29. Res
29
Res
A knock on my open door makes me turn from where I’m making sure that I have everything I need in my personal bag. My phone. My charger. My portable video game console. My other bags are already packed and loaded into the car downstairs. The only thing we’re waiting for is the Oracle to be ready to head out to his personal retreat, a farm about two hours outside Chicago where he spends his monthly retreats.
I turn around to see Landon leaning in the doorway.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he says, uncharacteristically quiet and subdued, like he has been for the last few days since he came back from visiting Jaxson apparently.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“No. Not really,” Landon says as he walks into the room and closes the door.
Instinctively, I narrow my eyes and make note of the nearest heaviest items. My purse and then the lamp on my nightstand.
“You know. Don’t you? Jaxson told you,” Landon says .
“Jaxson tells me a lot of things. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“About our father. How he thinks… he believes that Dr. Cult slander. That my father killed Raphael,” Landon says.
“Slander?” I ask, playing dumb. Luckily, I don’t have to feign surprise because Jaxson didn’t tell me that he talked to Landon about any of this. That said, with my rites and getting ready to go on this secret retreat with Jaxson’s father, I haven’t had time to go to the store so I could get a chance to talk to him.
“Don’t act surprised. He tells you things the same way I tell Caleb things,” Landon says. “I know you know.”
“Landon,” I state.
“Don’t Landon me. Fuck, you and Jaxson are just alike,” he snaps. Then he looks at me and says, “My father would never covet something that doesn’t belong to him. He’s an honorable man. He’d never murder the actual Oracle just so he could call himself Oracle. He’d never…”
“Who are you trying to convince?” I ask. “Me? Or yourself?”
“Res.”
“Don’t Res me,” I say with a crooked smile.
Landon lets out a mirthless laugh before saying, “He wouldn’t.”
“He’s forcing me to be his conduit,” I point out gently.
“You’re not being forced. You’re following the will of the Supreme Force. This is different. An outlying situation. He didn’t want to do this. He was ordered to,” Landon says .
“Maybe…” I trail off.
There’s nothing I can say to convince Landon of anything. I don’t know what happened between him and Jaxson and exactly what he found out. But whatever it was, his own internal doubts about it will do far more to convince him that his father is not the honorable kind man he thinks he is than anything I can say. If anything, whatever I could say would just make him defensive and reinforce his indoctrination.
However, there is one thing.
“You should ask your mother about her and Mason,” I say instead as I grab my bag.
“My mother and Mason? What about them?” Landon asks.
“Just ask her,” I say as I make to leave the room, pretty sure that Jaxson’s father will be down any moment now.
Landon grabs my hand before I go. I look at him expectantly, not trying to take my hand back. His grasp is gentle, so I doubt he wants to threaten or hurt me.
"Text me. When you get there," he adds.
I smile, understanding that this is his way of saying that our relationship hasn't changed. That he may be frustrated and confused, but not mad at me. Come a couple of hours, he'll be sending me a link to a new restaurant he saw online. Or sending me some funny video.
"Will do," I reply, and Landon lets go of my hand so I can leave.
Not even five minutes after I’ve gone downstairs, hugged Lilah and Adah goodbye, and gotten settled in the car, Jaxson’s father is led out of the house. They use a stool to help him climb into the car. Then, once he’s settled, his security closes the door, and he relaxes into his seat with barely a glance at me.
I debate whether I should say something or not. For a man who plans to make me his spiritual wife, he doesn’t seem interested in me. The only thing he seems to care about is that I’m a test of loyalty for his son, and that in order to officially have me, he has to do things in a certain way mandated by the traditions of the Sovereignty going back hundreds of years. It perplexes me.
In all the time I’ve studied cults—from religious cults or political cults to sex cults—almost never do you find a cult leader who wholeheartedly believes in what he preaches. On some level, they are aware that they’re just making up things that they don’t know the answer to but have to say for the sake of keeping control. Their ideas about sex are simply to control their members, but generally, none of them can keep their dick in their pants or their legs closed any better than the members they control. Almost all of them were involved in some kind of sex scandal. Adultery. Sleeping with underage girls and boys. Rape. Sex Trafficking. But Jaxson’s father doesn’t have any sex crimes, and I’ve looked for them.
I looked in all the archives and intel given to me by Jaxson and Magdalene. I asked during the interviews. I probed Lilah and Adah. Jaxson outright told me that if he had an inkling his father would hurt me, he wouldn’t have let me go to Chicago. All evidence points to Jaxson’s father being more or less as sexually conservative as he teaches, aside from having his wife and his conduits. If he’s interested in a woman, he makes her a conduit. It’s a stark contrast to his predecessor, who had a reputation for orgies and sleeping with just about anyone with a pretty or handsome face that walked past him.
His indifference toward me up until this point has only made me more fascinated by him. Not the way Jaxson fascinated me when we first met with his open condescension and derision for the Sovereignty outside the power it could provide him. But his father fascinates me in the same way a scientist is fascinated by an experimental subject that defies all their hypotheses, theories, and known facts thus far.
I decide not to start a conversation with him yet. I’m going to have an entire weekend to observe the man and talk to him, pretending that I’m fascinated by his supposed words of wisdom and advice.
So I let Jaxson’s father fall asleep while I decide to take the risk to log into the administrative side of my podcast channel through my phone. I’m limited to what I can do administratively while on the mobile app, but even if I were on my desktop, I wouldn’t have a lot to do. Abigail has really taken High Demand and made it her own. So much so that she’s even taken over scheduling interviews for not just Sovereignty members, but members of other cults. And she recorded and edited herself reading the new intel that Jaxson got from his friend, Abner. Email and letter exchanges between other Sovereigns and Jaxson’s father, featuring some of his horrid advice for dealing with crisis situations and even personal stories of unsavory interactions with the Oracle or one of his priests enforcing his word.
Him advising women to forgive their abusers and ask themselves what they did to invite such abuse to them. Telling people who had money stolen to think of it as a sacrifice they’d be awarded for. Excusing hazing and abuse among the men in the name of training them to be real men. Condemning the child of a priest for committing suicide. People who gave their entire lives and poured money into the Sovereignty only to be cast aside when they needed help the most. And the abuses of power go on and on.
I’m not so stupid as to think that when Jaxson is Oracle, things will be magically solved. People aren’t perfect, and at the end of the day, the things that make the Oracle a powerful position are still the things that make it a cult. At the end of the day, his power will be using a deity that he knows isn’t real to control others and maintain the Sovereignty’s power and influence in exchange for giving them a sense of purpose and community. But the abuse has to stop, and based on the abuses I’ve read and been told over the past few months, I’ve compiled a list of people to give to Jaxson along with some creative ways he might like to make them atone.
More and more, I realize that Jaxson has always been right about me. That while I want to help people, I also relish the same cruelty that he does to people who deserve it, even if we disagree on who exactly deserves it.
Almost three hours later, we arrive at the farm, named the same as the store because no other farm matters except the one that the Sovereignty says matters. The farmhouse isn’t as large as the property back in the city, but larger than most houses, and even larger still than the house at the apple orchard Jaxson took me to.
Looking at it, I wonder what’s the point of its size. For all that everyone practically worships Jaxson’s father and is always honored to be in his presence, no one wants to be around him. Jaxson’s house is clear on the opposite side of the city from his father. Landon, from my knowledge, avoids the main house when his father is there because he doesn’t want the man to find out about him and Caleb. Adah sent her daughters to boarding school and travels all the time, only staying close because I’m there. Lilah is the only one there consistently, but even she seems to be disappointed when the man who is pretty much her husband arrives. There’s no way any of them would ever want to come all the way out here to spend time with him and stay.
I’m shown to my room, but I don’t stay there long, curious to learn the layout of the house. There’s the upstairs with four bedrooms, two of which have ensuites. Downstairs, there’s a foyer, a personal gym, a large living room, and the kitchen. Right off the kitchen, there’s a second living room or den area, and this one has a television. And right off both the kitchen and the second living room is a large patio deck with a swing and outdoor furniture. I immediately decide that this is where I’m going to spend most of my time. But before I do, there’s another part of the house to explore: a long hall to the right of the foyer that leads to the east side of the house. It's almost like there’s an entirely different house attached. Like an apartment. There’s another living room, a smaller kitchen, an entry off the living room, down some stairs to where there are two more bedrooms, an office/library, and at the very end of the hall, a large, arched sturdy black wooden door. When I grab the handle, it doesn’t budge in either direction, not even a millimeter, and when I push on it, it doesn’t give one bit .
Mysterious, secure black door that doesn’t budge practically screams something unsavory is going on. Maybe an altar like the one Jaxson uses when he wants to make people atone. Maybe this is where Jaxson got the idea from.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
I jump as I turn around to find one of the S-Team men behind me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was just figuring out where everything was in the house.”
“Those doors lead to the Oracle’s personal quarters and meditation room,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him out.
“Oh. Is that where the Oracle and I will meditate over our upcoming union?” I ask.
“No. For that, the Oracle prefers to be out in nature.”
“Out in nature doing what?” I ask.
“Lots of long walks, usually,” the man answers and smirks. “I hope you bought comfortable shoes."
I did, because Lilah and Adah pretty much told me the same thing.
“Where is the Oracle?” I ask.
“In his personal quarters. He’ll see you after dinner,” the man says and says nothing else as he leads me back to my room on the side of the house.
The personal trails that surround the property are worn, cleared, and maintained dirt and gravel paths through the woods, with lights along the way and in the trees to guide the way in the evenings and at night. Some paths are more lit and more maintained than others on the farm and through the woods surrounding the property, but we mainly stay on the better-lit ones.
I make a note to ask Jaxson if he can get something like this done at the orchard, depending on how much of the surrounding woods and land he owns on the property—that is, I think about it when I’m not hating every second of my existence, counting down the seconds until I can go back to my room or do anything else besides spend all my time with the Oracle.
I thought there might be something intriguing about him. Something fascinating. A man who took control of the Sovereignty and managed not to make it splinter in two during a succession crisis has to have something going on. But I quickly learn that Abdiel Devine is not his son. There’s no mystique to him. No intrigue. Nothing he keeps hidden behind closed doors. He really is nothing but a deluded, bigoted old man, stuck in his ways, and who, if he lives too much longer, will drive the Sovereignty into obscurity and likely bankruptcy himself after three hundred years of existence.
The only thing that Jaxson's father talks about that might be interesting is the way he reminisces about Zachariah. About the time they spent together on his farm when he'd visit the man during his own retreats. How they'd take long walks like this and never run out of things to discuss with each other.
"Sounds romantic," I state before I can stop myself, only to hastily add, "Almost!"
Jaxson's father just smiles fondly and says, "Yes. You could see it that way. I loved that man even more than I've ever loved any woman."
I don't feel like inadvertently earning a bigoted lecture on "the natural order of things," so I keep myself from pointing out the homoerotic nature of that statement. Still, it's clear that his love for the previous Oracle is genuine. It makes me wonder if the accusations against him—that he betrayed and killed Zachariah—by Raphael's supporters aren't just a conclusion based on a convenient coincidence. People die for no reason all the time. That said, I know that people betray and kill those they love all the time, too. It's practically the story of the Bible. Cain and Abel, Jesus and Judas. Noah and Ham.
Besides that one interesting insight, Jaxson’s father just likes to hear himself talk and feel like he’s imparting useful wisdom. So I find ways to entertain myself while managing to listen just enough to answer him when he directs a question or statement to me.
On Saturday while hiking together, and I listen to the old man drone on, I imagine walking through these woods alone, unaware as Jaxson watches from somewhere. I imagine being the star of one of those porn videos where I get too hot and just strip off my clothes until I’m naked, leaving them in a safe alcove, only to come back and find them gone. Then Jaxson will stumble upon me, chuckle, and only give me my clothes back after he’s had his way with me in the wilderness against some tree. It would be even better if it were on a public trail where there’s a risk of someone stumbling along .
That fantasy might be too tame for Jaxson, though. He gets off on the dominance. On instilling fear and terror. Of having me at his complete mercy. So maybe he’d make sure some passerby would stumble upon us, murder them in front of me, and then fuck me over their dead body. It would probably be something much more depraved and creative. Something that would take me by surprise. Hopefully without drugs involved this time. I can do knives, daggers, blood, and being tied up, but I don’t like the complete loss of control from drugs. Then again, that’s probably why Jaxson liked the idea. Maybe we can come to a compromise on it.
It occurs to me that I never asked Jaxson what drug he used, which makes me contemplate if there’s a drug with the same aphrodisiac effects without the complete loss of control and brain fog. I plan for that to be my evening walk contemplation with Jaxson’s father when I’m notified that we won’t be walking this evening. Apparently, the old man wore himself out with the miles and miles of walking that we’ve done over the last few days. For a man in his seventies, he sure can still get around. He might be in better shape than I am.
As relieved as I am not to have to spend any more time with Jaxson’s father, I can’t help but be a little disappointed because now I have nothing to do to fill my evening. I finished a few books I downloaded before I left, but I found out that the internet permission at the main house didn’t transfer to the permissions here, and I don’t dare try to ask any of the staff about it. There’s an additional office and library to the one I found on Jaxson’s father’s side of the property, but there’s nothing there except a bunch of Sovereignty books .
On another day, I might be interested in learning more of their lore and ways for my cult studies or getting a good laugh at some of the more ridiculous stuff. On another day, I might even continue my search to see where the space travel and aliens might come in because space travel, aliens, or both almost always come into play with religion and cults. However, I’ve spent the last two evenings listening to Jaxson’s father drawl about something to do with the Sovereignty or another that I doubt I can take anything else.
I settle on getting dressed and going for a walk anyway. Jaxson’s father makes for terrible company, but the walks aren’t half bad. Maybe I can actually enjoy the sounds of nature without Jaxson’s father’s voice irritating me.
It’s getting darker later and later, so there’s still plenty of daylight when I leave. At first, I stay on the more or less cleared paths, but then a tree off the path catches my eye. It caught my eye yesterday too, but Jaxson’s father told me it wasn’t a good idea to go off the beaten path, no matter how much I insisted that my grandmother loved nature and plants and took me camping and fishing and taught me how to navigate.
Today, with him not here to stop me, I walk off the path to inspect the tree. It turns out not to be the tree I thought it was, but I take a leaf and put it in my backpack with my water and snacks anyway. I check said backpack for my phone, flashlight, and water before going further off the path, curious to see what the differences between the plants here and at home are .
I put a timer on my phone first. It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to walk through the woods and explore. But I do know from experience that I can easily lose track of time doing so.
I set it for forty-five minutes and walk further into the woods. I take pictures of leaves, bark, moss, and roots to run through a search online later.
Twenty minutes into walking, I notice that the ground is getting damp, meaning there’s water somewhere nearby. I’m right. With a little more walking, I find a stream. Curious to where it goes, I follow it, and about five minutes into following it, I realize that it’s leading me back in the direction of the house. I wasn’t quite done with my exploring, but it would take too long to go back and then go back to the house on my own at a decent time, so I just keep going, even after the stream ends at a small pond.
I keep going and going until I reach a large black fence. I know this fence. I can see it from the patio behind the kitchen. It cages off Jaxson’s father’s quarters of the property. I knew it went into the woods but not that it reached this far out. Not feeling like going all the way around it to reach the house, I pull on the entrance and am surprised to find that the lock is unhooked.
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission,” I mutter to myself as I open the gate and walk through.
To my surprise, there’s no side sliding door or backdoor, just a cellar door. My instincts tell me that I should turn around. My instincts also tell me that this is weird and I need to know why.
There’s no lock on the cellar. Just an old-fashioned wooden latch of all things. I push it up and pull the doors open before taking the stone steps down. I close the door behind me but make sure to close the door on top of the latch so I won’t be trapped.
Then I continue down the steps, down a short dark hall, and round the corner into…
It’s a personal altar. Like the one where I took my rites and became a Sovereign. Like the one Jaxson uses to make people atone. And in the middle of that room is Jaxson’s father, with a naked girl laid out on the stone slab and fucking into her.
If it were just him fucking some woman, I’d think it was some weird kink, and that like most powerful men, Jaxson’s father too is guilty of messing around with women.
But it’s not just a girl as in a biological female. It’s a young girl. She can’t be more than seventeen. Standing around the altar as the Oracle fucks her are members of his S-Team, two of whom pin the girl down by the arms and two more of whom hold a leg on either side open and back to give Jaxson’s father room. Chained up lining the wall are three other naked girls and women, cowering in terror as they witness. On the ground are two dead girls, their bodies unceremoniously tossed in a corner.
Looks like I found the sex crimes I had been suspicious of not finding.
I press close against the wall. It doesn’t look like anyone saw me. Not the girls. Not Jaxson’s father. And not his security.
I risk peeking around the corner, and as he’s thrusting into her, Jaxson’s father raises a knife. The girl starts to scream, her voice raw from what must have been screaming before she resigned herself to being brutally raped. I cover my own mouth to muffle my own sound of terror as Jaxson slits her throat like a slaughter animal and then continues fucking her as she gurgles on her own blood and bleeds out.
I press myself back against the wall. I can’t make myself known. I need to get back through the woods, follow the trail back to the house, go to my room, and wait until I’m taken back to the main house. Then I can call Jaxson and—
The sound of my timer going off rings through the room.
Left with no choice, I run back the way I came.