Chapter 20
S he’s barely alive, which makes the prospect of killing her that much easier. I’d be essentially putting her out of her misery at this point.
Another leg has been severed, while the bones on her remaining hand have all appeared to be broken.
Her eyes are sewn shut with thread, so she can’t see me when I enter with Jacob. Yet at the sound of our footsteps, she cries out and tries pitifully to shrink away.
This will be easy, I tell myself.
He hands me the blade, and I take a deep breath. It’s a coward’s choice not to let her know that her own sister is killing her, dealing the final blow, so I do.
“Why?” she screams. “Why would you do this to your own flesh and blood?”
“Because I can,” I whisper.
Jacob smiles—a true smile, displaying pearly white teeth.
I feel no remorse as I plunge the knife into her stomach. I feel nothing as blood blossoms beneath my blade, my fingers. I feel not an ounce of emotion as she writhes in agony.
Because she’s free. Free from him, free from this place.
“May you be cleansed,” I murmur the words Jacob wants me to say. “And Judged by the Lord.”
For so long, I was fighting for her.
Now that she’s free from Jacob’s torture, free from this terrible life of cancer and pain… I’m fighting for me.
And now I hold the knife.
I turn on Jacob as he kneels to inspect her body, to cut her up as I know he does for each ritual of purification.
Raising the blade, I shove it into his shoulder, narrowly missing his neck.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
He rounds on me with a furious cry, and I block his slap with my arm, using the other to grab hold of his shoulder-length hair.
I have to survive this. It’s my only chance.
“What the fuck, Amy?” Jacob roars, trying to bat me off without cutting me. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I jab out with the knife again and miss, and his eyes narrow.
“But I fucking will if I have to.”
He shoves me with all his strength to the ground, and I land with a cry in a mix of hay and dirt. My head knocks against the stall beside me, and pain blossoms through my skull. The knife flies a couple feet away from my grasp.
Turning onto my stomach, I scramble to crawl over and grab it, but Jacob kicks me in the stomach.
Fuck. Pain radiates through my abdomen, but I get back up from the ground and keep crawling. Finally, he grabs me by the hair and turns me over, straddling me. I’m pinned in place by his heavy weight.
He will kill me if he has to. I know he will. Where is the fucking knife?!
“You thought you could overpower your holy Father, did you?” Jacob sneers. He bangs my head into the ground, and I see stars as I struggle to fight back. “You thought you could fucking stab me?!”
He raises his own blade, arcing down to stab me in the shoulder near my collarbone.
I scream in rage and terror alike.
I can’t die like this.
I glance behind me on the ground and spot the knife lying in the dirt.
Hope blossoms anew in my chest, where blood pulsates and pours from my newfound wound near my collarbone.
Reaching up with my hand, I grab it just before he strikes again, plunging it towards him and slicing him in the neck. Blood spews from the wound, and he reels back, hands desperately trying to stop the inevitable.
Just like most of his victims, he would die from a slice to the throat.
But I’m not finished.
Rage like nothing I’ve ever felt before springs to life inside me. Rage for all the other girls he’s tortured, maimed, and manipulated—just like me and Amelia.
Rage that he convinced me this was all God’s will.
Whatever god he worships… it’s not mine.
I strike again and again and again with the blade, until I’m breathless and he lies in a heap of gore.
And now…
As he writhes and goes limp before me in a pool of his own blood…
I laugh for the first time in a long time.
My husband and the father of my child is dead. His legacy has ended.
And I’m free.
Shoving open the door to the barn, I’m greeted by twinkling stars and a crisp night breeze. I’ve grabbed the car keys off Jacob—from his pocket, the only place he felt comfortable leaving it while at home—and now I’m walking across the gravel drive to his Mercedes.
How such a sick, twisted man came to owning one of these, I’m not really surprised. He probably stole money from each of his victims in addition to his day job.
Plopping down in the front seat, I turn on the ignition, and the headlights illuminate a world of trees and endless road; we must be far from the main city. I put the car in drive, slowly rolling away from the house of horrors I’ve called home for several weeks now.
The world is ahead of me.
I can only hope this new me is ready.