30. Res
30
Res
I don’t get far. I only get to the black fence where a member of the S-Team is waiting for me and drags me back down to the altar. The girl’s body has been unceremoniously dumped on the floor and replaced with another naked girl on the altar. Arms held down. Legs pulled back as Jaxson’s father fucks her and continues to completely ignore me.
There’s no use screaming to tell him to stop. There’s no use struggling against two men much bigger than me. All that will do is tire me out and make me too tired to see an opportunity to run if there is one. The only thing I can’t control is my body shaking in terror at what Jaxson’s father has in store for me after this. So while Jaxson’s father fucks into the remaining three and then kills them, I try to imagine all the scenarios from worst case to best. Worst case? He strips me naked, holds me down like these women, rapes me, and then slits my throat. Best case? I’m able to make him believe that I have no intention of telling anyone, and he lets me leave this place with my life. Between the worst case and the best case, there are a bunch of scenarios in between .
Finally, Jaxson’s father finishes with the last girl, leaving a pile of six dead girls' bodies piled on top of each other in the corner. One of the S-Team puts a robe on the Oracle, and he walks to stand in front of me.
Logically, I know he’s just a man. An old one at that. Logically, I know that if I could get my hands on a knife to slit his throat, he would bleed to death too. But as he towers over me in silence in just a silk robe after having fucked six girls to death, with his S-Team helping and watching without questioning, I can see how he rose to power in the Sovereignty. Why he’s got hundreds of thousands—maybe even millions—of people convinced he’s a prophet or messenger of God.
He stares at me in silence. It’s a scare tactic of controlling abusers who know they have all the power in the situation. To sit in silence while letting their victim stew in their terror. In anticipation. To make them confess all their secrets in the hopes that their honesty will bring them mercy. I studied mind games and psychological manipulation in school. I know all this. And yet still, the longer the silence draws on, the more I want to say something. Anything to break the silence. But if I’m going to get out of this with my life intact, at least, I can’t risk talking too soon and overplaying my hand more than I need to.
Finally, Jaxson’s father says, “Lauressa. I apologize that you had to see this.”
“Apologize,” I repeat .
“Sometimes the Supreme Force commands me as the Oracle to do things that the unenlightened human mind could not comprehend, and so I must keep it from the general public,” he explains.
“The Supreme Force commands you to rape and murder girls?” I ask, trying not to sound accusatory because that’s only going to make Jaxson’s father angry. They hate when their goodness and intentions are questioned, but there’s no way to ask if his god commands him to rape and murder girls except to say it.
He chuckles and says, “Nothing so heinous and indelicate. I gave them their salvation.”
“Their salvation?” I ask.
“They were engaged in the worst sin and debauchery that this world has to offer. So I gave them an opportunity to atone for their sins. I purified them with the spiritual energy that my body cannot contain so that their spirits may return to the Supreme Force in death,” he explains.
“You really believe that?” I ask.
“I don’t believe it. I know it.”
There’s no arguing or trying to reason with Jaxson’s father. He’s a man who believes his own delusions. It’s what makes him so dangerous. Even more dangerous than Jaxson. Jaxson is mad. He’s depraved. He’s cruel. He takes what he wants and doesn’t let any resistance stop him. But even he has limits to that cruelty. That he can’t fathom doing to J what his father did to him, to his brother with Lilah, proves that he has a heart underneath all that. It may be black. Hell, it may be rotten, but he has one. His father has no heart. Only a black void that masquerades as a heart .
If I’ve been Snow White this whole time and Jaxson is the huntsman and prince, then his father is the Evil Queen, willing to do whatever it takes to protect his power, privilege, and influence.
But the last thing I want to do is antagonize Jaxson’s father. My goal is to get out of this alive. My goal is to get back home tomorrow, steal a car, and drive as fast as I can to South Carolina because the stakes are even higher than I imagined them to be.
“Okay,” I answer. “If the Supreme Force commanded you, then who am I to question it and their Oracle? I don’t understand, but if you say that you saved those women from a fate worse than death, I won’t tell anyone until you see fit to reveal it.”
Jaxson’s father chuckles, and he runs a hand down my cheek. It’s the first time he’s ever touched me since he shook my hand all those months ago when Jaxson introduced us. The touch causes me to shiver and my skin to itch, reminding me of the phantom feeling of my brother’s touch.
“Oh, Lauressa,” he says with that creepy, patient laugh of his. “There’s no need to lie to me. I know you don’t understand. I know you don’t believe it. Not yet. But don’t worry, you’ll understand in due time.”
“Due time?” I ask, and then there’s a cloth over my mouth.
I hold my breath and struggle in the grip of the S-Team men, but it’s no use. Eventually, my body’s own survival instincts kick in, and I’m forced to breathe in the drug on the cloth. The world blinks. I wake up with my wrists tied behind my back and my body shaking. I realize the shaking is because I’m in the back of a truck, and the bumpy ride is causing my body to shake. The world blinks again, and I’m no longer tied up, but in a dark room with only a bed and two doors.
I take a minute to get my limbs to wake up before slowly sitting up, wincing at the soreness in my muscles. It takes me a minute to remember the farm. Going on a walk. Finding the altar. Seeing Jaxson’s father rape and murder women in the name of being commanded to give them their salvation by the Supreme Force. I remember waking up in short spurts, but for the most part, anything after that is gone. They must have transported me somewhere.
I go to the door immediately to the side of the bed and find a bathroom. I go to the other door that has a tray with a slot attached and find that it’s locked from the outside.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I sit on the bed and look around the room.
“Fuck is right,” a voice says, opening the door.
It’s Samson.
He flicks on the light and closes the door behind him.
“Let me out,” I say.
“Can’t do that. Orders from the Oracle,” he says.
“What other orders did he give you?”
“To break you by any means necessary,” Samson says huskily.
I tense up, not liking his tone. Samson notices and laughs.
“Don’t worry, sweet thing. I wouldn’t dare defile a woman that the Oracle has claimed as his own,” he says, looking me up and down. He licks his lips and says, “Though I’m sorely tempted.”
“Jaxson is going to find me. And when he finds out about this, he’s going to kill you,” I warn .
Samson laughs. “I taught that little tyke everything he knows. He’s not going to do anything, especially if the Oracle tells him not to. Besides, in order for him to want to do anything, you’d have to tell him. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be well-conditioned not to and completely accepting of your place in the Sovereignty, and have no doubt that the Oracle is your Lord and Savior, anointed by the Supreme Force.”
He doesn’t see me as a threat. He thinks he’ll break me like he’s no doubt broken others. Completely on his terms. The same way my brother tried to break me. The same way my father tried to break me. The same way Loving Eden tried to break me. Patronizing me the entire time.
Well, the joke’s on him. The only one who has ever broken me is Jaxson, and only because at the end of the day, I wanted him to break me. At the end of the day, I wanted my entire life upended and was just too afraid to do it, so he did it for me.
But the Oracle and his little right-hand man aren’t Jaxson. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through all this, it’s that I’m one fucking tough itch when I need to be.
“Do your worst,” I say with a shrug.
He laughs and says, “I see why Jaxson was so smitten with you.” Then as he leaves, he says, “Don’t worry, pretty thing. I will.”
The door closes.