by Tillie Cole
Reaching up, I spread my hand on his chest, digging my nails into his skin, picking up rhythm, his harsh breath panting, faster and faster.
“Mae… Mae, Christ! Love you…”
Freeing Styx from my mouth, I sat up, spurred on by his words, lifted my hips, and, bracing him at my entrance, slammed down to push him all the way inside.
His chest reared off the mattress. “MAE!” he roared.
Palming my behind, he ground me furiously against his hardness, the movement hitting that spot, that spot right there.
“River… oh, yes…” I mewled.
“I fuckin’ love it when you call me River…” he whispered, licking along my neck, down my chest, and over to suck on my nipples.
“River… River…” I moaned, my stomach tensing, thighs squeezing. As I threw my head back, I shattered into pieces, the pleasure lighting me up from the inside out.
“Mae. Babe… You’re milking me so good… so… tight… argh!” Styx stilled and every muscle in his ripped, hard body strained. His neck veins corded, his mouth dropped open and a flood of warmth spread within me.
Pushing back the damp hair from Styx’s face, I pressed my forehead to his as I caught my rasping breath. I smiled as his hand ghosted up my spine and gripped the nape of my neck, holding me in place.
“You did not stutter,” I casually commented, a happy smile on my face.
He drew back in disbelief, a deep V between his brows. I moved in and kissed the crease.
“I didn’t?”
I shook my head.
Styx exhaled and a wry smile emerged. “It’s like… I can… breathe around you… It’s… getting easier… I forget I can’t… speak when… we’re alone… It makes me feel… normal.”
Styx spoke each word with crystal clarity. He paused several times, his eyes twitched as he spoke the sentence and he took several deep breaths, but there was no stammer. I positively beamed with pride for him.
“You know… I had every kind of treatment growing up… until eventually, at six, a… specialist recommended I… learn to sign. You know, just… to give me some kinda voice. The docs couldn’t… ever work out the cause. I had no… fuckin’ clue. Just knew my… words didn’t come like… everyone else’s. I never let… anyone get too close, ’cept… my old man and Ky… and this… chick I met through a fence… when I was a kid. Then years later… she stormed back into… my life.” He cupped my cheeks. “Babe… you’re my best… kinda therapy.”
I stared into his large hazel eyes and tipped my head. “I thought you said, ‘it ain’t you who’s meant for me’?”
He laughed. He rarely laughed, but when he did, I rejoiced at the sound of it: husky, deep… male. “Oh, it’s me, babe… Ain’t no other man for you… but me.”
Pressing my forehead against his, I brushed a kiss on his lips, my tongue licking along the silver lip ring. “Mmm…” he groaned. I began rolling my hips, his length hardening once more.
Styx laughed. “Again, babe?”
I nodded and pulled at his dark, messy hair. “Again… and again… and again… and again…”
A finger stroked my arm, waking me and I smiled.
“Mmm… Styx? I dreamt of you again.”
The hand froze on my skin and I frowned. Even in my sleep, I sensed something was wrong. “Styx?”
Still heavy with sleep, my eyes opened slowly and I wrestled with blurry vision. Sitting up, I felt a tidal wave of nausea roll around my stomach and I rubbed at my eyes to wipe away the fog of my deep sleep. “Styx?” I called.
As my sight improved, two figures emerged from the mist; females, one blond, one dark-haired.
“Mae?” a soft voice whispered, gently calling me into the world of reality.
Delilah? Why can I hear Delilah? I quickly scanned my surroundings: gray cement walls, wooden floor, a large wooden cross on the north side of the room. And a large hand-painted picture of someone… Prophet David!
No… no… no… please take me back to my dream. Styx. Styx, Styx…
Shaking, I jumped from the narrow bed, trying to run, walk, crawl—I did not know. My weak legs were unable to support my weight and I fell to the floor. Tears welled up as realization hit.
The commune; I was back in the commune.
Not the compound. No more Styx.
Abducted against my will and returned to Hell.
“Mae?” I lifted my head in response.
Lilah and Maddie stood before me. Their wary eyes watched me closely; each wore the same worried expression. They were clothed in the commune’s standard long gray dress and their hair was held back with white cloth—modest and conservative.
I held out my arms and the two of them launched into my embrace. “My sisters…” I whispered, tears now streaming down my cheeks. “I have missed you so much.” It felt so good to hold them again. The intensity of our bond hitting me as I clutched them in my arms.
They held me close and I could hear their sniffles and soft cries. After long minutes, they pulled back.
Lilah brushed the matted hair from my face. “Are you well, Mae?” she asked softly, then continued. “You have been unconscious for many hours. We have been caring for you.”
Drawing in a deep breath, I tested my muscles and stretched out my aching limbs. I was weak, my arm throbbed but I concluded I was well. When I looked down, I froze. Me, back in the sisters’ traditional gray attire, a large poorly shaped floor- length dress. Rolling up my sleeves, I spotted a red mark and I racked my brain to remember where it had come from.
My mind was still foggy, but as I fought the haze, scattered memories began to surface. Singing to Styx… making love to Styx… then men in balaclavas storming the room… and Rider… NO! I jerked and my eyes snapped open, staring straight at my sisters.
“Rider! Where is Rider? Did he bring me back? Is he here in the commune?”
Maddie and Lilah looked to one another in surprise. Lilah took hold of my hand. “Mae, who is Rider? You are not making sense.”
I gripped her fingers tightly. “Rider… he…” I swallowed back bile as I remembered him embracing Gabriel and the elders. Brother Cain, long time no see!
No! Impossible!
“Mae,” Maddie whispered. “You are frightening me, sister. Who is Rider? Where have you been all this time?”
I shook my head and blurted, “Brother Cain! Rider is Brother Cain.” I could tell by their sudden stillness that he was here, here right now.
“Mae. Brother Cain brought you here, with the elders, earlier this afternoon. The commune is holding a dinner for him as we speak. Everyone is so joyful. He returned you to Prophet David. Brother Cain is our savior. We were banned from attending. We have been shunned and kept in isolation since you left.”
Maddie took my other hand. The gesture surprised me. Maddie was never affectionate; she was always alone, preferring her own company to that of others. She was never that close to Bella and me.
Obviously something within her had changed.
Her bright-green eyes would not leave mine. As I looked more closely, I noticed she had lost weight since my escape. Her long black hair was limper, her skin paler. As I brought her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss to the back, a single tear rolled slowly down her cheek.
“I have missed you, sister,” I hushed out quietly.
“You left me,” she said almost inaudibly.
My heart plummeted. I had left her alone. She had just lost Bella and then I abandoned her too. She was only twenty-one, the most timid of us all. And I, her only family, had abandoned my Maddie here, in commune, with Brother Moses, the cruelest of all the elders.
“I am so sorry. So sorry…” I pulled Maddie to me. “I will never leave you again. I promise. I was so selfish.”
“Can you promise me that too?” I glanced to the side at Lilah. She was kneeling, watching us with huge blue eyes. With Maddie refusing to untie herself from my neck, I managed to inch closer to Lilah and she embraced the both of us.
“Oh, Mae, it was so bad when you left. The people thought God was punishing us. They were frantic. And the elders…” Lilah paused, and I felt Maddie stiffen and whimper into my hair. I stroked her head and rocked her in my arms. Lilah sat back, watching Maddie with sympathetic eyes.
“What about the elders?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Lilah swallowed. “They were so angry with you. When they came back hours after their search, they came in here, to us.”
Maddie’s whimpers turned into gut-wrenching sobs.
“They came for us,” Lilah murmured.
“Who did?” I snapped.
“All of them! All of the elders: Gabriel, Jacob, Noah, and Moses.”
Maddie clawed at my back, trying to get even closer. She was like a frightened child, so I shushed her, my alarm increasing with every sob. Lilah wiped her eyes.
“Maddie, calm. You are safe now. I am here.” I looked up at Lilah and mouthed, What is wrong with her?
Lilah swallowed and looked away. “They wanted divine retribution. The elders became obsessed with punishing the sisters for your disobedience. They were livid that you had somehow fled the commune and that you were out there living in sin.” She took a deep, sobering breath. “They said the Cursed were shameful, a hex on The Order: you… Bella… They said your bloodline was tainted with evil. Said Satan used you as vehicles for temptation.”
This time I stilled. Maddie. She was of my bloodline. Did they believe she too was a vehicle of temptation and sin?
I held my sister even tighter.
“They said they needed to make sure Maddie did not go the same way… That they had to break her once and for all. Exorcize her demons.”
Maddie was now crying uncontrollably. Her heart pounded against mine and her chest jerked with the intensity of her sobs. “They took her so brutally for hours and hours until she passed out. One after the other… sometimes at the same time. They made me watch but I could do nothing. Then they turned their attention to me…”
“How often? How often did this happen?” I asked, tightly squeezing Lilah’s hand in support.
“Several times a week…” She glanced down at the floor, then back up again. “Every week since you have been absent. It truly has been a living hell. Trapped in this room, taken until we bled, time after time. Mae, we cannot take any more… We cannot keep living like this…”
We huddled together until all the tears that could be shed had been shed. Eventually, Maddie shuffled back to sit before me. Her hand stayed welded to mine though. I do believe she planned never to let it go.
“Where have you been, Mae?” Lilah asked. “What was the outside world like?”
Where do I begin?
“Sisters, it is like nothing you can imagine—the technology, the way people live. It is so, so different. When I left here, the elders found me at the perimeter fence.”
Maddie jumped and frowned and I rubbed the back of her hand. She calmed.
“I only just made it to the other side of the fence, but not before Gabriel’s dog attacked me. My leg was badly injured, yet I managed to run. I made it to the edge of the forest and discovered a country road. A truck picked me up a short time later. The woman driver, a good lady, drove me far, far away.”
“What… what is a truck?” Maddie asked quietly. I cast her a small smile.
“It is a large vehicle, like the prophet’s car but much much bigger.” Her green eyes widened, so did Lilah’s, as they tried to imagine such a thing. I wondered what they would make of a motorbike, of the Hangmen’s Harleys and Choppers. I realized at that moment just how sheltered I must have seemed to the Hangmen when they found me in the compound believing I was in hell.
“And then what?” Lilah pushed, eager to hear more. I imagined, to her, it sounded like a fictional story.
I shuddered and continued. “I was losing blood… dying, I think…” Maddie gasped and her hands began to shake. “The driver of the truck dropped me at the side of a road and I found shelter in a compound of sorts. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a strange room, alone and confused.”
I shuffled forward and tugged at their hands. “Sisters, outside is not evil like we have been told. It is filled with wonder and good people. Yes, it is dangerous at times, sinful at other times, but no more than here. I made new friends, discovered who I truly am… and… I fell in love.”
This time they both gasped loudly. “Love?” Maddie questioned, clearly in shock. Love was not something females experienced here at commune
“Yes, love. Such deep love with the most incredible man. He is strong, protective and cares for me greatly. I have been with him all this time. I love him so much, but…”
“But what?” Lilah urged me to continue, her normally restrained features had become animated.
“There was another there. Someone I believed to be a friend.” I laughed mirthlessly. “Foolish me, I could not have been more wrong—”
“Is that so?”
I craned my head in the direction of the doorway. There stood Rider—no, Brother Cain. Rider was a falsehood, a ruse to blind the Hangmen to his real purpose.
Rider is dead to me.
Cain’s formidable frame seemed to engulf the entire room. He was dressed all in black, his long hair down and falling over his shoulders—just like every other disciple. He just looked plain wrong without his standard jeans and cut.
“Greetings, Brother Cain.” My sisters dropped prostrate in his presence, their heads to the floor, arms stretched out in front—complete and utter submission.
Cain cast them a brief disinterested glance, then focused his brown eyes on me. I stood on shaky feet, trying to meet him face to face, on equal terms.
His eyes narrowed.
“Leave us,” he commanded.
Instantly, Maddie and Lilah jumped to their feet, their wary eyes questioning.
Lilah took Maddie’s hand, but my sister refused to move. Cain addressed them once more. “I said leave!” he snapped, obviously losing patience.
“Don’t you dare shout at her!” I threatened, stepping right up to his broad chest. Lilah sucked in a sharp, shocked breath at my action.
“Mae, be quiet,” Cain growled in warning, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“I will not be quiet! I shall never obey another order given by any of you people ever again!”
Maddie ran to my side and clutched my arm. I glanced down at my sister. She was petrified. I pressed a kiss on her head.
“Go, Maddie. I shall be fine. Wait for me outside.”
She shook her head, her huge eyes squarely aimed at Cain. Brother Cain sighed. “I shall not hurt her. Despite what y’all believe, I have never harmed a female. I don’t intend to start with Mae. Especially not Mae.”
I scoffed at that obvious lie, earning me another glare from Cain. Turning to Maddie, I said, “Go, Maddie. Lilah will care for you. I shall find you when our business is complete.”
Lilah took Maddie’s hand and pulled her to the door. They left and the door closed.
“I have nothing to say to you.” I sneered at Cain. Turning my back to my former friend, I walked over and sat on the end of my bed.
“I know you think I have betrayed you, but everything was real, Mae. Us, our friendship, everything I said… especially the way I feel about you.” He edged closer to me and I held up my hand, signaling him to stop.
He did so.
“Really? Was it all real, Rider—Oops! I mean Cain! Forgive me if your kidnapping me and returning me here, to Hell, can be construed as a mere slight against me.”
Cain ignored my sarcasm and ploughed on regardless.
“You don’t belong out there in that world, Mae. You belong with your people… with me.” His voice was so soft, so persuasive.
My heart sank. I wanted my Rider back. The person stood before me confus
ed me and at that instant, I just did not know what to believe.
“It can’t be what you want,” he stated. “You want to be an old lady? You want to be surrounded your whole life with guns, drugs, and violence? The Hangmen are poison, Mae. Deep down you know it.”
“No,” I countered. Cain remained relaxed, a small happy curve forming on his lips. I looked him dead in the eye. “I want to be with Styx for the rest of my life. Wherever he is, is where I will be. He is my life. If he remains president of the Hangmen, I will be standing at his side.”
Cain blanched, then thundered toward me. He pushed me back on the bed then crawled above my body, pinning down both of my arms.
“What are you doing? Get off me!” I hissed, trying to throw him off.
“Well, you ain’t gonna see Styx ever again, okay?”
I stopped fighting and closed my eyes, only to open them again and ask, “Am I to marry Prophet David?”
Something akin to pain flashed in Cain’s eyes, but he nodded and my eyes filled with water. “Please leave me,” I whispered. I just wanted to be left alone.
Cain’s head lowered and his forehead pressed to mine. “I love you, Mae. I love you so much. I ache for you to be mine.”
“You were never meant for me, nor was Prophet David. I am Styx’s.”
Cain suddenly punched bed beside me, his arms shaking with frustration. “Styx ain’t here! He’s gone, Mae. Long fuckin’ gone. No one will find you here! This commune is protected.”
“Rider…” I sighed. Damn, I had to stop myself. “I mean, Cain—”
“No.” He interrupted, skimming his finger down my cheek. “I like you calling me Rider.”
I frowned in disagreement and he ran his fingers through my hair, his eyes soft.
“When I was Rider, I think a part of you loved me, didn’t you? Now, all I can see is hatred.”
No matter how hard I tried to hate him, at that moment I could not. He was right. I did love him in a fashion and I could not just switch off those feelings, no matter how hard I tried. I loved the person he was on the outside, but not here, not as Cain. Not as a brother of The Order and certainly not the prophet’s nephew!