27. Ice
27
ICE
I couldn’t fucking breathe. My leather jacket that normally fit like a glove was suddenly too tight, and I ripped it off, balling it up in my hands, only to have the Slayers’ demon staring up at me.
My eyes watered at the sight of it. It was so familiar now, after wearing it almost every day for the past six years. I’d longed to wear it for years before that as I’d watched the club roll through town with War’s dad in the lead position.
I’d wanted to be a part of it so badly. Thought all my dreams had come true the day Army had said they’d take me on as a prospect.
But that prospect patch had sat beneath the demon for years and years, and I’d had to watch Riot patch in new members, who’d only done a quarter of the time I had.
While War just kept saying my time would come, and Hawk gave me shit every time I fucked up.
I wiped angrily at my eyes, hating I was as weak as they thought I was.
I shoved the jacket in the trash at the entrance to Saint View Prison. I’d never wear it again. I’d been stupid enough to waste years waiting for them to accept me, when they’d clearly never had any intention of doing so.
I went to the reception, gave my name, and asked to see a prisoner.
The guard in uniform tapped her nails across the keyboard and studied the screen, confusion creasing her brow.
I cleared my throat. “He’s only been transferred here in the last day or two, I think. Might even be in the infirmary? He was brought here straight from the hospital.”
“How do you spell the last name again?”
“Gooseman. G-o-o-s-e-m-a-n. John.”
The wrinkles on her forehead smoothed out. “Oh, of course. I had it as M-E-N. It looks like he’s in a regular cell, so he is entitled to visitors. He needs to agree to see you though. I need your full legal name, please.”
I cleared my throat, forcing the full name I hated out of my mouth. “Alexander Key. Tell him he doesn’t know me. But he’ll want to speak to me.”
She raised an eyebrow but waved me off toward the waiting room.
I slunk down in a hard plastic seat and stuck an AirPod in one ear, leaving the other out so I could hear if the woman called my name. I pulled my phone from the pocket of my jeans and scrolled to the podcast app, sighing at the line of check marks against each episode title, indicating I had no new episodes to listen to.
There’d been nothing new since Josiah had been arrested. I’d already listened to all the older episodes at least twice each, but I randomly picked one anyway and let Josiah’s familiar voice fill my ear.
My heart rate lowered with every word, and the feeling of calm I always got when I listened to his teachings was a relief after the bitter disappointments of the last couple of days.
The last few months, really.
Nobody ever kept their promises. Not Riot. Not War or Hawk. Not every foster parent who’d promised to adopt me but then picked a cute little baby instead of the gangly preteen who nobody wanted.
Not Tulip.
Alice.
Her betrayal was the one that had hurt the most.
“Alexander Key?” a guard standing by the door called.
I stood quickly, shoving my headphones in my pocket. “He agreed to see me?”
The man nodded. “Yes. But he hasn’t earned the right to visitation in the main room. You’ll have to make do with the phones. Booth seven, right down the end.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t care how I got to talk to Josiah. Just that I did.
Nerves shook my fingers as I approached, and I gave myself a mental slap in the face, trying to be cool. I didn’t want to come across as some sort of groupie, all starstruck and unable to speak clearly when face-to-face with a celebrity.
I sat in front of the thick, clear screen, scratched and nicked and smudged with fingerprints. An old-school phone with a cord hung on a hook to my right. A door on the other side opened and a guard led the prophet into the room.
Despite myself, my heartbeat picked up, racing fast. My leg bounced like it had a mind of its own.
Josiah scowled at the guard, saying something I couldn’t hear, and limped toward the booth, walking with the slow, shuffling movements of someone who’d been recently injured. His lips moved in rapid succession that could have been curse words as he sat and stared at me.
He didn’t look like the pictures I’d seen of him on the Ethereal Eden website. I was used to seeing him all in white, his hair long, beard neatly trimmed. It was a stark difference from the bright-orange jumpsuit with black numbers and letters stamped across the front of it. His long hair was greasy and unkempt, scraped back into a messy ponytail with strands falling loose everywhere.
I picked up the phone warily and put it to my ear.
A second later, Josiah did the same.
“Who are you?” he asked.
He might have looked almost like a different person, but his voice was one I knew. One I’d listened to weekly ever since I’d first heard about Ethereal Eden.
My nerves drifted away. “Alexander…Just Xan, really. Xan Key. You don’t know me.”
“Clearly.”
“But I know you. I’ve listened to all your podcasts. I have for a long time. I have to tell you how seen and heard I feel every time you have a new episode…” I trailed off at the bored expression on Josiah’s face.
His eyes suddenly sharpened, and he leaned forward, closer to the glass that separated us. “What’s that tattoo on your forearm?”
I blinked and gazed down at the arm resting on the little desk in front of me. I had a Slayers’ tattoo there that I’d gotten years ago when I’d first been accepted as a prospect. I held it up so Josiah could see it.
“You’re a Slayer?” He sat back, at least as far as his cuffs would allow. “Well, you suddenly got a whole lot more interesting.”
I mentally berated myself for not leading with that. The prophet had no time to indulge in compliments and flattery. They were the Devil’s work, making women vain and men arrogant. I should have known better. “I came to warn you to be careful. To watch your back in here. The Slayers have it out for you. If you aren’t sentenced to life, they’re going to have you killed.”
I knew every word was being recorded, but I didn’t care if I threw the Slayers under the bus. They’d already mowed me down with it, so they could feel the pain of betrayal the same way I had today when I’d realized how stupid I’d been to ever think they’d let me truly in.
Josiah seemed like he was pondering that for a moment, and then he nodded. “I appreciate you bringing me this information. You said you were a fan of mine?”
I nodded quickly. “I’ve been listening for a year or so. Every episode.”
“And yet you never came to join us at Ethereal Eden? Why not?”
Embarrassment heated my cheeks. “I wanted to. Tulip made it sound so wonderful at first. A place where all were accepted for their true selves.”
Josiah nodded. “That’s what Ethereal Eden is, Xan. A haven for those who have been rejected by regular society. I wish you’d come to me. I could have saved you the pain I see in your face right now.”
I swallowed thickly, wishing I’d done things differently too. “But the more I got to know her, the more she changed her story. She was tainted by evil; I know that now. Her mind and her tongue slowly poisoned against the Lord. She lied to me all along, saying she wanted to marry me. Have a family with me. But when I said I would come there so we could be married, she told me not to. Told me she was leaving the flock and turning her back on the one true religion.”
He shook his head. “Tulip…” He screwed up his face, and then the lines in his forehead smoothed out. “Alice.”
I nodded.
“She took my wife and child with her. Did you know that, Brother Xan?”
A warm flood of acceptance filled me at him calling me brother.
It was all I’d ever wanted from the Slayers. Why I’d joined them in the first place. Because they were brothers. Family. They’d promised to make me a part of it.
But clearly, they’d lied as much as Alice had. They’d all filled my head with hopes and dreams of a better future, one with people who loved and cared for me.
And they’d all taken it away with their lies.
I twisted my fingers around the phone cord. “I know. Kara and Hayley Jade. I’ve tried to bring them back to you. Both of them.”
He cocked his head to one side. “How?”
I knew I couldn’t admit what I’d done. Not here, with every word being recorded. So I quoted one of my favorite teachings back at him, one I had held on to, analyzing it my mind regularly until it had become a sort of mantra I knew word for word. “Women need to be reborn when they have sinned. They need to prove their worth. Prove that the evil can be leached from their souls.”
I implored him with my eyes to understand that I had tried but only succeeded once.
When I’d put a cord around my sweet Tulip’s neck in a city alley and pulled it tight, cutting off her oxygen, and watching the sins release from her body as her lips turned blue.
But I had failed with Kara. Failed by putting her in that box and burying her. I should have just made it fast, like I had with her lying sister. I’d wanted Kara to hear the Lord’s words when she died, so her soul would be cleansed and reborn. But all I’d done was give the evil inside her time to connect with the evil in Hawk and Chaos.
A small smile spread across Josiah’s lips. “You did well, child of God.”
I bowed my head and fought off the pride at his praise, knowing it would be a sin to feel it but struggling not to. “Thank you.”
“But you can do more. You must if you are to lead the movement to rebuild Ethereal Eden in my absence. My wife’s soul needs to be reborn. And my daughter, she needs to be brought back to her people.”
I lifted my head quickly, widening my eyes. “Lead… You would accept me? Even though I have failed?”
He put one hand to the glass. “Of course, my child. Like I said earlier, all are accepted at Ethereal Eden. You are already one of us. A child of God.”
Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes again.
It was the acceptance I’d wanted Army or War or Hawk to give me for so many years. An acknowledgement that I was part of them. That I was family.
And yet they never had. They’d held it just out of my reach, toying with me like a stupid kitten that knew no better.
They were the stupid ones. I’d hedged my bets. I’d found others who would accept me, even when they hadn’t.
Hawk and War had berated me for every little mistake I’d ever made.
Josiah hadn’t even punished me for failing to kill Kara. He’d opened his gates and accepted me.
And told me to try again. I saw his instructions there in his eyes.
“I won’t fail again.” I swore the promise with every fiber of my being.
“The Lord is pleased with you, Brother Xan. He will reward your obedience and commitment.”
The bored-looking guard rolled his eyes and tapped his watch. “Time’s up.”
My upper lip curled at his arrogance and the evil inside him that had him dismiss Prophet Josiah’s words as rubbish.
The guard was just like the men at the club. Their evil souls protecting the evil in Kara’s.
They all needed to be reborn in the Lord’s image.
They just didn’t know it.
But I did. I would show them the way.
And when they were reborn, I’d welcome them into the Lord’s embrace. I’d accept them the way they’d never done for me.