The Sect

by Lane, Courtney

  “I’m sorry, Noah,” Jayme apologized. “It was just a joke.”

  “I could take you into the basement and show you how funny I thought it was,” Noah warned her, his tone foreboding. “You know what Reven expects of you. Remind me of what it is?”

  “But—”

  “Remind me, Jayme,” Noah growled, stepping forward and visibly intimidated Jayme into deference.

  “T-treat all of your fellow housemates with respect,” she repeated clinically.

  The cook arrived and Noah immediately caught her attention. “Marcia, Jayme wants a very special breakfast today. Can you help out with that?” With a smirk, he took pleasure in Jayme’s sudden sickly hue and sullen reaction. The three men at the table failed to hide their glee as well. Noah snapped his fingers at them, his head jerked toward their position. “You’re done. Leave.”

  “Doesn’t he have his own house?” Radley mumbled.

  Noah glared after his back. I could almost see the scene that would likely happen later with Radley unfolding in his eyes.

  Marcia disappeared in the kitchen and reappeared while cracking a raw egg on the plate of what looked to be raw red meat.

  I recalled Jayme stating that she was a vegetarian during one our chats. If I needed proof, her sudden quick pace, heading toward the bathroom to vomit made sure to give it to me.

  “Juvenile, I know,” Noah sneered. “But when someone pisses me off, I respond in kind. Idiots receive idiotic repercussions.” He sat at the other end of the table and opened his newspaper.

  During the short ordeal, I noticed he barely looked at me.

  I took my seat, waiting for Marcia, who gave me a plate of food fit for a queen. Crepes topped with fresh fruit and powdered sugar, sausage patties, and fried potatoes were on my plate. I stared at it, remembering the significance of the dish. The dish my father used to make for me every Saturday morning when I was too young to cook for myself. I looked at Noah, who hid behind his paper.

  I wondered how he could’ve possibly known, but anyone able to obtain what they did in attempts to break me in front of an audience, could’ve found anything. “D-did you do this?”

  Sighing, he lowered the paper, not looking at me, but a specific space in the corner of the room. I didn’t need to follow his line of sight to know what he was looking at.

  “Do they have sound?” I asked of the cameras.

  “They do,” he said, raising his paper.

  I scanned the front of the paper, looking for a date or location—anything to indicate where I was and if my thoughts about the time I’d been here were correct. The paper was dated from five years ago. The cover picture stated that a local catholic priest and private school teacher had been mutilated, killed, and left in an alley to be found. It further went on to state that many had come forward—men and boys varying in age—stating that the priest had sexually abused them during his tenure at a private catholic school. Any references to the newspaper title, the location of the crime, name of the school, place the priest was found, and the names of the boys were redacted. I stared at the paper, wondering the significance. There had to have been. Why else would he read a paper several years old?

  “Are you upset with me? How can you be upset with me?” I whispered so low, I wasn’t sure he heard me.

  His paper shuddered as he unfurled a long breath.

  “I’m sure the cameras are good but, they aren’t that good,” I muttered.

  He folded his paper neatly and tucked it underneath his arm. Lifting up from his chair, he left me to finish my breakfast alone.

  After breakfast, I found myself alone downstairs. I took it as an opportunity to roam the estate, casually trying doors and finding most of them locked.

  Before I could return to my room upstairs, Nadine’s door burst open and out walked Radley, adjusting his red silk pants and wearing a mischievous grin. “You won’t tell him anything, because if you do, I’ll pull the wool off this whole place,” he threatened Nadine from over his shoulder. “I know the truth. Tell him that. I bet I get better treatment than you from now on.” He walked past me, nearly plowing me over as if I didn’t exist.

  I stepped timidly inside Nadine’s room. She was naked; her torn white dress was on the floor. She hugged her knees to her chest as she looked over her shoulder at me. Mascara streaked tears streamed down her cheeks. “No one is your friend here. No one is anything they say they are. Leave, Keaton. Leave right now.”

  The instant the door latched closed, Jayme called me from the other end of the hall, startling me out of my skin.

  She walked toward me stiffly; her face guttered with tears. “Reven came back early from the seminar, he would like to see us inside his suite.”

  Nodding, I followed her down the hall, taking notice of the rigid way she walked. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” she rasped.

  In the suite, Reven stood at the edge of the bed. He eyed the scab on my shin with an even temper. “Jayme has been ordered to pray for your forgiveness and she will do just that.”

  “Yes, Reven,” Jayme sobbed. Rounding my position, she sank down on her knees and attempted to lift my dress. In reaction, I pushed her away, stepping backward.

  Advancing toward me, Reven reached up and roughly took my hair down from the bun style I’d worn. “Never style your hair this way again,” he said evenly. On the cusp of my response, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and forced me to look at him. “You will accept her act of contrition for a crime against me. You have been ordained as my property, damaging said property brings consequences.”

  “I-I understand,” I stuttered, “and I don’t want to upset you but…I’m not a lesbian.”

  “You are whatever I say you are,” he snarled. “Everything that is done to you, or you do to others, is because it’s my command.” His grip tightened on my hair. “I’ve shown you kindness far before you were worthy of it, and this is how you repay me? Do you want to return to the deprivation room? Do you want to be beaten again? If you make a fool of me, Keaton, I will give Noah unfettered access to you, and however you wind up, falls upon you. Are you going to continue your act of ungratefulness and your act to defy me?”

  It was all he needed to say. Noah. Alone. My thoughts about obeying Reven’s sick whims in order to get access to the horses and maybe a key or token to escaping the compound were pushed aside for something else.

  The look in Noah’s eyes had changed. He was finally ready to be my mark. With my bottom lip quivering, I shook my head and closed my legs. “I’ve been beaten, demeaned, publicly degraded, and faced with you and your never ending demands. I’ve done enough to prove myself to a man who doesn’t deserve it. Fuck. You.”

  He stared at me, stunned as if no one had ever spoken to him that way before. His massive hand grabbed my hair, pulling me with such a speed that I tripped on my own feet. His harsh grip made sure I lost a few strands of hair as they were ripped from my scalp, making my head ache with a latent throb. He grabbed me again, dragging me while I kicked and screamed down the hall.

  I flopped around like a rag-doll with each step my body made contact with; it hit me hardest at my thighs or hips. I landed at the bottom of the stairs with a thump.

  “Reven,” I heard Noah’s voice in the spaces between my need to breathe and scream.

  “Break her.” Reven shoved me toward Noah’s feet. “You have all night. If I return in the morning and don’t find scars deep enough to stay with her for life, or her near to needing a hospital visit, the repercussions will fall on your head.” He stepped toward Noah, his posture strong. “It’s time you physically proved what you’ve told me, Noah.”

  From my position on the floor, I could see Noah gesture for one of the henchman. “Tobias, bring the metal table to the deprivation room. You know the one.”

  The henchman looked stunned, but Reven looked very pleased with Noah’s request. With a grin of satisfaction, Reven turned to leave.

  A thin chain was looped around my neck
and pulled through a D-ring. Noah tugged hard enough to make me fall over. “Crawl.” The tension of the metal, biting against my skin, made me choke and gag for air. It felt worse than having his hand around my neck and immediately convinced me to obey until I was able to be in a room alone with him.

  I crawled, easily following him as he pulled me through the house and down the stairs, ending our travel once we reached the deprivation room.

  Tobias wheeled in a metal cart, brimming with torture devices that I had no name for, nor had they ever been used on me. The moment Tobias left the room, Noah closed and locked the door.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Keaton?” The light from the hall was snuffed out and darkness disallowed any view of his face. I didn’t really need to see it, his words were full of enough fury to make up for my lack of ability to see.

  I tried to feel blindly for him, but only found myself feeling the textured wall.

  The flicker of the cigarette lighter across the room illuminated his face. He cupped two tea lights, lighting them in his palm and set them down in the corner of the room.

  “I needed to talk to you,” I replied.

  He scowled at me. “How many ways and how many times do I have to say it, Keaton? It’s a bad idea. If and when I want you, I will have you brought to me, or I will come to you. It does not work this way—your way. I thought that was very fucking clear.”

  His reaction was unexpected, as was my reaction to what he’d said to me. I’d had enough of the emotional pain and just wanted it to end. My eyes welled up and I hated myself for my persistent stupidity; my need to cling to the only thing that made me feel remarkably good: him.

  “Princess,” he cooed, his tone brimming in condescension, “did I hurt your tender little feelings? I’m going to hurt a lot more than that before the night is out.”

  I swept the tears from my cheeks, showing a frustrated smile. “You’re pissed because Reven touched me. Do you think something happened in that room earlier? It didn’t. That’s why I’m here. So you can stop punishing me for things that are out of my control—but under yours—and things that didn’t happen.”

  He suddenly sneered as he looked at the table of devices. “I’m thinking of a number. One through twenty. Guess what it is.”

  “W-what?”

  “Guess the goddamn number, Keaton!” His shout shook me and left me feeling more and more as though I couldn’t navigate the mercurial mood swings or the behavior of the man in front of me. He wasn’t a mark. He would never be the mark. He held the power and he was fully aware of that fact. He artfully guarded and cloaked his emotions at times in which I thought I could decode him. I couldn’t. I began to think everything was a lie. He never intended to help me. He only intended to break me in his own little way. He was and always would be working for Reven, and his needs.

  “N-nine,” I said, slumping down to the floor.

  “A multiple of three. Good guess, princess.” Sauntering to the table, he grabbed a long strand of rope and a knife. Sitting across from me, he began to uncurl the rope. “Three men and three women. Twenty-one animals in the theater and eighteen seminar attendees. The list could go on… All multiples of three. Do you wonder why that is?” He cut three sections off, almost a foot and a half long.

  “The trinity,” I answered.

  “Very good.” He unraveled the rope in three sections and handed all nine of them to me. “Make three knots on each one”—he pointed to the end, the middle, and the beginning—“and make them tight.”

  With my hands trembling, I began to do as instructed.

  “You know Reven’s story? He boasts about it at his seminars; it’s all a fucking lie.” He snorted. “The crazy seminars full of rich people who wonder why they aren’t happy with all the money they have. Sometimes I think the more money people earn the crazier they become. Maybe it’s just an excuse for them to be who they really are, while the rest of us mask it because we have to. We don’t have millions or billions of dollars to cover our problems or pay other people to shut up about them.

  “They come here because Reven promises them the things they want more of, or are missing. They stay for six weeks at a time—sometimes longer in the penthouse suites above the theater—listen to a madman speak, believe him, and then proceed to whine to him about how mommy and daddy didn’t love them enough. He gives them the same prescription unless they pay the price. They can either use the men or women Reven keeps hidden away in the basement—he calls them the throwaways, and I’ll get to why in a minute—or they can pay top dollar, matching the so-called elites’ bids who reside in the houses, and use one of you. You know why you, Jayme, Nadine, and those other assholes whose names I don’t bother to remember get to stay in his home? Because your parents’ income brackets make you important.”

  I glanced at him because I recalled the story Jayme told me. “Jayme wasn’t—”

  “She lied to you,” he snapped. “Her parents locked her away in a mental health facility because she was obsessed with a married man. She ran away and got involved in some things she shouldn’t have. Eventually, she wound up here. Reven has a team on the outside that feeds all of your privileged parents’ information about you. All of your parents are so desperate; little by little, they take the money from your ‘reward if found,’ and give it to Reven. Sometimes it’s more than what’s offered in the reward. Sometimes it’s less. Reven doesn’t really need the money to keep this place running; it’s anyone’s guess as to why he does it. But he’s smart. He’s untraceable.

  “But back to the throwaways. There are rules with you and the guys in The House of Rebirth, but not with the throwaways. Did you smell it, Keaton? You know what it is? Crazy men who pay a little money to come here and work out their aggression on whomever they want. They hide the fact that they are psychotic killers when they masquerade as businesspeople. The very moment they are told they can do what they want and it will help them, they lose their fucking minds. They rape them, torture them, and kill them. Sometimes, it’s not always in that order.”

  My hand trembled more, having problems finishing the knots.

  “And the girls like you? You’re not immune. For one billion dollars anyone who wants to kill can—humanely, of course. When you die, your remains are sent to your parents for twice the ransom money. Reven isn’t a religious zealot. This entire place is a sham created by a rich kid whose parents fucked him up. Whose bible-thumping parents thought his deranged fucking older brother was the second coming of Jesus.

  “Do you know why he calls himself Reven? He was attacked one day and declared clinically dead. He came back to life seconds later and decided to call himself a revenant. This place is just one big extravagant way to flex his god-complex and indulge in his deranged fantasies by manipulating the people who were like the ones who tormented him. The seminars, the speeches, The Doctrine? It’s bullshit to him. He’s fucking with almost everyone here. He draws the people here by using the things that they all want. Fame. Money. Sex. Violence. A purpose. Me, Nadine, and you are the only ones who see the truth.”

  “Knowing all of that,” I sobbed, “why did you come here?”

  He looked down at my completed ropes and gathered them all, knotting them into one and began binding a rope from the knot upward, creating a handle. “The question isn’t why I came here. The question is why I stayed. The answer? To save someone.” He asked quietly, “Do you know why I told you all of that?”

  “To make me scared,” I rasped.

  His eyes darted up to mine. “Some of us are here because we want to be. Some of us don’t think we can leave because we’re so used to the life here; we don’t know how to behave in the real world.”

  I reached up, touching the scar on his brow. “Who did this to you? Who was the monster who left you with the scars on your body?”

  He immediately stood, turning his back on me. His shoulders flexed and rolled as he continued to make the torture device. “Do you think I’m a coward f
or staying?”

  “Not at all, Noah. Reven has a lot of protection here. It wouldn’t be smart to fight against him without help.”

  He turned to me, his expression so stark I couldn’t see past it to tell what he was feeling. “What do you think you’re doing when you run and disobey him, Keaton?” Sighing, he drew his palm down his face. “You’re wrong. Your answer shows how fucking little you know me…and you never will.”

  “Because I don’t believe you’re a coward?” I stood watching him as he leaned against the opposite wall. “You just needed help.”

  “And what can you do?” He quirked up a brow in amusement. “A little girl with a huge bank account stuck in a place she doesn’t even know the location of can’t do anything to help anyone. Princess? I’m here because I want to be.” He lifted his arms, halting my reply. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Remove your clothes.”

  “You don’t have to do this—”

  “I really, really do. The funny part? I want to. I can’t wait to hurt you. It still gets me off, Keaton—more than I’ve ever gotten off on hurting anyone else. When you scream and I see the red welts on your skin…” Pausing and leaving his sentence incomplete, he narrowed his eyes at me and took one large step forward. “Take off your clothes or I will rip them off. If you think I’m going to be gentle with you, you’re wrong. When I’m done, you will be bedridden for a week. This is your doing. I warned. I threatened. But, you won’t stop making stupid decisions because you still can’t see the bigger picture.”

  With my body shaking, I turned toward the wall and slowly removed my clothes.

  THE DAYS were beginning to bleed together. For seven sunsets, I was bedridden. Marcia served as the cook and the nurse. She brought me meals and tended to my wounds. I tried to make sense of why Noah was so brutal with me. A lesson? Jealousy? Or was it really just simple punishment? The man was hard to crack.

  After fourteen—or sixteen—sunsets, night after night I stood in the theater lobby, behaving like a piece or ripened fruit, waiting to be picked and never was. The scenes around me didn’t draw me as they had before.