Damnable Grace (Hades Hangmen Book 5)

by Tillie Cole

  Because they took her baby boy. They took him for the cause. And they would not let her see him.

  My back ached as another agonizing slice of pain ripped through me. I cried out, feeling a dull pressure building at the bottom of my spine. I stumbled on my feet. Martha ran through the door just in time to catch me.

  “Come, Phebe.” She led me to the bed. I clutched the bump, screwing my eyes shut as the pressure became unbearable and my entire body was overwhelmed with the need to push. “I think it is coming,” I said, just as my bedroom door opened and Sister Leah entered.

  “The baby is coming,” Martha told her.

  Sister Leah parted my legs, and I felt her hand inside me. “You have to push,” she ordered.

  Martha gripped my hand. “You can do this, Phebe,” she said, tears pouring down her face. I knew she was thinking of her boy. I knew she was in great pain.

  With every ounce of strength I could muster, I pushed, feeling as if my body must surely split in two. I breathed as deeply as I could through the agony and exhaustion racking my body. And then, I did not know how long later, a loud cry sailed into my ears. Martha leaned down to view the baby in Sister Leah’s arms. “It is a girl, Phebe,” she said and squeezed my hand tighter.

  “A . . . girl?” I said breathlessly and felt something switch inside me. I felt something unknown take root, something I had never felt before . . . a blissful kind of peace. Such peace and love that it robbed me of my breath.

  Sister Leah placed the baby on my chest. I blinked, overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment, then I eventually looked down. Two dark-brown eyes stared up at me. To the side of her left eye lay a large, dark freckle. I stared at that freckle, mesmerized at such beauty.

  She came from me.

  She . . . she was mine . . .

  Tears flooded my face as I held her in my shaking arms. “Sapphira.” I heard Martha sniff from beside me. “I will name her Sapphira.”

  “It is beautiful, sister.” Martha laid a kiss on my head. Martha was fourteen, two years my senior, but I knew that at that moment she understood me more than anyone ever had.

  “Sapphira,” Sister Leah said and leaned over me. Panic filled my lungs when I saw her arms stretched out to take my baby from me.

  “No!” I said loudly. Sapphira jumped in my arms and began to scream.

  “Give her to me, child. You know she is a David Baby. You know she does not stay with you. You have a greater purpose to serve.” A David Baby. Babies born to Sacred Sisters. Babies that are “owned” by Prophet David and not their mothers. Raised not by their parents, but communally by carers.

  A sob ripped from my throat. I tried to turn away, to move off the bed. Sapphira was mine. She was my baby! “No, please . . .” I glanced down at her brown eyes. “She is mine. Please, do not take her from me. I will care for her. I will manage both duties.”

  “Phebe!” Sister Leah snapped. “Do as I command, or Brother John will be brought in. You have known since you discovered you were with child that she would not belong to you.”

  “No!” I shuffled off the bed. I held Sapphira close to my chest as I struggled to hide myself in the corner of the room. Sister Leah left, and I saw Martha staring at us, crying as she sat on the edge of the bed, lost.

  They had done this to Martha too. Took her baby boy away when she had wanted to keep him.

  I looked down at Sapphira and shook my head. My face was drenched with tears as I held her to my chest. “You are mine.” I smiled through my tears when Sapphira stopped crying and looked up at me. I kissed her head, feeling the warm skin beneath me. “I love you,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I love you, Sapphira.”

  The door flew open and Brother John, followed by Sister Leah, stepped through. I wanted to run, to flee with my daughter, but I was trapped. There was nowhere to go.

  Brother John glared at me in disapproval. “Phebe, hand the baby over to Sister Leah. Stop this foolishness.”

  “She is mine,” I said under my breath, defiant.

  He must have heard me, because he shook his head. “She is a David Baby. She belongs to the faith. You are a Sacred Sister. And you have a different path than being a mother. A much worthier cause.”

  He came closer, and closer still until he had his hands on Sapphira. “No!” I cried again as he took her from my hold. “Please . . . I love her!” My chest racked with sobs and my body shook as Brother John gave my baby to Sister Leah and she took her from the room.

  I screamed.

  I screamed and I screamed until my throat was raw. I did not remember what happened next, everything was a blur, but when I lifted my head, Brother John was gone from the room too. Only Martha and I remained. My eyes were swollen from crying, and my body hurt all over from giving birth. But nothing was greater than the void I felt in my arms. The empty space where Sapphira should have been.

  The pain came in crashing waves, over and over again. “Sapphira,” I whispered. “Sapphira . . .” Her name felt like a cruel prayer on my lips.

  A hand lay on my back, stroking up and down. “Martha.” I fell into her lap. “What am I to do now?”

  I felt Martha’s tears hit my cheek—a shared pain. She stroked my hair. “Brother John told me that we can earn the right, through fishing, to see them on occasion. We are forbidden from saying who we are to them, but we may claim that we are their sisters. They will at least give us that.” Her voice sounded as desperate as I felt.

  I blinked quickly, trying to rid the water from my eyes. “They will?” I asked, a glimmer of hope sprouting in my shattered heart.

  “Yes,” Martha said. “And that is what I intend to do.” She sniffed. “If we recruit more men than our quota, our reward is time with them. And I must see him, Phebe. I cannot . . . I cannot . . .”

  “Breathe,” I finished for her, when she could not express what was in her bruised heart.

  “Yes,” she said after several silent moments.

  Clutching my hand to my chest, I pictured Sapphira in my head.

  My heart never healed after that day, shattered and irreparable. But I believed in our prophet. In the end, I believed he would do what was best for his people—including me.

  I just had to obey and have faith . . .

  AK’s chest was drenched as I fought to breathe through the memory of that day. His hand was tight in my hair, and I held onto him as though I would fall apart if not for his compass.

  “Fuck, Phebe,” he said. “I got no words for that fucked-up shit.” He pulled me even closer to his body. “Did you ever see her again?”

  I nodded, recalling those precious days. “It took me two years to see her again. They said I needed time to set her free from my heart. It never worked, of course. I knew that my bond to her would never fade. The day I met her again, she was playing outside with some other children.” I smiled though my tears. “She had the brightest, blondest hair, similar to Lilah’s, but Sapphira’s eyes were so dark, like midnight—I did not know who her father was, he could have been any one of the several men I had served, but he must have had those eyes. And to the side of her left eye lay the large freckle, the memory of which had gotten me through the two years before.” I looked up to see AK watching me. “I sat beside her on the grass. I was so nervous.” I laughed. “Nervous at meeting my own flesh and blood. I was shaking so hard that it took me forever to ask if I could play with her. She was nervous at first too. It transpired that she was a very shy girl. Beautiful, but extremely shy. It took a further two visits for her to speak to me. For her to smile.” My bottom lip quivered. “And her smile lit up my life, AK. There was no sun before that day.”

  I screwed my eyes shut for a second, and AK pulled me further up his chest. “What?” he asked, searching my face, tone low.

  “She was six when I told her I was her sister. Her blood. Her sister, AK . . .” I shook my head. “My soul died that day. Died when I could not tell her that she was mine, that I was her mother and she was loved more t
han I had known possible. She was the fabric of my soul. The very air I breathed.”

  “And you earned those visits?” AK said tightly. His hold on me grew firmer.

  “I fucked men, AK. I fucked my way through so many men to get to those visits. I fucked so well that I won rewards from the prophet for my recruitment record, medals. And they rewarded me with a much-coveted position—head Sacred Sister. I taught others; I led our missions. I was called upon to entice and impress the most important of Prophet David’s, and then Judah’s, visitors.” My chest tightened and a sob sailed from my throat. “But they made her a Sacred Sister too, AK. My baby, my little girl, they made her a Sacred Sister. They turned my daughter into a whore.” My chest ached. “I knew it was likely. The female David’s Babies were often put into the same circle as their mothers. The prophet deemed them worthy of being one because it was already in their blood. But it still hurt more than anything when I discovered she was in training.”

  “Fuck.” AK pressed a kiss to my head. I reared back, refusing his kind touch. His eyebrows pulled down.

  “No,” I said. “You do not understand.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I placed my finger over his lip to silence his words. “I believed in it all, AK. I believed that my sacrifice, no matter how hard it was to endure, was necessary because the prophet deemed it so. Even when Sapphira was made a Sacred Sister, I believed it was God’s way. Despite the pain it caused, the hardship to us both, I would never doubt the prophet. I truly believed he knew what was best.” I choked on those pathetic words. “I was stupid and naïve.” I sucked in a pained breath and let more tears fall. “I failed her in every way because of my blind faith. I failed Lilah, encouraging her to believe and rejoin the faith before she was punished.

  “It was not until we all came to New Zion after Prophet Cain’s ascension, and things began to change, that the veil that had shrouded my eyes drew back and the truth of our so-called mission was revealed to me. It was all false . . . everything we did had been due to the ego of one man . . . and all those people perished because of it. . .”

  AK placed his hands on my cheeks and lifted my head. “Sapphira . . . the suicide . . .?”

  “She was not there,” I said and watched him relax. I thought back to Judah. “The only good thing Judah did when I was his consort was send her away. I begged him to stop her mission as a Sacred Sister. I said that if he loved me as he claimed, he would do this one thing for me. He would save her.” I exhaled, feeling some glimmer of comfort.

  “He did as I requested and sent her away, sent her from a life of sexual servitude. She was thirteen at the time. She would be fourteen now. Judah informed me there was a smaller commune where the elderly or impaired were placed. Judah sent her there to work. It was abroad and far away from Texas.” My eyes fell. “I never even got to say goodbye to her, but I took comfort that she was away from New Zion, where I could see everything was falling around us.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But my daughter is still out there in the world somewhere, without me.” I inhaled deeply. “Since you saved me from Meister, since you forced me to face my demons, I have been plagued with guilt and regret. I should have fought harder for her. I should have realized sooner that The Order was a veritable hell. But at least I am safe in the knowledge that she still lives. Others were not so fortunate. They watched their babies die alongside them. I heard no order from Judah demanding the elderly or infirm be killed, so I pray that she is safe.” I laid my hand on my heart. “I have to believe she is okay, that she breathes, or else I would cease to be. I would waste away.”

  When I had confessed the last of my sins, a heady kind of numbness took hold of me. AK was watching me carefully, and I almost wept when I saw no censure in his gaze, no judgment. His hand was shaking when it threaded through my hand.

  That small gesture of comfort allowed me to breathe. It allowed the tightness in my chest to relax and find some morsel of peace in this mess.

  “You weren’t to blame, Red,” he said, his voice low, deep, but best of all, sincere. “You were a fucking kid. You were a kid who had a kid, and those fuckers took her off you, giving you some bullshit trope, all that you could still be their whore. They brainwashed you. About every single thing in your life. And you have fuck all to be sorry for.”

  “I do not believe that,” I said tiredly. I was drained and depleted.

  I was numb.

  AK sat up and pulled me onto his lap. His hands cupped my face, and he made sure I looked directly into his eyes. “Then I’ll fucking believe it for you.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, more thankful than he could ever know. I looked into his kind, handsome face, and I knew that I owed him an explanation. All was blurry, but I knew how I must have acted after he saved me, under the influence of the drink. I took a deep breath. “I am nothing if not a whore, AK. I do not know how to be anything else.

  “I do not know how to live with all my demons. My failure of Sapphira, Lilah, and all the lives of the men I seduced, wasted when Judah ordered them to drink his poison. I brought those men to the commune, to our faith, and they died under Judah’s command.” I clutched on to AK for dear life. “And I do not know how to live in a world where I see my daughter in my arms whenever I close my eyes. Not knowing where she is in the world, if she ever thinks of me.” I breathed slowly. “Meister’s potion took all that away—the cares and the worries. The drink I found on Ky’s porch did the same thing to me, when you had taken the potion from my veins. It was a suitable substitute. It made me not remember, or think of Sapphira, for a time. I saw Lilah with Grace, and although it makes me elated they have one another, it killed me to see what a mother looks like. A true, good mother. That is why I did not want to be brought back to real life.” I shook my head. “Real life is too hard. And I do not know how to cope with it. Not at all.”

  I clung to AK as if he were the only tether keeping me from breaking apart. And I whimpered, losing the final restraint on my sorrow when his large arms came around me and held me as close as possible. He kissed my hair and rocked me back and forth, keeping me safe in his hands. “You ain’t to blame,” he said again, his kindness rushing over me like a balm. “They made you do it. Those fuckers took you as a fucking kid and raped you. Forced you into service and stole your kid. You can’t blame yourself. You were fucking trafficked.”

  AK said no more as I purged years’ worth of sorrow from my heart. He just held me close as my tears dried to a drought and my body sagged in exhaustion.

  My eyes fought to close, and I lost the battle to keep them open. I recalled being lifted in AK’s arms and placed down a warm bed. But when I next woke I was alone, and my entire body shook. My skin was sweating from my nightmares. I saw my daughter’s face, felt her in my arms. I saw Lilah on the stake, her bloodied body, too vividly in my head.

  It was all too much.

  I threw back the comforter and left my room. The cabin was quiet and still, but I needed him.

  I needed him so badly.

  I tiptoed into AK’s bedroom. There were two small, narrow beds in this room too. AK’s tall form was under the covers of one. As if he were a beacon to my bruised heart, I followed my feet until I arrived at his bedside. The wooden floor creaked beneath my feet. His body jolted upright, and he blinked into the light from the moon. “Phebe?”

  I did not speak. I simply lifted the cover under which he lay and climbed inside. I let his smoky scent soothe my nerves as I lay down on the pillow beside him. I stared into his eyes and shuffled close to his warm body, the two of us barely fitting on the tiny mattress. I laid my head against AK’s shoulder and closed my eyes.

  His arms came around me, and I heard his breathing in my ear. In the comfort of his safe embrace, I let sleep pull me under. And for the first time in my life, I lay in bed with a man and just slept.

  My body protected in his arms . . .

  . . . and perhaps my soul too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  AK

 
“You nearly got it that time,” I teased. Phebe huffed out a frustrated breath. The tree closest to us was chipped again. Fuck, the bitch was getting better, but shooting wasn’t easy. I would know.

  She was doing better today. She had slept for almost a day after all the fucked-up shit she had told me. Bitch had had a kid. And worse, those asshole motherfuckers had taken her away and now she was fuck knows where. No wonder the bitch turned to drink.

  My mind drifted to Zane, my kid nephew, and I fought back the fucking shame that filled me too. Phebe had lost a kid, and I had lost . . . everything . . .

  Phebe leaned into me and hid her face in my chest, ripping me from my thoughts. She looked up and said, “I cannot even hit the central target at this tree.” She pointed at the farthest tree away. “Who could even hit that?” She shook her head.

  I glanced at the tree she was referring to and shrugged. “Me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You can hit that?” She eyed me skeptically. “I realize you must be a good shooter, but I am sure not even you can hit that.”

  I smirked at her disbelief. Bitch had no fucking idea. Taking the gun from her hand, I stepped forward and took my position. I could feel her eyes on me. But I blocked her out. The world fell away around me as I held completely still. I focused my eye on the target. I canceled out everything but the bullseye.

  My focus became sharp, unquestionable. I shifted my finger on the trigger, then with practiced ease, sent the bullet flying through the air and straight into the center of the target. I lowered the gun, feeling the same adrenaline rush through me that I always did. I turned and faced Phebe. She was watching me, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.