Page 66 of The Hellkeeper

Please, please, please, Damien.

Save me.

Save me.

The truck doors creak open, daylight spilling in like a taunt. The air is cold, but the hands that grab me are colder.

The man clicks his tongue in disapproval when he sees an unconscious Linda.

“Untrained little thing.” Fingers curl around the chains, tugging them sharply. “Don’t worry. That’ll be fixed soon enough.”

A fresh wave of terror slams through me as I’m yanked out of the truck and I see every face I’ve ever known. Familiar faces. Faces I grew up with.

They’re sitting around a roaring fire, waiting.

The men drag me forward easily. My body has gone limp. I have nothing left to fight with. They force me onto my knees, my bones jarring against the dirt.

The people look at me with rage, with disgust, with hate. At that moment, I know they don’t just want me to die, they want me to suffer.

A hush falls over the village.

Elder Gideon steps forward.

His beard is long and gray, his withered face showing nothing but satisfaction. Beside him stands Elder Tobias, shorter, rounder, with a small, sick smirk on his face and eyes that gleam with pure evil.

Gideon raises his arms. “With this girl’s return, we are granted an opportunity. An opportunity to right what was wronged.”

A murmur ripples through the crowd; voices of agreement and praise.

Elder Tobias steps closer, crouching until he’s at my level. He smells like damp wood and rotting fruit.

“With this girl back,” he continues, “we can finally amend our sins to the Hellkeeper. He will have two sacrifices in one year. One was a girl pure and innocent as snow. And the other—” He grips my chin, forcing my head up. “A wretch who will serve as a warning. An example of what happens to those who run from their duty.”

A cheer erupts.

They’re celebrating my death.

I try to rip my face away, but Tobias tightens his grip.

“She ran,” he sneers. “She abandoned her fate. Turned her back on all of you.” He wrenches my head from side to side. “Tell me, does she look innocent?”

“No!” someone shouts, but he’s too far back in the crowd for me to recognize who.

“She is filth,” a man spits, the same man who taught me how to knead bread.

“She reeks of sin!” bellows the woman I used to help sew.

Bambi walks over to me, I used to fish with her at the lake. Her hand flies across my face so hard that my ears ring.

“You deserve this,” she hisses. “You deserve every second of this.”

The crowd follows her lead. They get closer and closer. Neva and Meredith, the same girls I used to train cattle with, sneer at me. Neva spits right in my face.

“You ran from your duty. From us. Like you were better than this village. Better than us,” Meredith rages.

I can’t speak. I can’t say anything. I don’t even have the energy left to open my mouth.

All of them form a circle around me, and I can’t see anything but their shoes. And they have their revenge.

---