51. Cin
Cin
He’s sitting there, staring at me, searching my face. I stare back at him in shock and revulsion. I refuse to cry in front of him. He doesn’t deserve my tears.
“…my daughter, Serge, or I swear to God.”
“You…” I start, but he quickly puts up a hand to silence me. And the voice coming from the phone in his hand registers as she says, “Cin!”
“Mama!” I shout, and he hits the button to end the call.
“You mother fucking, son-of-a-bitch,” my voice rumbles with every word. Tears threaten to spill over; if he’s going to kill me, he’s going to have to fucking fight me. And this time, I plan to not pull any punches.
“Mi hija, you’re so grown,” he stands. I look around and see that the only way out is through the door I’m leaning against. His eyes are open and welcoming, but I know what he is, I can see through the act.
He’s a killer hiding behind a religion he created the rules for.
“I can see your mother has poisoned you against me–” he sighs.
“You had me kidnapped twice,” I snarl. “I can make my own deductions.”
“Can you, querida ni?a?”
“Calling me endearing names won’t change the fact that you tried to murder me.” I spit as he advances slowly to my side of the desk. He doesn’t seem alarmed, so I guess he’s not worried about me escaping or fighting him.
“That’s right, you are not a fan of pet names. What is it,” he pretends to think, but his eyes are alight with mirth, “Spice?”
His reference to Talon makes my blood run cold. He was bleeding… if they grabbed him too, I’ll never forgive Cody.
“Let me go home,” I demand.
He simply shakes his head and laughs lightly, “oh, ni?a, you are home.”
“Nowhere you are could be my home,” I spit, “your home is in prison.”
His face morphs into a sneer for a split second, before returning to the pleasant facade he was sporting when I walked in. The door opens, and the man from the hall enters. “Everything alright, Father Castillo?”
The man eyes me, and I have to suppress the urge to hit him. I have a feeling that if I did, Serge would try and stop me. I do not want his hands on me.
“It’s fine, Acolyte Rend,” Serge says, “please return my daughter to her room, and find Cody for me.”
The man reaches for me, and I growl, “do not touch me.”
He tilts his head and opens the door wider to allow me the space to leave. I eye Serge, “they’ll come for me, and when they do, you’ll wish you were in prison.”
“I look forward to it,” he smiles.
I don’t remember the way, so I have to let this guy, Acolyte Rend, lead. Looking around, I take in the house, it’s got a familiar smell that I can’t place but faintly recognize. It’s undecorated, sparse furniture dots the space. It’s empty, nothing like Creed’s home. It has no soul.
I hear a door open behind us and turn to find Cody stepping out of one of the rooms. My God, the boys were right. The smell must be the lake, and I recognize it from Cody’s skin.
The boys were right about everything.
“Cinny,” he coos, stepping forward as if to embrace me. His mouth is split and red where I hit him, and I sneer, ready to make his nose match.
“Father Castillo wants to see you, acolyte,” Rend says to Cody, and hearing it makes me want to rip his head off.
How could he?
Rend grips my wrist, and I lose it. Throwing out my leg, I kick his shin, and he grunts but doesn’t go down. He holds me tighter, and I want to break his fingers again. He pushes open the door to the room they put me in and pushes me into the bed.
“I can’t wait for tonight, you ungrateful little bitch,” he slams the door on his way out, and I hear a lock slam into place. I survey the room again, noting the lone window that overlooks a large body of water. I try pushing up on the wood to get it open, but after inspecting the seal, I find it nailed shut.
Fuck.
I slam my fist into the frame, and the glass rattles. The house is old, but if I can get the glass out of the frame, maybe I can crawl out. Looking down, I see shrubs and pine needles covering the ground.
It’s not a far jump, and I’m pretty confident I can make it. Hands flat against the glass, I push, and it shifts but doesn’t move past the groves it’s set in.
I contemplate using the pillow to knock it out, but that’s risky. The noise alone will alert someone, and I have no idea where to go once I get out.
The lock on the door clicks and I turn, spreading my feet apart so I have stability for whatever comes through the door.
Cody’s head pops around the corner of the door, and I roll my eyes.
“Get out,” I don’t bother screaming. It’s not worth it, and if I get out of here, I’ll need all of my energy.
“Don’t be like that Cinny-Mae,” he says softly, eyes round. “You don’t understand yet, but if you let me explain–”
“Explain? You want to explain why you had to kidnap me? Why you’re in a fucking cult ?”
I’m seething, words flowing from between clenched teeth. He lied to me for months, kissed me, knowing his whole story was a lie. Exactly when did my father get to him? How long has he been pretending to be my friend while siphoning information back to Serge?
“I had to get you away from them, from him . He’s tainting you, can’t you see it?” His voice lifts higher as he speaks.
“Tainting me?” I laugh. What the hell is he talking about?
“You’re going to be cleansed tonight, and everything you’ve done before will be erased.”
“Cody, do you hear yourself?” I pinch the window sill in my hands to keep from strangling him, “you act as if you can reverse time.”
“No,” he says, voice eerily calm once more, “you’re going to make us all rich beyond reason, we’ll be untouchable, you and I.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I can’t understand what he’s saying. Or rather what he isn’t saying.
“Serge–”
“Father Castillo,” he interrupts.
“Serge,” I squint my eyes in challenge, “is going to kill me, Cody. We won’t have any future if you keep me locked in this room.”
He shakes his head and steps closer, “no, no, see, you’ve been told lies, but I’m going to help you see. He didn’t try to kill you all those years ago. He only needs a cup of blood, that’s all, and we’ll bandage you right up.” His eyes are so earnest it’s disgusting. He has been totally and completely brainwashed, and the kicker is I don’t even know when I lost my friend.
If he was ever my friend at all.
Sardonic laughter breaks free from my chest, “Dear God, what has he promised you? Riches? News flash, you are rich.”
He licks his lips and shakes his head, “you.”
“Me?” I scoff, “I don’t want you, or did you not get that memo when you demanded that I tell you I love you in the center of campus?”
“You could have loved me if it weren’t for Talon,” his voice takes on an edge, and his jaw ticks, “and Mr. Skeens. Did you know he was obsessed with you? Did he make you feel special? Is that why you were always helping him after class? I made you special Cinny-Mae.”
My brows kiss as I contemplate what he said, “you… you blackmailed Mr. Skeens? Because you thought I slept with him? I was never involved with him. He’s innocent!”
“Really Cinny-Mae, innocent men don’t fuck their teenage students,” he rolls his eyes, “the girl in the video? She really did look just like you, almost sounded the same, too.”
My stomach rolls at his insinuation that Mr. Skeens did have an infatuation with me. Although I’m not underage, and he is a handsome man, it would have felt wrong.
“You blackmailed him with that video to get him arrested?”
He smiles as if he’s proud of himself.
“I did. The only hiccup was when he claimed it was you in the video, and you were nearly expelled. Oh, and don’t worry. When I get my hands on Talon, I’ll remove him from your life too, but only this one, I think, will need to be permanent.”
Though he threatened Talon’s life, at least I now know he isn’t here. So they can’t hold him over me, and when I told Serge that they would come for me, I wasn’t bluffing. I know they will, and I hope they bring a goddamn army.
Serge opens the door not long after I made Cody leave. His hands are behind his back, and he’s dressed in a long blue robe–the same one that those people were dressed in, in my nightmares–only his has silver embroidered embellishments on the neck and cuffs.
He smiles at me and brings something out from behind his back. There’s a gown in his hands, a white lace lays over the silky fabric, and I scoff.
“I’m not putting that on my body,” I warn.
He shrugs and snaps his fingers, Rend appears, dressed similarly in the same blue color robe, but without the decorative silver embroidery. I back into the wall, swallowing down my fear.
“Will you get dressed now?” Serge’s eyes slide to mine, and the corner of his mouth tips up into a smile.
“No,” I stand taller, “and if he touches me, I’ll break more than his fingers this time.”
“Such violence, mi hija,” he tuts, as if he’s disappointed. Too bad for him, I don’t care if he’s upset. I won’t willingly march to my own death.
Rend walks closer to me, his smile is wild, teeth displayed, and before I know it, a syringe is plunged into my neck. He pushes the plunger down, and I stumble as I try to stay standing. This can’t be it, if they take me somewhere, statistically, I’ll be dead by the time someone finds me.
My heart beats erratically, pushing whatever venom they gave me further and further through my system.
Breathing gets harder, and I start to fall.