new lines on the wall. “
Forty
 . . . ”

I couldn’t stand anymore. I slumped to the floor, leaning against the wall. My torso and back were on fire in the aftermath of the beating.

The silence in the cell was deafening as I sat on the hard floor, the humid air clinging to my skin like glue. The crackling of the commune’s speakers preceded an announcement; Judah’s voice came bursting through the window of my cell.

“People of New Zion. Today’s Lord’s Sharing will commence in fifteen minutes.”

I froze. Ice trickled down my spine when I thought of what would happen in that hall. I felt sick as I remembered the only Lord’s Sharing I had seen. Grown men raping small girls, Judah lapping it up; Sarai, his willing consort, writhing by his side.

I closed my eyes and fought back another scream. The cell darkened as storm clouds closed in, smothering the blue sky. A fitting metaphor for what was happening to me inside. Light was being stubbed out, like a candle in a hurricane. I could feel the talons of bitterness sinking into my soul. The only other time I had felt this way was when I had infiltrated the Hangmen. Then, I had been disgusted by their sinful life, knowing my faith was the only path to salvation.

Now I was beginning to think that as impure as those men were, at least they had honor and pride. And I was damn sure they wouldn’t have raped children in the name of Hades or the club.

My hands shook. My chest was so tight I feared my muscles might snap. It amazed me how quickly I was spiraling into darkness. I could almost feel my torn heart turning black.

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. I tried to will myself to sleep, just to get the hell away from this crushing reality, if only for a while. But my ears pricked up when I heard a sound coming from the cell beside mine. I frowned. I was alone in these cells, wasn’t I? No one but the guards had been here since I was imprisoned. The guards, and apparently the new people that were preparing food.

I listened harder. I didn’t hear anything at first. I thought I must have mistaken the sound of the guards for something else. But then I heard it again.

I pressed my ear to the stone. Small sniffing sounds drifted through the thick wall. I listened more closely, making sure it wasn’t the pain making me imagine things. But I heard it again, accompanied by a light cough.

My pulse beat faster. There was someone there. I shuffled forward, searching the wall. At the bottom of the cell, there was a small gap where some old cement had worn away. I lowered my chest to the ground, trying to see through. The gap was too small for me to see anything, but as I pressed my ear to it, I could hear the sounds more clearly.

Someone was crying.

Music sounded from outside, signaling the commencement of the Lord’s Sharing. I closed my eyes, trying to push away the images of what would be happening there. The crying through the wall seemed to grow louder.

“Hello?” I said, wincing as the word scraped at my raw throat. I swallowed in an attempt to wet my vocal chords. The crying stopped. Straining my ears, I caught the sound of shuffling.