Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Hennessy: Welcome to the Blood Oath Brotherhood. We’ve been expecting you.
I screamed bloody murder when I saw Caspian’s limp body hanging from my favorite tree. It was the same one I climbed the first time I’d set foot onto this property. I’d used it time and time again, wanting to know what the carved date meant.
“No!” I shouted, instantly going to help him.
His hands were tied to a branch with his mask still on his face.
The Brotherhood crest had been burned into his chest, right over his heart.
He was wearing only his boxer shorts. They humiliated him.
He’d been whipped to a bloody pulp. It wasn’t just his back like with Onyx.
It was all over his body, from his arms to his legs to all over his chest.
“What the fuck?” I exclaimed, immediately stripping off his mask to see if he was alive.
His face was the only thing that hadn’t been marred.
“Padre nuestro, que estas en los cielos,” I broke out into prayer. It was the only power I held, crying out.
I’d never seen anything like this. It was too much. It was too real.
“Onyx, help me!” I ordered, tears streaming down my face. “He’s still breathing!”
In less than a second, the rope hanging him up snapped in half, and he fell into my arms. Before I could help him further, a chain wrapped around my ankles out of nowhere. I didn’t have time to contemplate a single thing as I was flipped upside down onto the same tree Caspian was on.
The Brotherhood hung me from my feet.
“No!” Onyx called out with everything inside him. His tone hurt my heart, my core, my soul.
His scream could be heard by our ancestors and the bodies that were buried here.
The council was still dressed in their fancy cloaks, their masks proudly displayed. Not an ounce of blood was spilled on them as a few of them held on to Onyx.
These men hid behind those masks and those cloaks, having someone else do the dirty work for them. They weren’t as powerful as they thought they were, or they wouldn’t have to hide at all.
The truth would be in plain sight.
I’d really done it now, and I wondered if my uncle was among them, watching this tragedy play out as entertainment for their demons.
“You call yourself the Blood Oath Brotherhood, right? Well,” I challenged. “If you kill me, there’ll be consequences!”
They laughed in my face as the blood rushed to my head.
“You’re just like your father,” a voice I didn’t recognize announced.
Smugly, I hollered, “Then you know I’m a fucking witch!”
“Sweetheart,” the same voice boasted, “your father already cursed this Brotherhood.”
How long can a person stay upside down without passing out? Luckily, as a kid, this was my preferred method of hanging off trees. My longest record was seven minutes.
“Yeah?” I mocked. “Why don’t you ask me about my dead-man-switch?”
“Hennessy!” Onyx demanded. “Shut the fuck up!”
They gagged him, and he desperately tried to fight them off. I’d never seen anything like it. He was literally a feral animal, but it didn’t matter. There were too many of them.
“Little girl,” one of the council members pressed their knife up to my throat. Onyx lost his shit, continuing to try to get free.
It was no use. They took a bat to his knees, making him bow at their feet. I heard something crack and whimpered in pain for him.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” the man holding the dagger to my throat remarked.
Thinking quickly, praying that Onyx could hear my thoughts like always, I told a tale, “I made sure if I disappeared, your dagger would see the light of day.”
“Onyx.” His stare flew to him. “What the fuck is she talking about? The night you deleted her photos from her phone, you confirmed the dagger was in your possession again.”
Spitting blood at his feet, he caught on, “I lied.”
Thank you, God…
It didn’t matter what you believed in. God was always on your side.
You just had to not lose faith in him. It was how the devil won in the first place.
You’d always be tested, tempted, scorned.
The secret was not to let it wear you down.
The moment weakness took over was the second you’d sell your soul for strength.
“Enough with the fucking games!” the council member roared.
Onyx deviously chuckled, singing out, “But they’re so fucking fun!”
They kicked him in the stomach, knocking him over.
“Stop it!” I pleaded. “He didn’t do anything wrong!”
“All he’s done since you arrived has been wrong! You’ve put a spell on him!”
“Then you should know not to fuck with me!” I spewed.
The back of his hand came up, and I knew what was going to happen next. I braced for it, but in the end, it didn’t matter in the least. The moment he backhanded me across the face, I saw stars regardless.
“No!” Onyx screamed with everything inside him again.
He gripped my face, yanking my head back to look at him. For a second, I thought he was trying to snap my neck. I panted through the pain, trying not to show Onyx how badly it hurt, not wanting him to take the grunt of what was happening to me.
I didn’t wait, blurting, “You hit like a bitch,” spitting blood on his beloved mask.
“You’re nothing but a traitor!” He yanked me toward him, close to his face. “Just like your father! We should’ve never agreed for you to attend here, and now you’re going to pay the price for your fucking sins!”
I resisted the urge to beg for mercy.
Fuck him.
Fuck all of them.
They wouldn’t get what they wanted.
He backhanded me again, but when he gripped my neck, choking me out, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes. It was only then I was smacked in the face with some of the truth. Right then and there, a memory broke loose.
“Mamita, you’re going to stay right here, like a good little girl,” Mamá ordered in a scared tone. “Promise me, alright?” Even though we were in a playroom, I didn’t want to play with anything.
I smiled, hating that sad expression on her face. Mamá was never sad. It made my stomach hurt.
“I promise.”
“Here, play with this,” another woman’s voice added, grabbing my wrist, showing me the music box.
“Don’t touch my daughter!” Mamá shouted in a voice I’d never heard before.
“Please… a little bit of reason… my children are here too.”
There was a boy around my age, standing near his sister. He was holding her hand in the corner of the room, looking right at me.
I had never seen them either. I didn’t like this house or these people. I wanted to go home, but Mamá said we had to find Daddy. My grandparents were at the hotel, and Mamá wouldn’t let me stay with them.
Little by little, I started not being able to breathe, but that only triggered more of my memory.
“Reason?” Mamá repeated. “I’ll give you fucking reason!”
I jumped when I heard another voice shout, “Get the fuck out of my house!”
That time it was a man I’d never seen, and the kids in the corner looked scared of him. The boy hugged his sister tight to his body, and I wanted to run over there to be with them, so I did.
I ran as fast as my legs could get me there until he extended his hand out for me to take, and I did.
There… now I felt safe again.
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and I hid my face into his chest like his sister. She grabbed my hand too, shutting her eyes like me.
“Not here!” Mamá's voice echoed off the walls.
I heard Onyx’s voice, shouting for me, but I couldn’t follow it, needing to finally come face-to-face with the truth my mind had been hiding from me. Staying in my memory, I felt the warmth of my father grabbing me.
Then all of a sudden, I opened my gaze, finding my papa there.
He’d make everything better now. He always did.
“Mi vida, te quiero con toda mi alma. Perdóname, pero lo voy a arreglar, te prometo que lo voy a arreglar todo para que tú no sufras por mis pecados.” He said, “My world, I love you with all my soul. Forgive me, but I’m going to fix it.
I promise you, I’ll fix everything, so you won’t pay for my sins. ” He kissed all over my face.
I love Daddy’s kisses. They made me feel so happy.
Mamá didn’t look happy, though. She was crying, watching us only. He kissed my cheek one last time before looking at the other little girl who was still hiding in her brother’s chest.
Slowly, he whispered in her ear, “I wish things could’ve been different. I’m sorry, Deja. In another life maybe…”
I gasped, snapping back to the present while the light in me was dimming.
“No!” Onyx continued yelling for me. “Stop it! You’re fucking killing her!”
“You did this, Onyx,” the council member clutched onto my throat harder, booming, “This is what happens when you betray us!”
“What the fuck did you expect?” Onyx spoke out, hanging on by a thread.
I’d never forget who told me the truth of a secret that was supposed to stay buried for all of my life. Never expecting in my wildest dreams that it’d have the power to bury me with it.
As Onyx confessed…
“If my mother couldn’t resist falling in love with her father, how the fuck did you think I wouldn’t fall in love with his daughter?”