Chapter 33
Grace
Murmured voices flowed like whispers on the wind around me as my shoulder throbbed, pulses of pain shooting up and down my arm, and my fingers tingled.
Floating through the fog in my brain, I tried to focus on one voice over the others, but the words wouldn’t translate, and exhaustion made my limbs heavy, and my brain felt like mush. I tried to open my eyes, but it felt like an impossible feat.
The voices were getting louder but not moving closer.
CRACK!
THUD!
The sounds pierced my befuddled brain, one after the other, as my eyes flew open and a keening cry left my lips as all the pain in my shoulder flared back to life tenfold. I took in the fallen body in the doorway.
Cain.
Redness bloomed over his chest as the moonlight reflected in his lifeless eyes. A figure stepped over Cain’s lifeless form and tsked. “Stupid boy.”
“M-mother?” my voice rasped as I tried to comprehend what I was seeing.
My demure, prim and proper mother was here.
Dressed in her usual Sunday best, complete with black Mary Jane t-strap shoes and a matching small handbag, she looked completely out of place.
And…she held a gun. A tiny revolver gleamed in the dappled light glinting between the wooden slats.
She held the gun with an ease that made me nervous.
I’d never known my mother to use guns, but her familiarity with the weapon was undeniable.
Her nose scrunched in distaste as she took in the dilapidated shed. “This is not a place I wish to be in for long. Drag that inside, would you?” She motioned to Cain’s body as if it were a sack of potatoes, not a former human being.
Jordan stepped over Cain and lifted his shoulders to drag his body inside and lay him at my feet.
Crouching down, he patted the now lifeless corpse of my abusive husband. “Such a pity. He made an excellent tool to torture you all these years. Too bad he deviated from the plan.”
“Pl-an-nn?” My voice was dry and raspy, as if I smoked a carton a day for years. “What plan?”
My mother turned to me, her perfectly quiff bob barely moving as she did, not a hair out of place.
“You disobeyed me, darling, and you know I don’t stand for that.
” She tsked again, “I thought Cain, here, had gotten you under control. With all the directions I gave him, it should have been easy, but no, you just had to run away. Do you have any idea of the shame you’ve brought to the family? ”
I didn’t recognize the woman standing in front of me. She’d always been harsh, controlling, and liked things a certain way, but to kill someone and talk so casually about my abuse, that she’d orchestrated, was bordering on unhinged.
“You…you killed him?” The words left me with a huff. “That’s a crime.”
She scoffed. “Please, he was a tool, just like your father was. A way to control my wayward daughters. Jordan here is the only one who understands. We’re doing God’s work, ridding the world of sinners.
We are cleansing the Earth. He wanted to keep you.
He enjoyed torturing you, but that is not in the plan.
You need to be eradicated. End of story. ”
She was insane. So cold, so casual, and emotionless. My mind raced as the words penetrated.
“Cain…Father…your directions. But you’re my mother.”
“And what a curse that turned out to be. Two daughters, and neither of them could keep their legs closed or behave like proper ladies.” She stepped forward, her gaze assessing me from head to toe.
“Look at you. Even with Cain controlling your food, you still can’t maintain a slim physique.
I can’t believe I even bore a daughter like you. ”
My mouth gaped and my gaze pinged from my mother to Jordan, a wicked gleam painting his face. He was enjoying this. He relished it.
“W-why?” The smoker’s rasp was back, my throat ached from how dry it was, but my mind swam with all the questions I had.
Her lips pursed, drawing tight as if she’d sucked on a lemon, and her cold hazel eyes sparked with rage. “Because you dared to defy me.”
“But he abused me. You saw what he did, and you’re saying you ordered it.
” My mind spun as numbness crept in, burrowing deep.
It turned off any feelings I had left, any desire that I could do what mother wanted and that she’d love me one day.
It was not possible. This person in front of me didn’t know what love was. She was incapable of it.
“What happens now?” An emptiness echoed through my voice. I was so tired. Every part of me felt like it weighed a ton, and all I wanted to do was let the sleep and the numbness take me away. I’d grown up with this cruelty, and I was done fighting it. There was no point.
“Now, we clean up the loose ends.” Her gaze shone with adoration that bordered on creepy as she looked at Jordan. “Is this one’s brother and fellow sinners on the way?”
“Of course, right into the trap. They’re so stupid.” Jordan reached down and picked up Cain’s Karambit knife. “The Reverend will reward us.”
Those words tickled my synapses. “R-reverend St-tone?”
Jordan sneered at me, his deranged smirk turning hard. “Of course. He’s our guide, our savior. He will reward us for removing scum from the Earth.”
“You’re delusional. Both of you. You’re going to hell.
What you’re doing is wrong on so many levels, and to follow that pedophile.
You are disgusting.” I spat the words, hatred and anger blazing to life in my belly and eclipsing the exhaustion.
They would not win. I would not let them or have them hurt Kai or force him to face his disgusting sperm donor.
And that’s all he was: a sperm donor. Anyone who did the vile things he did, did not deserve to be called a parent.
“Shut up, you harlot!” My mother’s backhand, complete with rings, took me by surprise as my head snapped to the side and the knife pulled, sending fresh waves of pain, like molten lava, down my arm.
But something else happened too: wood cracked and gave a little, so I wasn’t as pinned to the wooden slat as I was before.
I could use this. I would not let them win.
Closing my eyes, I let thoughts of Kai fill my mind.
Our time as innocent teens, the care and trust he showed me then, to how he treated me now.
He’d always cared. Our connection, how he touched me, his smile, his love, and our future together.
I would fight for it. I would fight with everything I had for my baby, my life, and for Kai.
Summoning all the strength I didn’t know I possessed, I took a deep breath and lunged.