Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A s Vera got out of the Aston Martin, she paused to gaze up at the night sky, kneading her aching neck as she did so. It was her turn to be on call for Laurel Grove, and late this afternoon, after a full day of work, they’d reached out for help with a new arrival.
Atalaya Summers had taken her husband’s beatings for the last time. Because today he’d gone after their eight-year- old son when the boy tried to protect her. She’d scalded her spouse with a pot of coffee and knocked him unconscious with a fury-fueled swing of her cast iron skillet. Since she’d never been anything but a cowering shadow around him, he hadn’t seen it coming. Fortunately, because the man was built like a mountain.
Atalaya grabbed whatever she could and ran. When she and her son had gone into a convenience store bathroom so she could clean up, it had been stocked with cards and stickers for domestic abuse and human trafficking hotlines. Which had connected her to the right people to bring her to Laurel Grove.
Vera had been contacted so she could be present when the police were called, so Atalaya could explain what happened with a legal advocate present. Her son’s split lip and fractured wrist, plus her bruises from her last beating, faded but still visible, had worked in her favor. As had the fact she’d called an ambulance for the concussed piece of shit when she and her son reached the convenience store.
Sorry , Vera apologized to the Universe. I mean the misguided soul that needs spiritual healing—along with some prison time to help reinforce the lesson.
The police had to take the mother into custody. Dequan, her son, hadn’t understood. He’d clung to Atalaya, shouting at everyone, trying to keep them from taking her. He thought he’d never see her again. Vera had sworn to him she was going with his mother. She would get a judge on the phone, despite the late hour, and see if he would agree to let Atalaya be released into Laurel Grove’s custody immediately after processing.
One of the officers had stuck with Vera, telling the judge the mother wasn’t a flight risk, and verifying she was unquestionably the victim of a serious domestic abuse situation. She was back with Dequan within a couple hours.
So it had been a worthwhile day, though a long one. And not just for her. Rev had had a church commitment tonight, leading a prayer circle at the homeless shelter. He’d warned her it usually led to one-on-ones with some of the guests, and a possible overnight to give further succor to lost and hurting souls. He was going to have breakfast with her, though. Since she’d given him a key, the thought of him coming to wake her was appealing.
She closed the door of her detached garage, putting the Aston Martin to bed for the night, and headed for her back porch. She was going to have a hot bath and a glass of wine. Terron, her neighbor, was still up, his upstairs light on. An economics professor, he was often up late with his lesson plans, grading assignments and helping students who contacted him through the college’s messaging system.
The scrape of a shoe on her porch, a movement in the shadows, had her grabbing for her pepper spray. She opened her mouth to scream her loudest, but the figure lunged, arm sweeping forward. Pain exploded through her skull, spinning her around and dropping her against her metal chairs. She grabbed them as she went down, hoping they’d make enough racket to draw Terron’s attention.
Except he wore earphones that blasted seventies rock music at him while he was working.
Her attacker landed on her. Despite her spinning head, she fought, kicking and punching, wiggling and trying to force a scream out of her frozen throat. A grunt said she’d succeeded in hurting him. She’d also thrown the asshole off of her. Her mosaic table fell to the boards as he sent it toppling. He cursed and she was hit again, dazing her further.
In the next horrifying moment, her mouth was muffled, a cloth jammed into it, a bag over her head shutting out light. The panic was almost worse than the pain in her skull.
“Had to wait longer for you than I thought,” a male voice grumbled. “Should have known. A witch prefers the devil’s hours.”
Her shriek against the cloth was strangled, jaw and limbs going rigid as agonizing electricity rocketed through them. She scrambled to hold onto consciousness, knowing her life depended on it, but with the Taser and the head blow, the battle was lost.
Everything went dark.
At eight in the morning, Rev paused in front of Vera’s house, thinking of her curvy body nested in her bed, the chestnut- colored skin of her arm and shoulder visible, her lush curves barely clad in something silky. Yesterday, when she’d told him to wake her for breakfast, her tone suggested they might not make it out, so he’d brought some. Two pastries and coffees from the café down the street she liked. If she wanted something more substantial, he’d go get it, but she wasn’t normally a heavy breakfast person.
As he went around the house and climbed the steps to the kitchen entrance she’d told him to use, he noticed the chairs she kept flush against the siding had been adjusted, facing one another. The mosaic table between them had cracks, a couple tiles missing.
Maybe she’d had company last night and someone had knocked it over. He rapped his knuckles on the back door. If she was already up, he didn’t want to be presumptuous, just walking in on her. That key was a gift he wouldn’t disrespect.
Yesterday, he’d taken out his ring of keys and held that one in his hand, as if it held the warmth of her body. Beau had caught him at it. When Rev admitted Vera had given him her key, Beau had told him he was acting like a girl who’d gotten engaged, staring at the sparkly diamond on her finger. But his friend had squeezed his shoulder, the ribbing meant to be good-natured.
As Rev listened for the sound of her stirring behind the door, he noticed a color that didn’t fit with the colors of her azaleas. He moved to the railing and peered down.
His mind froze.
It was her purse, the red one with little pearls and gold on it. She wore her black skirt and red blouse with it, and a gold chain belt.
In the next instant, the coffee and pastries were left behind and he was in the house. Turning the key in the lock wasted precious seconds. He almost forced the door open on its frame before the deadbolt drew back.
He called her name as he strode through the rooms and to her bedroom. Her bed was still made. No coffee cup in the sink, no TV remote tossed on the couch before she’d gone to bed. She was neat, but she wasn’t obsessive about it. She liked a house that looked like someone lived there.
He returned to the porch to retrieve the purse, then thought better of it. Fingerprints. The police would want to see where everything was. But then he saw a scrap of white stuck between two of her potted plants. When he crouched down to look closer at it, his heart thudded in his ears.
New Orleans had its share of crime. But he didn’t know of many criminals who carried wallet cards with the service and event schedule at Rev’s church. The special, more detailed kind printed for volunteers, including the ushers.
No. No. No.
It just wasn’t possible.
But in Rev’s gut, he knew it was.
When he dialed the church office, Mrs. Byrd answered.
“This is Rev, Mrs. Byrd.”
“Why Rev, using a cell phone. Miracles are happening every day. I?—”
“Where’s Witford?”
His terse tone had her pausing. “He picked up a message left on the machine by Tyson. Said he had the package Witford told him to get, and he’d brought it to the old mill. When I asked Witford about it, he said it was supplies they want to store there, for the upcoming revival. Witford took Simon with him to help sort them out.”
Simon and Tyson were the two ushers who’d shared Witford and Tisha’s distrust of Veracity. Rev had talked to them about it, but they’d brushed off his concerns. Much as Witford had, when he’d shut down further conversation with Rev about her.
Simon and Tyson were part of an ex-con rehab program the church sponsored. They weren’t the only ones in the church who were, and the program did good for men and women with records. However, Simon and Tyson often acted like Witford’s personal bodyguards. Witford didn’t discourage that impression, and Rev had wondered what his cousin had them do to reinforce the notion. Or what his cousin did for them.
Had Rev’s willingness to let certain things “resolve themselves,” put Veracity in harm’s way? Just imagining that Witford might…
“Oh, and Tisha went with Witford.”
His heart slammed against his ribs. Tisha wouldn’t be part of something like what he was thinking. But hearing she was with them wasn’t making him feel any better.
“How long ago did they leave?” he asked, cutting off whatever Mrs. Byrd was saying.
The startled tone in Mrs. Byrd’s voice suggested the dread and anger he was trying to suppress had come through. “About an hour ago. Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you back.”
Rev looked at his burner phone. He needed to call 911. He needed to send the police out to the old mill. But he didn’t know what was going on, what Witford was doing. He could be wrong. All he knew was that Veracity was in trouble, and everything in him told him she was at the mill.
His cousin and his Mistress.
His aunt.
Please God, help guide me. Whatever I do next, let it be the right thing to help her.
He dropped to his knees on the kitchen floor, his hands clasped to his chest. He opened up everything. His heart, soul and mind, those chakras that Vera talked about. Call the police or go to the mill. Or both. Or call her friends.
When he lifted his head, he’d made his decision. He just hoped it was God’s, too. And that he wasn’t too late to stand between his family and whatever evil might be guiding them.
Vera woke in darkness, in a place that smelled of dirt and old wood. Her wrists had been bound with a zip tie behind her. Her ankles were bound too. Not being able to move was a terrible, helpless feeling. The hood over her head and the cloth in her mouth was the worst, causing a mind-numbing panic that made her feel like she was suffocating.
But she wasn’t. She’d been unconscious for a while. Breathe. She needed to breathe. She was able to spit out the cloth gag, but they had something tied around her neck to hold the hood in place, so the balled-up rag dropped and stayed, a damp weight against her chin and neck.
She’d done breathing exercises to handle emotional stress, but that was hell and gone from terror like this. Still, she knew she needed to think clearly, so she made herself do it until she could access some cogent thoughts.
Was this an opportunistic rapist? A husband or boyfriend, wanting vengeance or access to a resident of Laurel Grove? TRA had gotten a lot of press these past couple years. Maybe this was an attempt to extort money from Ros and Abby.
That last one made sense, but it didn’t fit the brutal way she’d been treated. Whoever had taken her didn’t really care what condition she was in, only that she was still alive.
Focus on your surroundings.
She was alone. Her movements as she regained consciousness hadn’t resulted in anyone speaking or moving toward her, and she didn’t hear anyone breathing. She thought the hood was a pillowcase. It had a laundry detergent smell, making the situation even more surreal.
She felt like she was in a small space, like a shed.
She also had a phone.
Cyn had given her the garter phone holder as a joke, a poke at how Vera liked to wear her “turn of the nineteenth century” fashions. Such fashions weren’t big on pockets, and a phone could ruin the lines of the form fitting garments.
Cyn had rolled her eyes. The initial discussion had been about Vera carrying a gun, but that wasn’t Vera’s thing. So Cyn had gifted her the phone holder. She’d told Vera to carry the phone in it, particularly when dealing with Laurel Grove issues or traveling New Orleans streets at night. If someone throws your purse away from you, thinking that’s where you’re carrying it, they’ve left you a weapon.
Damn if the woman hadn’t been right.
She writhed and twisted, pulling at the hem of her skirt until she could pluck out the phone. It dropped from her trembling fingers, stiff from the cutting hold of the zip tie. She bit back a curse but reclaimed the device, working it around in her hands until she had it in a position where she could operate it.
As she touched the screen, she heard the tone that told her the battery was low. Her stomach tightened into a hard knot. So it would die soon. She’d had a half charge before she was knocked out, so she’d been out for a few hours. She didn’t know what kind of cell signal she had here.
The earliest someone would be looking for her would be in the morning, when Rev was coming for breakfast. She didn’t know if it was still night.
A phone with raised buttons would have been so fucking helpful right now. She reminded herself that she activated the voice control on her phone all the time without looking. Muscle memory.
It took some fumbling, but she found it, hearing the tiny beep as the microphone engaged. She left the phone on the ground, and turned so she was over it. Her head swam from the movement, wanting to pull her under again. If she fought it, stress would make it happen. Keep breathing, keep calm.
“Dial Ros,” she rasped.
911 might make more sense, and it would be her next call if she had time, but Ros would cut through any delays, any red tape as the police got to the bottom of things. Ros had access to Navy SEALs and Matt Kensington and members of the police force, like Leland Keller. No matter that he was a sergeant in Baton Rouge; he was a resource that would launch into action without delay if Ros told him it was needed. A dead cell phone could still tell them her last known location. If there was cell service out here.
Ros’s voicemail picked up right away, which made her want to wail her frustration. Ros never turned off her phone, but even through the hood, Vera could hear the static. The signal was very weak. She’d been lucky to get the voicemail.
“Help…help me…”
Her voice was raspy and barely audible, her mouth and throat dry. She probably shouldn’t raise her voice. Someone might be standing outside the shed.
Shit.
Someone was coming, shoes crunching over gravel. She turned off the volume button on the side of the phone and scooched back, pushing the device into a dusty corner where she encountered a web and its occupant, skittering over her hands. Funny how what would make her shriek and recoil made zero impression on her when her life was at stake. She rolled back into the spot where they’d left her, just in time to hear a door being rolled back. A meager light filtered through the pillowcase.
“You’re sure she didn’t have a phone,” a gruff male voice said.
“I tossed her purse in the bushes. Her outfit doesn’t have any pockets. And she’s been out of it most the night.”
“How about her bra? Some women carry them there.”
“No, I didn’t…” An awkward pause. “You check her, Simon. I don’t want to do that.”
“Christ, Tyson.”
Tyson and Simon. The ushers at Rev’s church. What the hell? Her mind spun. Witford and Tisha hated her, yes, but this…it wasn’t possible.
Except it was. Cyn had warned her, as had Lawrence. They had a sixth sense for wrong intentions, and a person’s capability of acting upon them. Wearing nice clothes and attending church didn’t change that.
Oh Goddess.
Rough hands pushed her to her back. Vera tried not to react as her breasts were groped and she was patted down. The touch was functional, nothing sexual about it, but the impersonal nature chilled her. To Simon, she was an object.
“Nothing,” Tyson said. “See? Satisfied?”
“Almost.” Metal scraped, a sound like a bucket handle being lifted. A breath later, ice cold water struck her face and chest. Vera yelped and tried to roll away as more followed it.
“Stop,” she shrieked. “Stop it, damn you.”
“I’m not the one damned here, bitch. Get her up.”
As she was pulled to her feet, the hood was left in place, to keep her manageable she assumed, since they weren’t making any effort to conceal their identities. She knew what that normally meant in kidnapping situations.
But she was still alive, which meant they wanted something.
Take advantage of any opportunity to get away. Ask questions, get information. Don’t act like a victim.
She was never again going to lose patience with Cyn for badgering her with self-defense directives.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
The tie around the hood was loosened, but any hope that her vision was about to be restored was dashed as a big male hand caught the balled-up gag before it could fall free. He jammed it back into her mouth.
She tried to use her teeth on those fingers, but he was too brutal and efficient. And when her hood was jerked back down, she was backhanded. He hit her in the same place, which made the pain already throbbing there triple through her cheek and nose, her eye socket. She would have fallen if he didn’t have a hard grip on her arm.
“Shut up.”
They’d taken off her shoes. She was being half-dragged in stockinged feet across gravel that tore the fabric and stabbed tender flesh. They didn’t slow down for her. That further detachment made the dread inside her morph into uncontrollable terror. This was the way people treated animals being herded up a chute for slaughter. Villagers in the path of an oncoming army. Prisoners in concentration camps.
Witches being burned at the stake.
I’m not the one that’s damned.
To do whatever unspeakable thing they planned to do, they had to disengage like this. The gag prevented her from saying anything to prove she was a fellow living soul.
She heard falling water…a waterfall? Or a big fountain. An earthy water smell penetrated the hood.
“It’s time for you to stay away from Rev.”
Witford. His voice was little different from how it had sounded in her office. Sure, arrogant, patronizing. But there was strain, too. He didn’t necessarily want to be doing this, but Vera didn’t take any comfort from that. She recognized the tone of someone who felt she was to blame for making him have to terrorize her.
She’d managed to spit out the gag again. She spoke as forcefully as she could through the hood. “You think me being dead and out of the picture will keep Rev loyal to you?”
“Killing you isn’t our intent. We’re here to make the point you refused to hear in your office.” Witford paused. “When we drop you off, there won’t be any way for you to prove we did you any harm, I can promise you that. It will be your word against ours. I’m well known in the community, a pastor. You’re a witch, a pagan sexual deviant, pursuing one of our beloved but confused church members, a simple man with a learning disability.”
Now she understood the purpose of the hood. She couldn’t claim she’d seen their faces.
“You think Rev won’t believe me?”
“You won’t tell Rev about this. We can make things much worse for you, a woman living alone. As we’re about to show you. Have you heard of the drowning test for witches? Throw a witch in the water. If she sinks, she’s not a witch. If she floats, she is one.”
Which proved how illogical fear could be, especially when provoked by those with a self-serving reason to incite it.
Reaching for that cold analysis helped her cling to self-control. And the hope that he was trying to scare her with words. Not actually carry out what he’d just described.
The day-to-day survival of many Laurel Grove residents had often depended on them behaving exactly as their abusers expected. Until an opportunity like what Atalaya had experienced last night opened a door toward freedom.
“I am not the enemy here,” she said.
“You are the enemy. You are the Adversary, sent to draw Rev away from the Lord’s path.”
Tisha’s voice, the confirmation of her presence, didn’t shock Vera. Lawrence and Cyn had predicted that as well. Hell, it was possible this whole thing was being driven by Tisha’s fear for Rev, and the pressure she’d put on Witford to fix it.
Witford made a noise of protest, as if he’d counseled her to stay silent, but Vera heard the rustle of her clothing. As Tisha came closer, she smelled the faint scent of her perfume. The woman’s voice was tortured but defiant. “We have to protect him.”
“He’s protected by the Lord,” Vera said. “You think you do a better job than Him?”
Before anyone could stop her, apparently, Tisha yanked off the hood and slapped Vera. Her rings cut Vera’s mouth.
As Vera focused blearily on Tisha’s hard, glittering eyes and tight mouth, the woman spat at her. “You dance and fornicate with Satan. He shows you how to twist words and plant doubt in God-fearing hearts.”
“I already told you, there is no devil in my faith,” Vera snapped back. “Only human evil, which is more than capable of insanity like this.”
“Hold her,” Tisha instructed Simon and Tyson. When they seized her arms, Tisha tore open Vera’s blouse, ripped off her pentacle and tossed it away. Then she started to prod Vera with sharp fingers.
Vera struggled, but Simon seized her hair, pulling her head back. Witford’s gaze flickered in mild alarm, but when he saw Vera’s eyes on him, the look disappeared, his face dispassionate. Tyson held her in a tight grip, but he didn’t look comfortable with what Tisha was doing. He tried to look anywhere else but at Vera’s breasts, exposed when Tisha yanked down the bra cups. Simon stared at them as if he’d like to cut them off.
It’s not you they’re doing it to. It’s a mannequin, and you’re watching from somewhere above them.
Witford was the con man, a preacher who liked money and what it could buy. Tisha was the zealot, driven by ideology and the certainty she was right, that she had God on her side. Simon was a thug, on board with anything that allowed him to do violence. Tyson was more in Witford’s camp, but short of murdering her outright, Vera expected they would all stick with the basic plan, to scare the shit out of her so she’d leave Rev be, for the greater good. To serve God’s will.
Ros, check your voice mail. Check it. Now she was wishing she’d dialed 911, though her logic had been sound. She had no idea where she was, or if the signal would have been able to target her whereabouts to find her…in time. It was the wrong thought, because it dropped the bottom out of her stomach and set loose a starburst of fear.
“There.” With a sharp fingernail, Tisha stabbed a spot under Vera’s arm, beside the curve of her breast. “A witch’s mark. Told you it was there.”
“It’s a birthmark, you horrid, sick woman.”
Tisha slapped her again, then leaned in. Her breath on Vera’s face was minty. Get dressed, brush your teeth and hair, go torment the woman you’d kidnapped. Just like the laundered pillowcase, it made the moment even more bizarre. Tisha’s makeup was impeccable, her clothes as stylish as ever.
“Witford doesn’t understand. He wants to scare you. I know better. I know you won’t be scared for long. Unless you believe we’ll do everything we promise. I swore to my sister I’d keep Rev safe for the Lord. He’s a gentle soul who doesn’t understand the likes of you.”
“He’s not that gentle.” Vera refused to look away from Tisha’s flat eyes. “He won’t forgive you for harming me.”
Her lips tightened. “He’ll never know. Unless you want more of this, you’ll tell him you don’t want to see him anymore, because you’re tired of him. Because you’re done playing your sick games with him. He’ll return to us, where he belongs.”
Tisha drew Vera’s gaze toward the deep, fast running creek, and the mill wheel attached to a larger building, the original mill, she assumed. “The wheel still works,” Tisha told her. “We run water through the chute to make it turn for the children, for youth events. It sticks sometimes, but Rev is so handy. He always gets it started up again.” Her eyes held Vera’s. “But he’s not here right now, is he?”
She turned to Witford. “Tie her to the wheel.”
“What?” In that moment, she saw that Witford hadn’t been prepared to take this beyond the threat. Whereas Tisha had planned for it.
“She has to know we won’t stand for her evil. That we’ll stand up to it, that if she persists in trying to corrupt Rev, we won’t back down.”
“Mother…”
“Witford, I’m not evil.” Vera spoke over them both. “You know that. I love Rev. I’m in love with your cousin and he is in love with me. Evil doesn’t love.”
Simon grabbed her by the throat and tightened his grip, cutting off her air and making her choke. When her eyes rolled toward him, he gave her a humorless smile. “Keep mouthing off, witch.”
“Simon, ease up,” Witford ordered. Simon did, but not before Vera was seeing spots.
Simon didn’t want to torture her. Or maybe he did, but he wanted a different end result than Witford.
He wanted her dead.
And she knew Tisha did, too.
Tisha was clutching Witford’s shirt. She gave him a sharp shake. “Look at her. She knows what to say to get in a man’s head. Do you want to lose everything we’ve gained because we don’t obey the Lord’s Will in this?”
Witford stared down at her.
“We just need to convince her we mean what we say,” Tisha coaxed him, her voice softening, even though Vera was sure the glittering hate in her eyes didn’t. “That we’ll stand against any evil that tries to poison our church. We need to send the serpent crawling back under its rock.”
Witford’s mouth set in a thin line, and he raised his eyes to Vera. The corruption in his soul meant that what he had the power to do to her, with her so helpless and at his mercy, was starting to grip him. Giving him the twisted shot of adrenaline that corruption craved.
“No.” She tried to counter that feeling by making the word strong and defiant. But a wavering note had crept into it, coming from that place inside that knew when it was up against forces so unimaginably terrible.
If you can’t find hope, use hate.
Holy Mother, another Cyn-icism, as Skye liked to call those pearls of wisdom.
“You’re a coward,” Vera snarled at him. “And you know this is wrong. Rev knows your soul is in trouble, Witford. Don’t prove him right.”
Simon hit her in the mouth this time, breaking one of her teeth and sending her to her knees. He gave her a kick that sent her rolling. “Don’t talk to the preacher like that, witch. You pray for your soul. That’s all you got left.”
Then he jerked her up by the elbow, so violently she was afraid he’d dislocated her shoulder. “Tyson,” he snapped. “Get in here and help me.”
Did Witford miss that they hadn’t asked him for permission, that Simon had decided to run with Tisha’s desires instead?
As they took her toward that wheel, Vera struggled and screamed, but every defensive move she had was thwarted. Her wrists were bound to one of the wheel slats with rope, Tyson holding her waist as Simon did that. Then they shoved her into the water, her weight pulling against her shoulders. Cold and slimy, dark. Tyson adjusted the manual crank, turning the wheel backwards to lift her out.
As Simon leaned out to bind her ankles to a lower slat, she kicked him in the face. With an oath, he punched her in the stomach. Her breath wheezed out of her. He tied the ankles so tight she’d lose her feet if they were left that way.
Her body was curved over the wheel, the rough edges digging into her shoulders, back and hips.
They had a rack at Club Progeny, with padding and protective measures. Being put on it was exciting and pleasurable for the submissive, with only the amount of fear and pain they wanted from it.
This was not that.
Triumph and darkness gripped Tisha’s round face. If Vera died, Rev’s aunt would convince herself it was God’s will. In a saner moment she wouldn’t be able to face the reality of what she’d done. Or why.
If hope fails, hate can’t be the answer. Not for the last moments of my life.
She hadn’t expected her mind to go there, but Vera had spent almost as much time in her adult life as Rev providing spiritual guidance, which meant she’d had to search her soul endlessly for answers to the worst that life could hand out. Like this.
“You’re lost.” Vera’s voice shook from the cold, the fear. “Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with the God that Rev knows. The God that I know.” Her gaze moved to Witford. “Don’t do this. Don’t stain your soul with this.”
“Take her under.” Tisha crossed her arms over her chest, that defensive move she’d shown in Vera’s office. “We’ll do this until I believe you when you say you’ll stay far away from Rev. Now and forever. Or you die here.”
Tyson shot an alarmed look at Simon. Simon sent him a shut the fuck up look. Witford stared at his mother, but she was only looking at Vera.
“Rev will look for me. My family.”
“You have no family. They knew what you were and put you behind them. I’ll make sure Rev thinks that you left.”
Simon pulled the lever. With a grinding sound, the wheel began to move, taking Vera down into the water again.
Vera screamed for her life, hoping anyone was close enough to hear. But as the water rose up and the panic closed in, she took a deep breath and began to pray.
Every second was like an hour when a person had no control over what was being done to them. The water was freezing, and the underwater foliage crawled across her body, making her think of the snakes that populated creek waters.
Please…please…
She’d almost blacked out by the time they brought her up, but her lungs knew what to do. As she wheezed and coughed, sucking in oxygen, she tried to appeal to the one person whose amoral practicality could override Tisha’s mania.
“Witford, please…”
“Not there yet,” Tisha snapped. “Take her down again.”
Vera had no breath to scream, only to wail, a plaintive sound, asking for mercy. She reached for her faith, for prayer, for help, but the terror was so large, carving a wound inside her. It wanted her to bleed out and let go, give in to the desolation of abandonment.
Her parents were in her mind, her sisters, but she pushed them away and reached for Rev. Ros, Skye, Cyn and Abby. For Bastion. For all the good souls she’d met, some she’d helped, and many who’d helped her. Mavis, Stefanie. Atalaya.
It might be her time to go. It might be. She didn’t want it to be. But it might be. She just hoped she could find Rev in the next life. He was hers. She was his. They would find one another.
She’d told him they had a connection, that they could reach for that connection. She reached for it, called to him. She knew she’d been doing it subconsciously since she woke up in the shed, an SOS call like her dying phone, hoping the beacon would reach him.
But sometimes things born in faith were wishful thinking, if Fate had a different plan. She just didn’t want to believe that right now. She didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave Rev, or her life. But she supposed no one really did, did they?
When they brought her up the third time, she knew she wouldn’t survive the next dunk. Even above the waterline, she barely had the strength to pull air into her lungs.
“Tisha, she’s had enough.”
“Look at her eyes, Witford. Still defiant. She doesn’t have the repentance of a reformed soul.”
Witford stepped closer to the wheel. “Woman, repent,” he told her. “Tell me that you’ll leave Rev be and this can be over. I will end it.”
His eyes held hers. He wanted her to do it. Knew his ass was on the line here. But his image swam away, their surroundings dissolving. She wasn’t alone anymore. She was floating with a flock of connected souls, all those who’d ever been tormented like this, for not believing as the tormentor did. Not being what they wanted them to be. It happened over and over and over again.
“Please…”
“Do it,” Tisha said, and though Witford’s hand lifted as if he were going to protest, Simon sent her back under. Her last view was of Witford’s conflicted, grim expression, his gaze following her down.
This time when the water closed over her head, she thought of her tears, becoming part of the water. Terror and pain slipped away from her, even the cold, which was such a relief. She reached for Rev, for that bond, one last time.
Her body was jerked. The wheel had started, then stopped. Then it did it again. It had gotten stuck, she realized distantly. Just like Tisha had said. But Rev wasn’t here to fix it.
So even if they didn’t mean to kill her, it was going to happen, even so.
The jolt of the wheel had jumpstarted her survival instincts, though. She tried to strain against her bonds, but she was too weak. She was fading, disappearing into the darkness of the water.
Pain shot through her wrist, as if a knife blade had struck it. Her arm floated free of the rope. Her brain couldn’t drive its motion, reconnect her to it, so she just regarded the unguided muscles with vague curiosity. Another pain, and her other wrist was free. Then her ankles. A strong arm was around her, pulling her away from the wheel. Tyson, or Simon? Or had Witford decided to get in the water and do his own dirty work?
She was drifting away, leaving it all behind. They were too late. Would Rev think of it as God’s will?
She didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want to be without him. But some things you didn’t get a choice about.
Then she felt him. That energy connection they’d created on her living room floor, it was there, winding its way around her arm, her hand, holding her with his gentle, implacable strength. Her beloved man.
I here, Mistress. Please come to me. I would come to you, because that’s what I supposed to do, not supposed to make you come to me, but this one time, you come to me. Don’t deny me.
She frowned. Things hurt. The coil tightened around her arm, and expanded to envelope her upper body, her throat, her legs. Not a terrifying binding like Simon had put on her. This was a cocoon, enveloping her, with something pulling her back toward Rev. But she was so tired, and pain was waiting in that direction.
I here, too, Mistress. Please. Don’t you leave me. Don’t you do it. I need you.
She erupted into consciousness, cocoon replaced with cold, pain and fear. Her chest heaved, fighting that drowning feeling. Goddess, it was as horrible as she expected. Hands turned her as she vomited water, her body shaken by the expulsion like an already broken doll. She was on wet boards. A nail head dug into her arm.
But amid all those discomforts, she realized one of her hands was being held tight, and out of all the other pains, large and small, that grip didn’t hurt at all. And it was familiar in a way that helped drive the fear back like a door opening and showing her the way home.
When she cracked her eyes open, despite her waterlogged lashes, Rev was bent over her, one of her hands in his, his other hand on her chest. He had his head down and was praying over her with fierce concentration. Lawrence sat back on his heels, his wet T-shirt plastered over his heaving chest. He’d been doing CPR on her, she realized.
His stunned expression, locked on Rev, suggested maybe he’d had to quit doing it, knowing she was gone. Because she had been. Until she’d thrown up the water.
“Thank you, God,” Rev was saying. “Thank you.”
She was hurt, she was cold, she felt miserable and traumatized to the depths of her soul, but she was alive.
She was alive.