Chapter 31
Roishin
“ D on’t do this, Rose . Beth doesn’t want you to be a martyr.”
There was no note of pleading in Bear’s tone. Only a firm denial of what was inevitable. But that didn’t hurt as badly as the smothering, strangling grasp that clutched at my heart. I didn’t want to leave, didn’t he see that? I had to.
Carl had backed me into too tight of a corner.
“ Don’t tell me what to do. And I don’t plan on dying.” I planned to kill him before that happened.
Bear roared in frustration and flailed his arms, but avoided me by rushing to the farthest side of the room. When his outburst ceased, he fired back at me, “ You’re not going to Carl .”
On the contrary, I was. I’d only waited until he arrived to tell him myself. “ I have to. The stem cell therapy didn’t work. The match your club found fell through. I need to make sure Carl donates his bone marrow.” … And leaves your club and their women alone.
Bear’s nostrils flared. His face flushed red. “ Do you know who I was talking to a few minutes ago?”
“ Let me guess, John ?” He’d called me right after I hung up on Carl .
“ Yes , John .”
I sucked in a breath. “ No matter what he said, you don’t have the full story.”
“ I know you and Carl murdered a man.”
Maybe he did have the full story? Or at least as much as Beth suspected and told her husband. “ Then you realize I have leverage on him.”
“ You don’t have jack shit on Carl . What you do have is an almost two decades old cold case he could weasel out of and blame solely on you !”
He’d raised his voice.
“ I didn’t act alone.”
Bear’s breaths sucked in too quickly and his hands clenched tightly. I took a step back. Without thinking, I cast a sigil into the air for protection.
His focus homed in on my sudden movement. “ I’m not fucking Carl .”
Tell that to my shaking body.
Or , that part of me that was nine years old and locked in a room with a predator. “ I am not that person anymore. I refuse to be influenced by past wrongs.” I repeated the mantra under my breath.
“ Rose ? Are you even listening to me?”
His clenched fists were huge. Had I noticed that before? “ I’m trying, but listening goes both ways, buddy.”
His eyes flashed, but he changed tactics. “ Don’t ‘buddy’ me. We’re meant to be together, I’m yours, Rose .”
I waited for him to follow that up with, “ You’re mine.” Even unsaid, it echoed in the air. I panted in the silence. It took a small eternity to meet his eyes. “ I’m not yours.”
His jaw tightened, shifting his beard with it. “ I’m seeing that.”
Animosity glittered in his eyes.
He chewed on his words, settling on, “ I’m yours. I’m on your side, in your camp. Work with me here. Please ?”
And deliver him to Carl ? Never .
He must have seen my denial as I thought it. “ I love you. Beth loves you. Don’t do this.”
“ Carl …needs to die.” After his last shot.
“ We’ll do that, together. Us . You don’t have to do this alone.”
Why did he have to say it that way? It was too close to the argument Carl used to manipulate me.
“ You don’t have to do this at all. Vow or otherwise, it’s not your battle.”
His lips turned white as he held in whatever he was thinking. His hoarse whisper hurt. “ But I love you.”
“ Beth loved me first. She didn’t have to.
She could have given up on me like everyone else.
It cost her a lot to stick by me when everyone thought I was evil and shipped me off to be a ward of the state.
And I owe her for that.” I motioned to the distance between Bear and me.
“ This thing with us, it was always supposed to be temporary. Don’t you see?
Carl knew your weaknesses. He knows mine.
He understood all along that the best way to torture us both was to let us be together.
” It was so clear in hindsight. The worst way he could have hurt me was by giving me hope.
Not just hope, what I always wanted. Love , a home, friends, acceptance. I dug into my backpack and pulled out the stack of money I’d stolen. I’d planned to use it to placate Carl temporarily, but Bear needed it more.
“ Here . There’s twenty thousand, five hundred and eighty-five dollars in this bundle. I’ve counted it at least a dozen times. You can keep it or give it to Wolf . It’s Carl’s so, technically, you’ve been paid off.”
He stared at my hand. “ I don’t want the money, I want you… I want you safe, Rose . Not stupidly walking right into a psychopath’s trap. Please ? If not for me, do it for Beth .”
“ I’m doing this for you and for Beth . And for everyone Carl could target around your club. Do you think Zoe and Fish were the end of it? He’s just getting started. If I don’t go back, someone else will die. But if I leave? That all stops. Don’t you see that?
“ No one is going to miss me . No one ever has. Not my parents, not the foster system, not even my jobs. I’m completely replaceable. But in this, I make up for a lifetime of anger.” I set the cash down on his altar and continued to counter the arguments written on his face.
“ You’re not replaceable. Your friends, they need your leadership.
You can always get another woman to warm your bed or play backpack.
But you need to live. Beth needs to live.
She’s got kids. A husband, a life that needs her.
” I broke down, unable to continue. The things she had, I envied them.
I wanted at least one person to need me.
But even if Bear wanted me, he truly didn’t need me.
In that, Carl actually had him beat. Carl needed an outlet for his madness.
I served that end well. And maybe in doing so, I could do one small thing to help an innocent mother with everything to live for.
Beth was a gentle soul who’d proven over and over again that she was the best of us.
Her children shouldn’t have to suffer or be alone. Not when there was an obvious solution.
Bear’s shoulders drooped as he stared at the pile of cash next to his figurine of Thor . “ You’re not replaceable. You are a warrior-goddess, a spark—the fires of midsummer when the night is darkest. You’re my North Star , Rose .”
“ Then trust me. If I’m all that, I’ll survive this, maybe even triumph.” Even if I didn’t have hope, I could give it away.
Yet , given so falsely, it was worthless. And Bear saw through me.
“ Even if you did survive, would you be the same? Do you think Carl would let you just come back? He wants you broken.”
I didn’t reply. I wouldn’t lie to him.
He sighed. “ You’re right. I can’t tell you what to do. It’s fucking useless trying to change your mind. You’re twisted, Rose . Carl did that to you, and you’re blind that you can’t see it.” He swallowed and straightened to his full height. “ I have pride. I’m a warrior. And you’ve disarmed me.”
He laid a hand on Thor . “ I vow?—”
“ Don’t ,” I warned him not to make foolish vows.
He glared at me. “ I vow, by my Gods , if you walk away from me to help Carl , you will be my enemy. Just like he is my enemy.”
So mote it be. I didn’t plan on helping him. I planned to kill him.
I tore the besom from its hook above the door. As it swung down, I brushed the threshold with the tips, wiping away all traces of the protection spell I’d put on the house as my home.
Tingles started down my arm. In the backswing, I whispered a blessing. One on his house, his life, his friends, and anyone who crossed over the step of his home in peace.
The final stroke, a magical number in the third position, I cursed any being who would try to harm him, and him alone . The bristles of my broom stilled and I dropped it in place.
Even if the door hung open forever, nothing would cross that boundary without feeling my curse clinging to its essence.
Bear must have sensed the spell because he didn’t cross the threshold. But he watched me walk away. His eyes followed my progress until I turned right at the end of his street and continued my journey.
An hour later, Carl stopped his truck in my path.
“ Are you going to walk the entire way to Harrisburg ?”
If I have to.
I remained mute.
He swore and shoved the vehicle into park. Then he jumped out of the truck and opened the passenger door. He stood by it, patiently waiting for me to acknowledge him.
I didn’t even have to look to see him. His aura was a murky purplish black. And dark gray like soot. Marbled through the cracks in his essence were crimson streaks mimicking blood, but decaying rapidly into dusty tendrils of death. It was wrong, deeply wrong.
His aura had settled. The swirling madness of varying colors ceased, replaced by a fixed solidity. I peered at his face for clues.
“ Do you have my money?” he asked.
“ I gave it to Bear . That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” In the subtext, I let him see how that act had broken me. Taken my hope and destroyed any future I’d imagined.
But he hadn’t broken my will. If anything, it was as solid and fixed as his. We were two unbendable beings trapped in a mortal battle on a spiritual plane. One of us would die soon. The miasma of that fate clung to the air between us.
Strangely , it didn’t frighten me. Nor did it thrill me. It was just… inevitable. Like the tides, the seasons, the sun rising and setting. It was a thing carved into the bones of the earth. We’d formed that entity, and it doomed us both.
Carl’s grin spread warily. “ How did he react?”
My eyes struck his. “ Badly ,” I said, my heart dead to the pain raging inside.
The grin disappeared, but the satisfaction in his eyes did not. “ Get in. We’re going to visit Beth .”
“ No hair shirt this time?”
The corner of his mouth flicked upward. “ You’re already wearing it.”
His laugh was not comforting.
I buckled the seatbelt and ignored him.
Carl prattled as he drove. “ I hope you don’t mind if we stop at my house first? You’re not dressed to visit.”
“ I’m dressed just fine. Beth has seen me like this.” I was in black from head to toe. Betty Jo’s tight bodice held me stiff when I wanted to collapse from the weight of it all.
“ Mom hasn’t.”
I fired back, “ Like I give a shit what she thinks.”
Carl’s fist hit the side of my head too quickly to counter. Blood trickled from my brow where the force of it broke my skin. I blotted at it with my sleeve. “ What the fuck is wrong with you? Your dad’s going to have a fit when he sees me like this.”
He slowed the truck down and pulled to the side of the road. I grabbed for the door handle, readying to jump out, but the seatbelt slowed me down. Carl pounded on my head and hit my arms as I tried to defend myself.
Somewhere in that beating, I blacked out.
I came to, but my left eye was swollen shut and my right was blurry. I saw a lot of leaves, trees, and the darkness of wooded land, not the urban decay of Harrisburg .
My mouth fared much worse than my eyes. The swelling around my lips and the slow tickle of blood dripping down my chin was the first indication he’d beaten me even after I’d fallen unconscious.
It hurt to move my jaw, so I stayed still and mute as I blinked at the grayish haze in my cyclopean vision.
The truck dipped as he drove off the paved road onto a gravel path. Branches brushed at the truck, scratching it like ragged hag’s claws.
Carl hummed as he avoided the worst dips.
I recognized the hymn. The words all too familiar.
Trust and obey,
For there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus ,
But to trust and obey.
Cautiously , I walked my fingers along my right thigh where Carl couldn’t see the movement. The straps for my athame were in place, but the weight felt wrong.
“ I took your knife. Too bad it’s such a cursed thing. The craftsmanship is exceptional. Did Bear buy that for you?”
I nodded to avoid the pain in my throat.
A small chuckle emanated from Carl . “ He was too easy to fool, wasn’t he? You played your role masterfully.”
“ What role?” I rasped out.
“ Why , Jezebel . Delilah . The original Eve , holding a poisoned apple and bringing God’s Adam low.”
If I could bring Carl low…
The hill we stopped on was barren. At first, it was unfamiliar.
But in the distance, an oak tree twisted with familiar angles.
Just a short walk down the hill from it, turn left at the creek, walk at least a hundred yards further, and when the meadow opened back up, I’d see the ruins of my grandmother’s house.
“ Why’d you bring me here?”
Carl’s eyes lit up. “ To finish what I started.” He laughed again. “ Did you really fall for my story about getting back what was mine? I never wanted that. I only needed access to this place.”
My mouth was dry. Despite the efforts to bulldoze over the pit, fill in the scars on the earth, and remake a scene of death and destruction into paradise, the work was in vain. It was as if God himself had cursed the land.
And well he should.
The original foundation for the new church was rubble.
The girders and support posts that had been lovingly blessed in a special sanctification ceremony, uprooted and removed.
Only the cornerstone wall and its single smooth temporary flagpole remained.
Embedded under it was a dedication plaque.
It replaced the original one. The newer square of bronze had a name inscribed.
Under it, the words, Humble servant, faithful Deacon , loving father, child of God .
The only truth in those lines was his position. The power he yielded that made others look away when his sins became too pronounced.
Like the sin of lust.
“ Get out.”
“ No .”
He studied me. “ Defiant to the end, aren’t you? Don’t you realize you are doing the one thing that will keep you out of Heaven . You’re denying God .”
No , I was denying Carl . My Gods were Goddesses .
They empowered women, they didn’t rape them.
They cherished the sacred connection to the elements and actions of life which we’re all part of.
They didn’t force submission upon the earth and its creatures.
“ Are you speaking for God now?” That was a sin.
He hit me again and again.