Chapter 20 Lazarus
twenty
Lazarus
Pitiful.
Pathetic.
Daylan sits against the wall, eyeing me carefully as I build my firepit in the corner of the room.
He prayed earlier, and I know he is hungry, but he won’t ask for food, and I won’t offer it to him.
We have not spoken since I learned of the way Father made him the pious, pure Lamb that Ezekiel should have been.
How he has twisted Daylan has my mind prickling with rage, my body tensing as I stack logs against the far wall.
When I took him, I was fascinated by his presence and his belief, but to hear that it has been beaten into him feels wrong.
It feels ugly.
It feels like hate and fear more than love and duty, and that Daylan cannot see it is the worst part of all.
I am no longer enamored with his grace; I am saddened by it.
When he gets to his knees to pray, I die inside watching him flay himself open like he is the one holding the whip against his own skin.
“I need to eat. No question,” Daylan says, breaking the silence, his own tone sour.
“You can wait.” I do not trust myself not to be near him without forcing him to show me what Father has done to his body, and that will only lead me down the path of unstoppable fury.
“I need food. No question.”
I stack logs, ignoring him as he sighs unhappily. The firepit is shaping up nicely, and the feel of the gritty wood against my skin is soothing some of the rage out of me, so I keep going until there are no more logs to place.
“I earned food,” Daylan comments from behind me.
“You will eat when I am done.”
“Do you mean to starve me? Is this the new game?” he asks.
I turn and glare at his beautiful face. “No dinner. You just lost it. You are still my captive, and you will get food when I decide to give it to you.”
“I thought we were past that.”
“Look at your wrist.”
His face falls slightly as he glances down at the rope that still binds him to the cabin, and he sinks into the mattress beneath him a little.
Regret burns inside me, but I turn around.
I cannot place anything I am feeling right now into anything but grabbing stacked wood and knocking it over so I have a reason to stack it up again.
“If I am to be here forever, I would like to know that I’m going to get to eat.”
“I could always kill you if you’d prefer that.”
“You won’t,” Daylan says with a small laugh. “You like me too much.”
I sigh, because he is right. Dropping the wood to the ground, I turn and head for the barrel beside the door to grab him something to chew on.
Looking into the barrel is another story though, as I can see that my stockpiles that were meant to last through the winter are depleted.
Keeping Daylan alive has come at a cost, and though I won’t regret it mostly, I will have to chance a trip to Ekksha to restock before the snow flies.
I can always sneak into Bright Haven and steal from their warehouses again, but when the deep snow sets in, I risk leaving paths back here that can easily be followed.
“Meat or fruit?” I ask, plucking out two small bundles of food.
“Fruit, please.”
So polite.
I place the meat down and head over to Daylan, holding out the bundle of dried apple chips.
I don’t know where they come from, but I can always find them for trade in Ekksha and will have to stock up if I’m able to make a trip there.
They are my favorites. He opens the small satchel and plucks a chip out, popping it into his mouth with a smile. “Thanks.”
I nod, then crawl onto the mattress beside him and take the satchel from him. Daylan squawks a noise of protest, but I fish out a piece of apple for myself, then hand the bag back.
“I thought you were taking it away.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I reply, offering a small smile as he grabs another chip and slips it past his lips.
He chews, then opens his mouth to speak, and I hold up a hand to cut him off.
“I know. You are the Lamb. You cannot be tempted into sin. You don’t sin.
You make mistakes, and that is why you are whipped like a dog by Father, who is meant to protect and love you as he did his first Lamb. ”
He is silent, reaching for another chip and turning it over in his hands. “I think I do sin, and I think that Father isn’t right for whipping me.”
Shock rattles through me, and I can’t stop the smile that comes to my lips. “Lambchop, what brought this on?”
“I thought about it,” he says. “All night long while you ignored me, I worked through it and made a realization. I think I sin and I don’t deserve to be corrected with a whip. It is not what Father would want me to think, but I think you are right about that part.”
“I’m not trying to be right.”
“You always want to be right. Stop lying, Lazarus.” Daylan offers a small smile before popping the apple chip between his lips and chewing on it. He swallows slowly, then clears his throat, glancing at me quickly before looking down at his lap. “Do you want to see them?”
“Yes.”
Daylan inhales a deep breath and carefully lifts his shirt, turning around and revealing an ass I have seen and an upper back that I have not.
The flesh across his shoulders is marred with scars, some deeper and older than others.
A newer one runs across the lower part of his right shoulder blade, and I reach for it, running my fingers across the puckered skin as my blood boils.
It is in that moment that I decide with absolute certainty that Daylan will stay with me. There is no chance of him being returned to Bright Haven, dead or alive. He is mine to keep, and I will keep him well and whole. How dare Father do this to my Lamb?
“Ugly, right?” he comments with a shrug.
I lean forward and place my lips against the newest, trailing my fingers over the rest that remain. Daylan shudders slightly as I move my lips across his back, pecking kisses as I go.
“The person who did this to you is ugly, Daylan. He is the wicked one, and he will pay for it, I swear.”
“Lazarus, you can’t make everyone pay for everything,” he says, but I grab him tight and pull him to me, pressing my lips against his shoulder again.
“I can and I will,” I promise. “You are mine to keep and mine to protect.”
He melts into my embrace as I move my lips to his neck, pulling him onto my lap.
His hand that is tied to the wall dangles outstretched, and I hate the look of it.
I stop kissing him and reach from behind him to grab the knot I tied, loosening it with my fumbling fingers until it falls free from the wall.
“Thank you,” Daylan whispers, turning around on my lap and splaying his legs out over mine. He wraps his arms around my neck and his thighs around my waist, and I hold him there, safe in my embrace, pressing kisses into his skin.
Daylan pulls back to look into my eyes, and then slowly he leans in to press his lips against mine.
I meet him there in the middle, kissing him back as he runs his hands up my back and threads them through my curls.
His mouth tastes of apples, and as I lick into his mouth, the sweetness lingering on his tongue nearly steals my breath away.
Daylan’s kiss is gentler than I have ever been treated, and my heart doesn’t know what to do with it, thudding nervously inside my chest as all my secrets threaten to spill from between my lips.
“Are you alright?” Daylan asks, pulling back and leaning his forehead against mine.
“I am terrified, Lambchop, but since you have shown me your scars, maybe I should show you mine.”
“Ezekiel’s death,” Daylan says with a nod.
“And Michael’s sin,” I add, for Ezekiel’s crimes were only part of the reason Bright Haven will someday burn at my hand.
“He touched me. Ezekiel did. It started when I was just a child. He’d call me to his rooms and I would go, because he was the Lamb and I trusted him.
There was a man named Michael who saw what was happening and did nothing.
He would pull me aside and tell me that I was making the Lamb sin.
I was tempting him with my body, according to Michael. ”
Daylan pulls back, shock on his face and his eyes wide.
I hesitate, anticipating him to call me a liar.
To tell me I am to blame for what Ezekiel did to me as Michael did.
I tense, awaiting his words, but his face cracks into sadness, sending tears cascading down my own cheeks.
Daylan rubs them away with his thumbs and leans forward to press his lips against my forehead, but there are more things to say.
“I earned trade tokens for being good and avoided cleansing by avoiding Ezekiel. It worked for a while, but eventually he caught me again. He pulled me into his rooms and… I don’t have the words for it, but it was horrid.
A betrayal of everything I ever knew to be right and just. Afterwards, I could not walk.
I could not sit. I lay in bed with a sick stomach for days until everything healed.
Nobody came to check on me. Nobody cared. I was eleven years old and all alone.”
“My poor Devil,” Daylan whispers, pulling my tear-stained face against his chest and cradling me there against his heartbeat. “You did not deserve any of that.”
“It did not end that night. It kept going right until the night I killed him. He would come to my room in the middle of the night and take what he wanted from me. He wouldn’t listen even though I told him no every single time, as Michael told me to do.”
“And Michael did nothing to help you?”