Chapter 32 - Scarlett #2
Silence the voices, control the minds. If you don’t give them a chance to speak, how could they rise up against you? Already weakened in spirit from their owners, from their Pillars. The last thing to do was to silence the only thing they had left.
“Be grateful, Izbrannik Bozhiy, the only reason you are eating in the kitchen is because Lady Elise allows it, but it won’t be for long.
Soon, you’ll live just as they do. When you’re not being fucked, you’ll be in that room.
When you’re not in that room, you’ll be being fucked.
Unless, that is, we get a special request.” He chuckled.
“You know all about those, don’t you, Izbrannik Bozhiy? ”
I had no idea what those words meant, but if I had to guess, I assumed he was calling me Chosen One in Russian.
So, it was more than just the mattresses in the Gallows. I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t heard anyone make any noises in the bedrooms around me then. Or even below me, for that matter. I could hear the voices downstairs just fine, why not the sexual acts in the rooms?
I led the way down the stairs and straight into the kitchen where my breakfast of a single dry pancake and seven blueberries awaited me.
I wasn’t sure if they were underfeeding us because they thought it would weaken us or if Malachi just didn’t want to dump the budget on such a wasted thing like food, but it was fine. I was hungry, sure, but I had also been hungry when Azrael starved me during my training. I could manage this diet.
This morning, however, I was met with a familiar guest, and it nearly had my steps faltering.
Nearly.
Rather, I forced my smile to sharpen painfully as the fear blindly filled me for a brief second before I swallowed it down. “Smile, this was always coming. Don’t give him an inch.”
Mr. Alascer smiled. “Hello, Scarlett.”
I could see my sister in his face. My sister. I could see it in the way his neck curved, in the way his eyes shined. I could see her, and I hated it.
He waved forward. “Please, have a seat.”
It took half a second for my body to move. He was now seeing what he had always wanted to see: my body. That’s all I was to him. It’s all I had ever been to him, and knowing what he took from Rae, I knew he would do anything he could to take the same thing from me.
The question wasn’t ‘if’ it was ‘when’.
The only problem was that I couldn’t do anything about it when he did. Mr. Alascer was hers for the taking, not mine. This was her revenge to take, not mine.
“What do I do if he takes what he wants?”
“Do what you’ve always done; find me.”
I walked over and gracefully sat in the chair across from him, folding one leg over the other and meeting his eyes with what he was probably taking as a flirtatious look, but it was far from that.
In fact, I was currently picturing the smile on Rae’s face when she finally got the revenge she desperately sought.
It’s the only thing that would keep me from taking what was owed to her.
Rae slicing his neck. Rae torturing him.
Rae taking back the power he thought he had stolen.
So long as I focused on that, so long as I focused on Azrael, I would be fine.
“That smile of yours is so…precious,” he hummed as I picked up a blueberry and popped it into my mouth.
I chewed the fruit slowly, never breaking eye contact. If he wanted to see me, he would. He would see it all.
“I’ll cut to the chase, Scarlett. I know you’ve been Claimed.
Malachi told me all about the sadistic rituals the children in The Family perform.
In fact, he told me everything, which was shocking given all the trouble I’ve caused.
” He laughed. “I suppose I’m just as special as you are, aren’t I?
He’s a smart man, so I trust his judgment.
” He lifted his chin. “Despite the fact that everyone is now frothing at the mouth to get a chance with you, knowing that you’re not only Azrael’s, but the Blessed One,” he chuckled again, shaking his head.
“I feel quite honored knowing that I was the first person Malachi chose to see you.”
Honored? Is that what he’s calling it? An honor. I wonder if Rae would be angry with me if I decided to cut out his tongue. Whatever punishment they gave me would be worth it, I was sure.
“But they were right,” he went on. “Thomas, the other kids, Malachi. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t let my daughter go.
Had I just killed her, Malachi never would have sent that anonymous kill order to his own doorstep.
He never would have given Jack the assignment, the rest, I’m sure, you know by now. ”
I did. Fate had intervened that day. Every other brother had been busy in some way or another, so Jack had been assigned to kill her, Malachi cleaning up the mess Mr. Alascer had made, but rather than putting a bullet in her head, he fell in love.
Mr. Alascer had a point though. If he had caused such a big mess, why was Malachi trusting him to come here? Why would he be the first? Why tell him that information?
He paused for a moment before his smile widened. “Do you still not talk?”
I popped another blueberry into my mouth, the flavor spreading over my tongue. It was firm enough to imagine as one of his eyeballs.
He laughed. “Wow, all this time with Malachi’s most irritating son, and he never taught you how to speak? Pathetic, to say the least. Especially after all that talk he did at the church.”
Yes, how did it feel when he found out that the precious transporter was actually the youngest son of Malachi Adler. Had Mr. Alascer seen it as a betrayal when he realized that The Family the church was so afraid of was actually Malachi’s? Or had that made him feel that much more powerful?
I think it would have made me feel incredibly dumb. Knowing that the Founder of the church was also the father of the family trying to destroy that very church.
I would have given almost anything to have been in the room when Mr. Alascer had finally put that together. Did all the pastors know? Did the Elders? Did the Leaders? Or was it just Mr. Alascer? I had so many questions and so many things I needed to remember to write down later.
Malachi promised him something, I realized.
I knew everyone at that church and Mr. Alascer?
He was laughably weak. He held no power, not since he released his daughter.
None of the other Leaders respected him.
This was a move. Malachi was trying to prove something.
He was using Mr. Alascer. The question was why?
Was it because he finally realized that we had Marla?
The thought made my smile more amused than sadistic. I leaned forward and picked up my pancake.
“You know you’re just a pawn, don’t you, Scarlett?” he went on as I began tearing it up. “You were a pawn to the church, used because of your genetic condition—”
It was a genetic condition now that he wasn’t benefiting from it.
“—until Azrael saw you as the perfect opportunity to use you for your silence.”
I placed a piece down on my plate and continued tearing at the rest of the pancake.
“You think you hold power because he branded you? It was just a ritual, Scarlett. No different than the ritual of marriage we place on the Favorites and the Pillars. God wanted you pure, so we made you pure.”
A bit into the pancake a little and place it on the plate before continuing, ignoring him.
Did he truly believe in the ways of the church?
He was someone I could never get a read on.
He was always so…angry, but never as angry as Mr. Bastrom.
They never respected him like they respected the others.
Over the last few months, the more I learned, the more I wondered why he had even been placed into a leadership role in the first place.
He had been recruited years ago, and within a year and a half of that recruitment, he became a Leader.
The second he became a Leader, he kidnapped Rae, brought her here, raped her, and let her go.
Since then, the church has faced issue after issue.
So why would Malachi ever leave him in a position of power?
“Have you regressed, you insolent child?” Mr. Alascer demanded.
I kept smiling as I tore up the last piece and put it where it needed to go.
“You do understand that the marriage certificate binding the two of you together wasn’t legitimate, right?” he asked angrily. “Azrael signed his fake name. Kaz. You two aren’t legally married.”
Yes, we were.
The certificate we signed that day might have been a fake, but Havoc was ordained.
We took vows, we exchanged blood, I had a ring.
We signed another certificate within days of getting to the house, and Havoc filled out a form.
We were married. Even if God Himself came out of hiding to tell me that our union wasn’t real, it wouldn’t convince me otherwise.
Azrael was my husband. Until long after death turned this world to ash.
Without another thought, I finally turned the plate and pushed it towards him.
He glanced down at the name I had spelt out, his face paling, his smug smile falling.
His eyes jerked to mine. “How do you know about Marla?”
The best way to get a fish to talk was to keep him gasping for air.
“You fucking cunt. Does he have her? Does Azrael have her?”
I couldn’t tell if it was out of worry for his wife or worry for his little secrets that he became so hostile.
He lunged forward so suddenly that his chair fell with a crack to the floor. He slammed his hands on the table, my fear spiking before I forced it down and angled my head. “Where is she, Scarlett? Where is he keeping her?”
I held my smile, my insides shaking. I wasn’t in the church. I wasn’t in the church. Azrael would find me. He would find me.
He would find me unless I got out first.