Page 94 of False Idols

“Nevaeh, no!” Beau yells, but I can’t look at him. My eyes are on the knife being raised above me with two hands. They bring it down with a grunt but I catch their arms and keep the knife above my head. There’s a crash and a slam, the sound of the two men fighting fills the air and I want so desperately to look. I need to know Beau is safe but I can’t with the killer on top of me.

“Fuck you!” I scream when they lean forward and put their entire weight behind the blade as they try to bring the knife down. “Fuck you, I’m going to kill you!” I bring my knee up and slam it into their back and throw my weight to the side. The sudden movement sends them over me and to the side with just enough room between us for me to get away. I roll away and get to my feet at the same time they do. That’s when I see they still have their knife in hand but mine is long gone. Fuck it. There’s an end table beside me and I grab the lamp next to me and hold it up.

“I don’t need a knife to fucking kill you,” I tell them and throw the lamp at them with all my strength. The ceramic shatters when it hits them and I grab the next thing on the table beside me. It’s a heavy iron horse statue and I’m going to use it to bash their brains in. There’s a crash and I look to the side. Beau and The Reaper are in his father’s office. I start towards the door but the robed person in front of me moves with me and blocks me from getting in the office.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you doing this?” The questions come out before I can stop them. I don’t expect an answer but I get one anyhow.

“You’ve been judged and this is your penance,” a woman answers me and my heart breaks. I know that voice. “Thus I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity,” she says. She reaches back to push her hood back but I already know the face I’m going to see.

“Minnie,” I whisper.

Minnie gives me a mean smile and points her knife at me. “You’re a real fucking pain in my ass, Nevaeh.”

“What are you doing? Is someone making you do this?” I ask her.

She laughs. The sound is dark and bitter. “The only one making me do anything is you! You’re making me do this.”

I shake my head. “What? No!” I scream at her. “We were friends. I loved you and then you abandoned me!”

“Because you’re a liar, Nevaeh. A filthy fucking liar that needs to be punished. But I gotta tell you, I never thought you were a whore. Guess that good girl act was all a lie too, wasn’t it?” Minnie brings her hands up and raises her voice in a mimic of mine. “I’m a virgin and I want to wait till I’m married. Oh, I can’t smoke or drink, it’s wrong.” She drops her hands and spits in my direction.

“You’re a fucking liar, Nevaeh and now I’m going to cut that lying tongue of yours out of your head and make sure you never fucking lie again.”

“You were my best friend.” I say the words but even as I do, I know the truth. I was never Minnie’s best friend. I was always held just a little further away than I wanted. I thought it was because I was needy.

Now I know the truth.

“And I hated every second of it. I was only your friend because how could I not be? You were the Mineral Belt survivor and my neighbor. Do you know the shit I would get if I wasn’t your friend? I never liked you and your holier than thou fucking attitude. Always little miss perfect, always the center of attention because you wanted it that way. I hated every second with you, but I couldn’t tell anyone. Only Pastor Mike. He understood me when no one else did. He knows what kind of parasite you really are.”

Oh my god. Pastor Mike. What has she done to Pastor Mike?

“What did you do to him? Did you hurt him?!” Pastor Mike was always there for me when no one else was. What if something happened to him? What if he’s somewhere cut up like my mother?

“Shut your mouth about him!” Minnie screams and points her knife at me. “You don’t know anything about him! He saw you for what you were. The perpetually helpless victim.”

I shake my head. That’s not true. Pastor Mike knew what I’d been through. He’d never say that. “You’re a liar,” I tell her. The anger in me is fading. It’s hard to stand in the face of Minnie. I loved her, thought of her as a sister and not a day went by that I didn’t look for her. It was only in the past month that she’d abandoned me over the news about Beau. I wondered how she could have done it so quickly, cut me off from one day to the next like I never existed, but now I know.

She never loved me like I did her. She hated me.

“It’s the truth, Nevaeh! You loved being a victim.” Minnie slashes at me and I dance away from her blade. There’s a thud and a sound of shattering glass in the next room, but I can’t get around her to help Beau. “The one that got away from The Reaper. Well, you know what? Now you’re just going to be another dumb slut who gets her throat cut. Just like that whore whose heart I cut out.”

She killed Ali. Not The Reaper. Minnie.

She screams at me when she lunges at me and I dodge her. Minnie is moving too fast and slams into the end table I was just beside. She’s still screaming, even when she’s bent over the table and trying to turn when I bring the horse statue down on her. I hit her on the back of her head and her screaming stops. I don’t, though. I bring the statue down again and again. I hear her knife hit the floor and I slam the statue into her once more before I step away from her. My heart is racing and I can hardly catch my breath when I turn to the office door. Minnie slides off the table and hits the floor with a thud beside me, but I don’t look. I barrel towards the office and kick the door open. Beau’s knife is gone and he’s on the table with The Reaper above him. He’s holding him back, but just barely. The tip of the knife is in Beau’s chest and I can see blood blooming around the knife. It stains the white shirt he’s wearing and I don’t think, I act. I cross the room in two steps and swing the horse statue at The Reaper.

My swing goes wide, but I hit their back hard enough to give Beau the opening he needs to get away. He shoves The Reaper back and swings at him. The punch lands true and The Reaper’s head snaps back. Their hood falls back from the force of Beau’s punch.

I drop the horse statue and feel like the world tilts on its side when The Reaper turns to me and we lock eyes. “Pastor Mike?”

“Hello, Nevaeh.” Pastor Mike sounds normal. He even smiles at me. I half expect him to say this was all a misunderstanding, but how can it be when he just had his knife in Beau’s chest and he killed my mother.

“It was you? You’re T-the Reaper?”

I can’t believe it. How many vigils and sermons did Pastor Mike lead? So many of them. He stood at the front of the church and asked us to pray for the souls of those taken too early. How many parents did he comfort when they poured their grief out to him? Pastor Mike talked about the evil in the world and how we needed community more than ever, but all along it was his knife that cut and ripped Bloom apart.

Pastor Mike sighs and clasps his hands in front of him. The knife in his hand is so casually held that I feel like I’m the one that’s wrong. The one that’s losing their mind.

“The field is the world and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one,” he says. Beau flips him off, but still Pastor Mike keeps speaking, “What kind of shepherd would I be if I let you descend into depravity on your own? It’s my job to pull the weeds. To keep the world pure. What kind of pastor would I be if I didn’t?”

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