Page 12 of Remorseless Sinner

Always making fun of the Eye, tempting me to disbelief, with his twisted lying mouth, his lips tightened with bitter cruelty.

I had resisted Saul then, and I’d resist him now.

He would never turn me from the path of righteousness.

I reached hesitantly out for the rails, but Saul’s knee hit the back of my thighs, sending me face-first into the water, and I went under with a sickeningsmack.

The baptismal tank was dark, frightening, the water cold.

Flailing my arms, I went to raise my head up, struggling on the slippery stone at the bottom, but I felt a firm, big hand on the back of my skull, trapping me underneath.

“Say you’re sorry,” my disgusting stepbrother growled in my ear.

Panic coursed through me and I opened my eyes in the murky water to see his big body in the baptismal tank next to me, his thighs spread apart, one big hand firmly holding me under.

Always how it had been. Saul solid and unmovable, me flailing and weak.

It infuriated me, and I tried to aim a kick at his massive thighs, but in the water I was all tangled up in the heavy baptismal robes.

I flailed uselessly about, feeling myself swallow water and start to sink, the watery outlines of the Congregation just a blur through the glassy tank.

They would all watch me drown in front of them, because I was already promised to my brother and what he said went.

Just when I thought my lungs were bursting, he raised me up.

“The Eye will cleanse,” Saul boomed out as I gasped painful shards of air into my lungs. “The Eye will cleanse you of all unrighteousness.”

The Congregation murmured in approval, their voices rising like a hum of bees, like the rattle of a snake’s tail.

But his eyes as they gleamed at me were anything but righteous. I knew that even though the baptismal robes were thick, they were plastered against my breasts and hips and Saul with his wicked eyes was looking at me.

He had a firm grip on the back of my gown, but my limbs felt weak and heavy in the sopping robe. If he let go of me, I’d sink like a stone to the bottom.

The Congregation chanted and I saw Mom and Dad, their hands raised to the sky. Tears streaked down Mom’s face.

I felt so choked with an unaccustomed rage that I could barely have spoken.

How dare they! How dare they all take his side! I had been nothing but faithful.

“Repent,” Saul said.

“Never,” I choked at him, and his bright white teeth split apart the tanned planes of his harsh face.

“But Iknowyou’ve been wicked,” he said.

And he dunked me under again.

The congregation was chanting.

“In the name of the Eye, in the sight of the Eye, in the palms of the Eye. Blessed is the punishment.”

Saul pulled me up, my lungs bursting, my hair streaming down my face.

“I can do this all day,” he said maliciously.

“You expect me to say sorry for turning you in?” I choked, spitting up water. “You tampered with my birth control.”

Saul’s grip tightened on my baptismal gown, his massive fingers around the back of my throat.

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