by Nicole Snow
I nodded, too tired and sick and broken in disbelief to fight.
The first lash cut into me so sharp it broke the skin. Blood started to trickle down, distinct from the icy raindrops because it was so warm.
He rested before he hit me again, gathering his fury. Behind me, he laughed, and that hurt more than the belt striking my flesh.
“You never learn, Cassie. No matter how old you get, how many times you stumble...the Prophet's right. The evil inside you has already eaten you up, and I just can't drive it out.” His voice broke, almost like he was about to cry. I didn't buy it – he was enjoying this. “I'm sorry. As a father, I'm not giving up on you, no matter how much of a bitch and a whore you become. I'll be doing this into your thirties if I have to. You may embarrass yourself, girl, but you won't shame this family!”
His fist fell, bringing the belt over the last cut.
Pain. Blinding, stormy, slow moving pain.
It shot up my center and ripped through me, turning the dark gray world to white and red.
I choked out more cries, begging him to stop. None of them did me any good. He must've hit me at least half a dozen times before I heard a growl like the end of the world.
A car pulled up, and it was waiting behind us.
Grunting, the harsh leather fell. He gave me one more slap against the cheek with his free hand before turning around. God, my humiliation just became complete. Someone else was probably staring at the abysmal scene, watching the drunken maniac I called my father beat me senseless.
I slid down to the ground, bracing myself weakly on rusted metal. Scrunching into a fetal position, I rested my face in my hands, wishing I could cry like the rain. My blood ran cold, frozen by the water and grime all over me, stealing the last of my fire.
Just once, I wished someone would take me away. Someone from another town, who wasn't afraid to interfere with Beacon Grove. Someone who wasn't bothered by the crazy isolation and legal threats the Prophet used to keep corrupted outsiders away.
I didn't care if people from the great beyond were evil and corrupt like the Prophet claimed. They couldn't be worse than the congregation, could they?
“Hey, Mister. What the hell do you think you're doing?” Daddy's voice was low, surprised. “Be gone! We won't be poisoned by your –“
He barely had time to squeak before he went flying into the truck next to me. Before I could jerk up in surprise, the stranger was on him, flinging him against the metal like a crude toy.
Again and again and again my father hit the truck, face first, and then several more times after he stopped shaking. The huge man holding him never looked at me until Daddy fell to the ground, limp and broken as a severed puppet.
I should've tried to help him like a good daughter. I practically heard him screaming at me through his bloody face, telling me do something. His dying face blinked once, huge eyes pleading. He looked at me like he saw Heather – not the bad girl he hated and condemned.
What the hell are you doing, Cassie! I heard his voice in my head. Your sister would attack this man killing me. Don't you want to save your own fucking father?
In truth, Heather would've done something. She would've run straight into the flooded woods, but I was too damned shocked and hurt to do that.
“Oh my God!” I whispered, breaking into full tremors. “Please...please don't hurt me.”
I couldn't bring myself to look up for more than a single second. What I saw terrified me.
There was a huge, powerful, soaking wet man glaring down at me, his arms folded across a neat leather jacket. I hung my head, seriously wondering if he'd kill me next.
Sure, the outside world couldn't be all be evil and corrupted like the Prophet says, but watching this man kill my monstrous father gave me some serious doubts.
Oh, God. He really did kill him, didn't he? He's really...dead?
Dead, dead, dead!
The body next to me didn't look like it would ever get up. My father's eyes were vacant. They'd never demand anything again.
I whimpered when he reached for my wrist, pulling me up with a power greater than my father's, except he wasn't trying to hurt me.
What did I see? After the last ten minutes, my brain struggled to make sense of anything coming in through my eyes.
The giant was smiling, firm lips set in a strong, square jaw, but those eyes did all the talking. They pierced right through me, bright and brown and blinding, the eyes the Prophet should've had if he weren't just a doped up figurehead.
He looked a lot like the way I imagined the warriors in scripture. Warriors, or else the soldiers I'd heard about. What little slipped through to Beacon Grove about the outside world said the great beyond was filled with trained killers, men who slaughtered other sinners to prop up their own impure society.
Was this man a soldier? A policeman? Where was his badge?
“Let's go. You're fucking perfect.”
Strange words to say to a woman you've just rescued. I didn't think about them as he led me toward his sleek black car, wrapping me in a blanket he pulled from the trunk.
Guiding me into the backseat, he laid me down, making sure the blanket was wrapped tight to help stem the rain and blood dribbling down my shoulders.
I had no clue where I was heading or who I was with. Just then, I didn't give a damn. I couldn't care. My father had beaten it out of me, and this man had beaten him in turn, destroying my whole dark world.
A current pulsed through my brain the instant I laid down, and it flickered out just as fast. The Prophet was right about one thing: the darkness was hungry, and I fell straight into it.
II: Desperate Measures (Evan)
I needed a fucking miracle.
If I didn't find a woman for Borzia, and soon, I was fucked. Really, my son Ty was in a world of pain, but if they started on my boy, he'd end up just like Jenny.
Jenny...Jesus, I'm sorry.
I slapped the steering wheel, navigating my Lexus into the woods. I couldn't think about her again.
When I got our kid home safe, then I could mourn. Until then, I had to focus on one thing and one thing only: find a woman. Break her. Extinguish this curse I'd brought down on my head forever.
Until Ty was safe¸ I couldn't afford mercy. And I sure as shit couldn't afford thinking about another woman as anything except a fucking commodity.
I didn't drive into Beacon Grove seeking a slave. If I wanted to be brutally fucking honest, I was heading through there to spin my wheels, to push back the horrible decision one more day.
Everybody who lived nearby knew about the weird cult in the forest. Hell, I'd taken the shortcut through there enough times to know you didn't fuck with those assholes. They were as creepy as they were savvy with dickhead lawyers and brute force.
The cult was always kicking up a shitstorm in the local press. There was always some bullshit story about people trying to win back their brainwashed relatives, or else turf wars where their territory ended and normal land started.
I stayed out of it. Didn't have a damned dog in the fight until I saw the poor girl in the rain.
My blood went from glacial to raging hot in less than a second. I screeched to a halt and hit the pavement before I could think about anything else.
It was her blood that did it. After the shit I'd seen, I never wanted to see a helpless woman bleed out again. No goddamned way was I gonna sit and watch while my brain choked on bad memories.
She was screaming and bleeding when I caught up with the nasty looking bastard nailing her with his belt. Fuck, she could've been my niece, maybe my own daughter if I were ten years older. Right now, she was a helpless angel and I'd had it up to here with seeing innocents savaged while I held my fucking dick like a fool.
Innocents you killed, Evan. The voice spoke inside my head with Jenny's voice, and I shut it out.
I had to shut it up. I needed to silence everything and let my fists do the talking.
Picking up that motherfucker and slamming him
against his shitty truck over and over, 'til I heard his vertebrae snap, was a damned good start. I couldn't hear her razzing me from beyond the grave while he was screaming out his last breaths.
Couldn't feel shit except the storm in my blood, and I welcomed it.
I was still fucking shaking when his body hit the ground. The wolf howling for blood in my head only went silent when I heard the girl crying at my feet.
Fuck.
I couldn't just leave her like this. I hesitated, staring up through the indifferent trees high above us, wondering if this was the twisted miracle I'd asked for.
Of course. Whoever the fuck is up there, they never make it easy, do they?
Fair enough. I was the last man on earth who deserved it fucking easy after what I'd done.
In one jerk, I hauled her up, pressing her close. Fuck me again.
She looked young – real young – like not even old enough to drink. Nearly stopped me in my tracks. I looked closer, really studying her. Okay, she was young, but she was old enough.
Fuck. I looked for a reason – any reason – to patch her up and let her go at the nearest rest stop.
Nothing. Nothing in my sick head to cling to. She was so perfectly alone, and I'd probably just killed the only fucker who'd ever come looking for her. My mind was made up.
I dragged her back to my car like the fucking devil I am.
No, dammit, there wasn't an alternative. If I left her there with the fuck-head I'd destroyed, she'd be somebody else's problem. Last thing I needed was the police finding her or some do-gooder, let alone more of her fucked up brothers and sisters. If the cult took her, she wouldn't ever see the outside world alive.
So what? Not like she's gonna see shit with you, I thought, clenching my jaw until the pain blotted out the doubt, sinister truths I wasn't in any mood to hear.
As soon as I got her in the car, I was numb. We took off, with her passed out in my seat. For all I knew, she might be torn up too bad for what I needed, and then I'd have to watch her suffer in my own fucking house.
Just now, I didn't care. All I could think about was Ty.
He needed a human sacrifice to set him free, and now a blushing virgin had just fallen into my fucking lap.
If I were an ordinary man, picking her up like this and beating her asshole abuser to death would've made me a hero. Maybe I still was while she snoozed in my backseat, twisting when I turned too sharply, making hurt little sighs that made my heart bleed venom.
Hero or not, it was all goddamned temporary. Soon as I got her home, I'd be reminded what I was, and she'd see the truth.
Her beauty didn't mean shit, and neither did her pain.
I wasn't her savior. Not even close. I was about to become her judge, jury, and quite possibly, her executioner.
She didn't wake up the entire ride. I checked to see she was breathing as I pulled into my big secluded garage. I parked and lifted her by the legs, holding her like a kitten as I carried her into my house.
My fingers touched her cold neck. Wasn't the first time I checked her pulse on the ride in.
A sick part of me deep down almost hoped she'd die. Then I wouldn't be responsible for what was about to happen next. I wouldn't have to give her to a monster, and become one in the fucking process.
Sure as shit, it didn't happen that way. It never does. For a bastard like me, her dying would've been too easy.
I laid her in the room I'd picked out for this occasion.
No sign of Izzy. The bitch had no doubt drank herself into a day long coma, same as she'd been doing all summer. Fine. I wouldn't have to tell her about the girl and deal with her shit until she woke up and started riding my ass.
I spent a long time sitting across from the sweet young thing I laid out in the bed. More sickness swept into my rotten brain like a poison tide.
Fuck, she was beautiful. Her sleek brown hair had just a hint of cinnamon red, glowing through the wetness. Yeah, she was a mess, but I hadn't seen a finer woman since the one I'd lost. The girl looked fragile and full figured all at once, the kinda woman a man should kill for to protect.
Only you've got it backwards, Evan. You're more like her murderer. Not her fucking guardian.
Cut the crap and stop playing hero. You've got a job to do.
I tensed up, roaring inwardly until the sardonic voice in my brain shut the fuck up.
If I had any conscience left, I shouldn't have been looking at her like this. But what the hell was I supposed to do with her laid out, dripping wet and so damned helpless?
I was a red blooded man, goddammit.
All the shit I'd stepped in hadn't ruined those instincts. Took a lot to do it, and I couldn't keep them buried when she was in her bra and panties, pale skin shining and seductive.
My hand trembled a little when I drew the blanket off her, studying her soft outline, tracing her supple curves with my hungry eyes.
Strange to see a woman's shape all mixed up with a girl's innocence, but I guessed most of the poor girls who ended up in Beacon Grove were like this. If the fucker I'd killed hadn't defiled her, she was probably still a virgin.
Virgin. Fuck me again.
There was no doubt about it: I'd found a girl for Borzia. Soon as she woke up and the bloody lashes on her back were all healed, the real hell was going to begin, and I was the jackass who'd marry her off to Satan himself.
I let her sleep for hours before I moved. When she stirred a little, I walked to the bathroom attached to the room, grabbing alcohol and gauze. I should've done it right away, but fuck, sleep was the best thing for her after getting beat up like that and watching me destroy the asshole attacking her.
She wasn't fully awake when I poured the stuff on her back. Her eyes instantly flew open, and she gripped the edges of the blankets, hissing through her teeth.
“Owww! Where am I? What is this place?”
Her questions surprised me. I didn't expect her to be so coherent, worrying about her location instead of the blinding pain prickling at her back.
“You're safe.” Without pause, I sprinkled more alcohol on her cuts until she wheezed. “It's just disinfectant. Who was the man you were with? Family?”
I needed her to focus on something else. She was in no shape to be putting up a fight, and she would if she thought I was anything more than a concerned citizen.
“My father...he always had a crazy temper.” Her voice was like a whisper, and I finally stopped burning up her wounds when she moved away from me. “You...you killed him.”
The realization must've set in. Holding her limbs close, she sat up, crouching on the bed like a scared animal. I nodded.
No use in hiding the awful truth. Didn't feel sorry for the motherfucker I killed either, and I wasn't gonna pretend I did.
“He beat the shit out of you. Couldn't let him keep it up, babe. He might've killed you in that storm.” I stood up, an old technique from my days blowing out skulls and slitting throats.
First thing a man does to take control is to assert himself.
I narrowed my eyes, folded my arms across my chest, watching her closely. She was in no shape to do shit except rest.
Little by little, she looked at me and began to relax. Perfect.
“I'm glad,” she muttered.
Shit, I expected a lot, but not that. I raised an eyebrow. “What're you talking about?”
“I glad he's dead, thankful somebody showed up in time to save me.” She went a little limp after the words were out, spreading her long legs over the bed. “It's a sin to be happy about it, I know, but I don't care. He hurt me and Heather all the time. I can't feel bad...not for him.”
“Then don't.” I seized her eyes with mine and held them, locked in a solid stare. “I don't know what kinda bullshit those assholes shoved down your throat. It's a different world here, and you're free of all that now. If some bastard whips your ass with a belt, you don't need to feel guilty when a bigger, meaner bastard whips his. Congratulations, babe. You're normal. You go
t a name?”
“Cassie,” she murmured, opening her mouth to say something else, but I cut her off.
“There's a fresh change of clothes in the closet. I'll get you some clean sheets and a hot meal. You need to rest tonight after all the shit you went through.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I closed the door and heard the locks click behind me. The girl was sharp, and I was taking a risk with her noticing the heavy locks. She'd be less likely to notice the quick flick of the key card against the hidden reader in the wood on my way out.
Too fucking bad. Time to get this sideshow on the road.
Izzy was in the kitchen nursing a half-drained bottle of whiskey. Damn, I'd been too busy tending the new arrival to hear her getting up.
“Who is she?” She coiled her bony fingers tight around the bottle and clanked it on the counter. “I saw you bring her in. I was looking out the window when you pulled up.”
“Somebody I picked up from Beacon.” I watched Izzy's eyes go wide with surprise. “Calm down. The girl was alone. It was raining like hell and she came willingly. Her daddy was beating her ass, but I took care of that.”
“Yeah, I'm sure you did.” Izzy took another swig of poison, not even bothering with the cups a few feet away. “Is this it then, Evan? Is she the one?”
She fixed her catty eyes on me and I turned away. I fucking had to. The question I really didn't want to ask was right on top of me.
Don't make me say it, bitch, I thought with a growl. We both know the cold blooded answer.
Of course, Izzy wouldn't let up until I coughed up my guts. Better just get it over with.
“Yeah. Yeah, she is. I'll send the jackass some pictures as soon as she's cleaned up and rested. She's not what I was going for, but she'll do.”
“Sure hope so.” The woman's whisper was like a snake hissing. “You know what we've got riding on this. He won't wait forever.”
“I know,” I said sternly, shooting her a warning look.
Day after day, the bitch put the fear back into me, a yapping reminder that I'd lose what little I still had if we didn't get moving, and fast.
Borzia was an impatient sonofabitch. It was a small miracle he hadn't hurt my boy while we dragged our feet. Me, cooped up in this house with the drunken nag, feeling her twist my balls a little tighter every day when I failed to find a girl.