Chapter 82
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Lily
The further I lead her into the woods, the less of a clue I have about where I am.
I don’t care.
My mission was simple. Remove her from the house. Get her away from my father. Get her away from the safe room. Get her away from Drago when he comes home.
After that… I didn’t think this far.
I haven’t roamed these grounds. I don’t know the paths. I don’t know where the breaks in the fence are. I don’t know anything except the image that won’t stop looping behind my eyes.
My father bleeding out on the floor. Blood soaking through his fingers. His body going still.
This could save him. If Drago finds him in time. If there’s still time.
They’re both safe.
That’s what I keep telling myself. That’s what I have to believe.
“Lily,” Mom calls from behind me, her tone light. Curious. Like we’re on some twisted family walk. “Where are we going?”
I don’t slow down. I don’t look back.
“We can’t go out the exit that has armed guards,” I say, forcing my voice to shake in the right places. “We have to find a break in the fence. Somewhere that isn’t guarded.”
A beat of silence.
Then she hums, pleased.
“Where are your warriors positioned, Mom?” I ask, and it feels wrong in my mouth. Like the sentence shouldn’t exist. Like, my mother shouldn’t be a fucking warlord.
But she is.
“Everywhere,” she says easily. “Up in the skies. On the ground.”
I swallow, pushing down nausea. “How do you have so many?” I ask, making it sound like awe. Like admiration. “That’s like an army.”
She laughs softly, delighted with herself.
“I have some help with my contacts in Russia,” she says. “She’s actually a very good friend of your boyfriend. Tatiana, I think you two will be good friends. She said she saw you two in Monaco together.”
My stomach twists so violently I almost stumble.
She.
Tatiana. The bitch who kissed my man.
My throat closes. I force my feet to keep moving.
“You can’t trust him, Lily,” Mom adds, voice sweet again. Poison wrapped in sugar.
I can. I know I can. I trust him with my damn life.
But I’m walking aimlessly now, slowing down deliberately. Not because I’m lost, but because I need to keep her talking.
Keep her distracted. Keep her believing I’m into this.
“What do you mean you have people in the skies? Like in heaven?” I ask, sounding as dumb as possible to trick her.
She cackles. “No, sweetie. We will have to train you for war. Drone strikes. That’s why we have to get out of here. I’ve got a team in a van just near the hospital that is ready to strike.”
Jesus Christ.
The gun is heavy under my sweater, pressed against my stomach. Cold metal against skin. My fingers brush it once, twice, like I’m reminding myself it’s real.
“Where exactly is this sanctuary? Ohio?” I ask carefully.
“Yes, sweetheart. We have an entire complex where we all live. It has everything we need. I’ve already set up your access to the gates.”
I nod. “Does it have a password or something?”
“Salvation is the code.”
I take a deep breath. Trying to keep calm, yet reminding myself that I’m about to do something that will change me forever.
“So,” I say quietly, finally letting my voice sharpen. “The man who tried to hurt me… your husband. He was the original Preacher? The one who started all this?”
This time, I stop and turn to face her. I’m trying to get information out of her without making her suspicious.
Her eyes light up like she’s proud. “Yes, sweetie,” she says, voice soft and gentle. “That was meant to be your initiation. My sacrifice to him.”
Everything in me freezes. My heart slams once, and then my body goes cold.
I taste bile.
Sweat drips down my forehead, dampening my hairline.
“An initiation?” I whisper. “You knew?”
She tilts her head, slipping into her concerned mother's face, a mask she can wear whenever she wants. “I didn’t have a choice, Lily,” she says, lips pursed. “At the time, I wasn’t powerful. I was just… lost.”
Her eyes darken, something feverish behind them. “It wasn’t until I ascended into power that I realized.”
I drag a hand down my face, trying not to shake. Trying not to throw up. Trying not to scream.
“So why are you here now?” My voice cracks. “Why did you try to kill Dad? What have we ever done to you, Mom?”
She tuts. Like I’m being difficult. Like I’m being naive.
“We all have to make sacrifices,” she says simply. “Even of loved ones. For the greater good.” She steps closer, eyes shining. “To cleanse this earth, Lily.”
Her smile widens.
“You’ll understand soon enough. Once you learn the ways. The teachings. You’ll have to make your own sacrifice to take your place, too.”
“Hurting the people I love is a lesson?” I whisper.
She nods, proud of the answer. “Yes,” she says calmly. “A valuable one. It will make you strong. Fierce enough to lead my army.”
My stomach churns. My fingers curl tighter around the weapon hidden under my sweater.
She comes closer. Too close. Her perfume hits me, and I want to gag.
“You need to forget about Drago,” she murmurs, voice like a lullaby. “He is your past.”
I stare at her, my chest rising and falling too fast, too shallow. I have to keep it together for my baby.
“We will find you someone better,” she continues. “Someone who won’t break you like he would.”
Something inside me snaps. I shift my stance slightly, angling my body the way Drago taught me without even realising he’d taught me.
But I’m lining up my shot.
I lift my eyes, letting her see the truth for the first time. “He breaks me open,” I whisper, voice trembling.
Her smile turns smug.
Then I finish it. “You just break me apart.”
Her mouth drops open, and confusion flickers across her face. For one split second… she doesn’t understand. And that’s the only advantage I get.
Because she has two guns. And I have one chance.
I pull the trigger.
The shot rips through my sweater and slams into her stomach, just like she did to Dad.
Maria’s scream tears through the trees. She staggers back, eyes wide, both guns dropping as her hands fly to the wound.
I move fast.
I snatch one weapon from her grip as she fumbles, and the other hits the ground with a heavy thud.
My hands shake so badly that I almost drop it. But I don’t.
I rip my own gun free from under my sweater and point it straight at her, arm locked, breath tearing out of me.
She stumbles backward, blood blooming across her top, her face twisted with shock. “I’m your mom,” she chokes out. “How can you do this to me?”
My vision blurs. My body trembles. My stomach threatens to empty itself. But my voice stays steady. “Because you aren’t my mom anymore,” I spit. “You’re a monster.”
Even though my hands are shaking. Even though I feel sick to my stomach. Even though part of me is still that little girl who wanted a mother who loved her.
That isn’t the woman I’m looking at. This is Maria. The sick and twisted Preacher.
Maria hits the ground hard. Not gracefully. Not like some tragic martyr.
She crumples into the dirt with a strangled gasp, her hands clamped over her stomach, blood pouring between her fingers like it can’t get out fast enough.
Her face twists. Shock first. Then pain. Then fury—because even now, even bleeding out, she can’t understand how I dared.
How I disobeyed.
I stand there frozen, gun still raised, my arm locked straight, even though it’s shaking so badly I can feel the tremor all the way up into my shoulder.
Maria coughs, a thick, ugly sound, and spills from her mouth. Her eyes lift to mine, bright and furious, and for a second, I see it. Not my mother. Not the woman who gave birth to me.
The Preacher. The monster behind the mask.
“You…” she rasps, voice bubbling. “You were meant to be mine. But you still made your sacrifice, Lily. Killing me gives you your salvation to take my place. It makes you the Preacher. It worked out.”
My stomach turns so violently that I almost drop the gun. I take a step back, my bare foot sliding in damp leaves.
My breath catches. Because now that it’s done—now that the sound of the gunshot has faded—reality crashes over me like a wave.
I shot her. I pulled the trigger.
My hands start to shake harder. Not controlled anymore. Not adrenaline. Not strategy.
Just… aftermath. Just the part of my brain catching up and screaming what have you done?
“Oh my God,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Oh my God…”
My arms feel too heavy to hold the gun up. I am not the next Preacher. I want her entire complex to burn to the ground with all of her sick followers inside.
I try to force myself to keep aiming—because she’s still alive, she’s still dangerous, she still has another weapon somewhere on the ground—
But my strength slips. My chest tightens. My throat burns.
And suddenly my vision blurs with tears I didn’t even realize were coming.
I stare down at her bleeding into the earth, and it hits me in the most brutal, impossible way.
I’ve nearly killed my own mother. I did this.
I did this.
My knees threaten to buckle, and a sob rips out of me, sharp and broken, something tearing loose from inside my ribs.
“I didn’t want—” I choke, shaking my head, backing up another step. “I didn’t want it to be like this… You don’t get to win.”
Maria laughs. It makes my blood run cold. “Sacrifice…” she whispers, lips stained red as her eyes shine with sick devotion. “…is salvation.”
The words slam into me like a punch.
My fingers tighten on the gun again, panic rising fast, my whole body going into shock.
She tries to move—just slightly—her fingers twitching through the leaves as if she’s searching for something.
The second gun.
A knife.
Anything.
I jerk the barrel back toward her, my arm shaking.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t move.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. It sounds like a child. A girl who never learned how to be safe.
Maria’s gaze drifts past me suddenly, to something over my shoulder.
Her eyes widen a fraction. Because the forest changes. The air shifts. The sound of footsteps crunches through the brush, an oncoming storm.
I don’t even have to turn to know.
I feel him.
Like the only place I’ve ever been able to breathe.