Chapter 37
PENELOPE
In the courtyard, I stand at the very edge of the crowd, my hands pressed against my stomach as if I can hold the baby still, as if I can keep the fear from leaking through my palms and into him.
My breath is sharp, shallow, too loud in my own ears.
Everyone around me is quiet, quiet in that way a forest goes silent when a predator steps into the clearing.
Billy stands in the centre of the courtyard with his shirt stripped from his back.
His shoulders square like he’s facing down an executioner, not a crowd of people who claim to be his family, his brethren.
His wrists aren’t bound, he insisted they wouldn’t be, but the stillness in his arms is so tight, so rigid, it feels like they’re shackled anyway.
I want to run to him, scream, tear the world apart with my bare hands.
But all I do is stand here, frozen.
Limp wounded prey.
A thin winter wind snakes through the courtyard, lifting the ends of my dress, prickling over the sweat on my skin. I am cold and burning at the same time. My heart races in frantic stabs that make my stomach twist.
This is happening because of me.
Because I left, ran.
Because I thought I could outrun a cult, a legacy, a curse.
Because I thought I could save our child by saving myself.
And now, Billy is the one who bleeds for it.
The Obsidian leader, the god, my Pair’s father, steps forward, dressed in ceremonial black like his name. His expression is carved from stone. Cold-eyed, sharp-edged, monstrous in how little he seems to care that this is his own son’s flesh he’s about to sacrifice for the crowd’s appetite.
His voice carries like a blade thrown across water.
“Tonight, The Obsidian witnesses a debt repaid.” My pulse slams hard enough to blur my vision.
“Two’s Pair fled.” Milus’s eyes flick toward me, brief, dismissive, poisonous.
“She broke vow and sanctuary. She endangered her child. A child of The Obsidian. She sought to flee this sacred ground.”
Murmurs ripple through the crowd, a low tide of judgment, satisfaction, cruelty. I want to scream at them all. Tell them they don’t know anything. Tell them their god is a man who lies through smiling teeth.
Tell them everything.
But my throat stays closed, strangled by fear.
Because they wouldn’t care even if they did know. The likelihood is they probably know exactly what he’s like and don’t give a fuck anyway.
He continues. “Two has offered restitution. He takes her punishment upon himself. As is his right. As is his burden.”
I flinch, a physical jolt of pain rocking through my entire body, making my breath shred into nothing.
His burden.
Me.
I try to move but my legs won’t obey. They root into the stone like they want to fuse with the earth, like they’d rather entomb me here than let me intervene.
The Obsidian leader lifts a hand, and then his gaze slides, past me, over me, through me, like a blade so sharp you don’t even realise you’re cut, and lands on his eldest son standing at the side of the dais.
Gore.
A shadow cast in human form. A man with grief in his bones and violence in his blood. He steps forward, jaw clenched, fists still at his sides. Waiting.
“As your future leader,” Milus’s voice carries through the crowd, his words penetrating every one of his followers. “Gore will administer the lashes.”
I’ve never seen Gore look anything but solemn. He never shows an ounce of anything on his face. This time is no different. He looks at his younger brother. Then at me.
And something inside me fractures.
Milus is tearing his family apart one cruelty at a time. That’s what this cult does. It breaks what it claims to sanctify.
And this time, Milus is using me to do it.
To get between brothers.
Billy stands tall. He doesn’t look away from his brother. And those bright blue eyes are telling him he forgives him already. Telling him he knows he has no choice.
I feel sick, guilt flowing through me like sludge sticking in my veins.
Gore steps up, taking the instrument, thin coiled leather, into his large, tattooed hands. He’s one of the only people here not wearing gloves, his inked skin exposed to the freezing December temperatures.
Then I realise it’s Christmas morning, and despite The Obsidian not recognising it, I think of the one I spent with Billy in the group home all those years ago. The gift he gave me, the locket around my neck.
I whisper my words to Gore, “Please don’t,” even though I know he can’t hear me, even though I know it wouldn’t matter if he could.
Milus slinks back, his mouth stoic, not pulled up at the corners to match the triumphant smile celebrating in his eyes.
Billy goes to his knees, facing the crowd, and his eyes come to mine.
Even though he told me to stay away, even though he ordered it.
He looks to me like he knew I’d be here all along.
Our baby kicks, hard, like he senses the terror spiralling through me. Like he wants me to move, act, flee, anything. But I can’t. I can’t move. I can’t look away.
This is the cost of loving him.
This is the cost of him loving me.
The first lash lands with a crack of sound that slices the air in two.
I choke on a sob that never fully forms, my vision tunnels. The crowd shifts, murmuring like they’re watching a show, not a punishment. My whole body shakes, knees threatening to buckle.
But I don’t fall.
I make myself watch.
Because he is taking this for me.
For our child.
Another lash.
And another.
Billy doesn’t cry out.
Not once.
Not even a breath too sharp.
He smiles.
And I hate it.
I hate how strong he is.
How unbroken he is.
Because it means they’ll never stop testing how far they can push him.
Something dark and raw swells beneath my ribs, guilt so heavy it feels like it’s dragging my lungs down, filling them up with sand, drowning me from the inside.
My hands grip my stomach so hard my fingers ache.
The baby shifts inside me again, fluttering, rolling, like he’s uncomfortable, frightened, sensing my terror.
I lean forward slightly, pain shooting up my spine, pounding knocking in the base of my skull, making my eyes momentarily flare white. I’m trembling so violently I barely register the moment my water breaks.
It happens like a betrayal.
Like the final snap of something inside me.
Heat floods down my legs, sudden and terrifying.
People around me gasp and step back.
I look down at the spreading liquid, and for a moment, I don’t understand.
Then pain seizes me, white-hot, spearing, ripping from spine to stomach, slicing through me like an axe. I stagger forward, my breath shatters, and a scream tears itself from my chest without permission.
“No, no, no. Not now.”
But it’s happening.
It’s happening now.
Here.
In this nightmare.
Panic detonates inside me like an atomic bomb, my hands fly to my belly, my back arching, then curling forwards, my hands on my knees.
Voices blur in the background, light filters out.
And I look up, seeing Gore pause, and Billy lifts himself to one knee, flinching as if he’s been shot, turning towards me so fast the world tilts with him.
He tries to run toward me, I see it in his eyes, but he can’t, his back, his wounds, his body won’t obey.
But he crawls.
He fucking crawls.
In front of everyone.
On his knees.
For me.
Showing his hand. Revealing the cards he’s always held so very close to his chest.
He drags himself across the stone dais, through the splintered shards of winter sunlight, inching towards me.
“Penelope!” he shouts, voice breaking open. “Penelope, I’m here, I’m coming!”
He would reach me, he would crawl through fire to reach me, but Gore gets to me first, dropping the whip and marching through the crowd. He scoops me up before I can fall fully to the ground. His arms strong, trembling with fear and urgency.
My vision flickers and everything hurts, the world too bright and too dark at once.
“I, I can’t-” I gasp, gripping his shirt. “The baby, something’s wrong, Gore, please.”
He doesn’t speak; he just runs with me in his arms.
Through the haze of agony, I twist to look for Billy, my chin coming over Gore’s shoulder, watching as Tolly and Rune lift Billy from the ground. He’s struggling to his feet, staggering after us, every movement agony, but refusing to stop, refusing to let me slip out of his sight.
He mouths my name.
Over and over.
Like a chant.
A plea.
A prayer.
A vow.
I reach toward him, fingers stretching, but the pain swallows the edges of my vision and the world tilts sideways.
The door to the infirmary bursts open.
Hands reach for me.
Voices blur.
Everything spirals.
I hear Gore’s voice, stern, loud, commanding.
And then Billy’s, raw, feral, terrified, somewhere further away, “Don’t take her, don’t you fucking take her away from me! Gore! Penelope. Penelope!”
I want to answer, tell him I’m here, I’m scared, tell him I love him.
But the pain daggers through me like a blunt kitchen knife carving me open, and it drags me under.
The last thing I feel is the warm, awful rush of blood between my thighs, Billy screaming my name, and the ceiling blurring into darkness as everything disappears.
Then there’s nothing.
Only black.