Chapter Twelve #2
“And yet that’s exactly what you’re expecting me to do,” he said bitterly. “You think I’m just going to forget you, Shiloh? I love you, too. I will never love another. I will never give you up.”
She was sure once he had distance from her and this mess, he’d soon forget her.
He’d realize her baggage was too much to deal with, but that was the way of life.
Of surviving. She wouldn’t see him again, but she would rest easy knowing he was safe.
That he would continue on and be with his club.
Maybe, she hoped, every once in a while, he’d think back to the girl that almost got him killed by a fucked-up cult.
For a brief moment, he had been hers. Some people lived a whole lifetime never finding their soulmate, but she’d been one of the lucky ones.
The door opened, and Lawrence stood there, waiting. Time was up. She tried to smile at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He glared at her stepfather.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” he snarled. “Let her go.”
“I think not,” Lawrence replied, and he stepped back to allow his mindless disciples into the shed.
Jade tried to struggle, but he was weakened from blood loss. One of the men held a syringe in his hand. The needle jabbed into his arm, and he let out a roar that broke her soul. He locked gazes with her and shook his head. Then, the fight left him, and he sagged to the ground, unconscious.
“I will fulfill my promise,” Lawrence told her calmly. “He will be sedated for the entire trip.”
She leaned over and kissed Jade’s unresponsive lips. “I will love you until my last breath,” she whispered into his ear, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. “And I’ll love you in the next life as well.”
They picked him up and dragged him out of the shed, taking the very air she breathed with him.
****
She was given that night to prepare herself, which meant she was supposed to kneel and say her prayers.
She was supposed to ask for forgiveness from a god she wanted no part of.
Instead, memories rolled through her. When she met Jade.
The first time she rode on the back of his bike.
Their first kiss. Her stepfather had played a short video showing Jade breathing, and a weight eased off her shoulders.
He was safe. She could die happy, knowing his club brothers would support him.
Her tears refused to be restrained. Maybe she should’ve maintained a stiff upper lip, but she didn’t have it in her.
She was done trying to stay strong. Done trying to be tough.
Instead, she cried all night and made herself sick.
When breakfast was delivered, she knew she should eat to have a chance to survive the Penance, but she just couldn’t muster the care to do it.
The sooner she died, the sooner she could finally escape this sad, sickening life.
She pushed away the food and juice.
A white sack-like dress was brought. The neckline was squared off, with short cap sleeves that fell to her knees.
White to signify the purity she was trying to atone for.
She hadn’t been a virgin for a long time, and Penance was the opportunity to regain her position in the community.
To be forgiven for her transgressions. Only, she didn’t want that, and couldn’t care less if her stepfather’s so-called deity forgave her.
She had no intention of surviving.
Already her heart had given up. Her soul was already dead. She’d always wondered how a person could will themselves to death, and now she knew. Lawrence might control what was happening to her body, but he couldn’t control her mind. Her last thoughts would be of Jade.
She was led out to the courtyard where the entire cult waited.
Everyone wore black to mourn her fall from grace.
Disciples came forward to take hold of her wrists and lock them into the leather cuffs of the whipping post. Her arms were spread wide.
She vowed that she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of crying, but that determination broke with the first lash of the whip.
She screamed and screamed even more with each slash, losing count after six. She sagged in the shackles.
When the final blow was dealt, the two women chosen to attend her came forward. They unbuckled the restraints on her wrists, but before she could fall onto her face, someone caught her. She was picked up and taken back to her room, where the bloody wounds on her back were attended to.
She lay on my stomach, beyond caring. Far beyond the pain, floating in and out of consciousness.
Hallucinations visited her, and at times she could’ve sworn she heard Jade’s laugh.
Saw his emerald eyes flashing in the shadows.
She shivered as he ran his fingers up and down her arm.
She focused on her memories. They were her heaven. Her everything.
She lost track of time, but sometime later, a woman entered the room with a new white shapeless dress.
Her back was on fire, and the rough cloth felt like a wire brush scraping against the weeping wounds.
As she was led to the next stage of the Penance, she had to walk along the path outlined by the people witnessing her fall from grace.
Her mind was blank. She didn’t care. Not anymore.
Not even when the sweatboxes came into view.
This was the second part of the penance.
She was supposed to stay in the box until she had sweat the evil out.
For that to happen, she had to renounce the man she loved.
To save herself, she was supposed to give him up.
Her stepfather thought she would cave, but what he failed to understand was that if her freedom was gone, she had no reason to care.
In her heart, she mourned for the life she could’ve had.
For the people who were her friends. For the home she’d never make.
For the child she’ll never have. For a future that had been in the palm of her hand.
The truth of the matter was that none of that came close to the love she had for the only person who made her truly alive.
She loved Jade with everything that she was, and that was why she could never renounce him.
The sweatbox would be her tomb, and she made peace with herself, for the short life of Shiloh Gibson.
“Well, daughter,” her stepfather said behind her. “Do you renounce the heathen way you lived, so you may move onto the last stage of the Penance with the desire to transform?”
Slowly, she turned and looked at him. “I forgive you.”
His brow pulled low. “What?”
“There is no room inside me anymore for you,” she said. “So, I forgive you.”
Then she turned back to the sweatbox and entered it, sitting down on the narrow seat. The last view she had of the world was her stepfather’s angry face. She closed her eyes and went back to the lovely dream of when she and Jade made love for the first time.
The heat messed with the progression of time.
She had no clue how long she’d been sweating.
She floated on a cloud. Up there, the heat couldn’t touch her.
Sweat didn’t run off her body and pool on the floor of the box.
Her brain tried desperately to stay alive by conjuring Jade’s voice, but she knew she was fading.
She didn’t know how long she’d been in there, but she reckoned she didn’t have much longer.
Five minutes, maybe ten? Certainly, no longer than that.
A person could die within fifteen minutes of heat stroke, and she knew she had been in there for a while.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing did anymore.
She had no desire to stay in the world if she couldn’t truly be free.
The cloud drifted higher.
“...Fuck! I found her!”
“...Shiloh! Wake up!”
“...Come on, baby, don’t do this...”
“...Quick, quick, quick! She needs help...”
“...Shiloh, hold on...”
Jade was talking to her. She wished she could assure him that everything was okay. Strange, she also heard Nero’s voice, but she wasn’t suffering anymore. Finally, she was free of her past. Free of the pain. Free of the memories.
Death beckoned, and she took its hand.