Page 109 of Judas

“Dammit, Sadie, stop this shit!”

One more hearty shove is all it takes to make me see stars, my head having crashed back against a thick glass window stout enough to withstand the belligerent winds in this part of the country. Dazed, my ears ringing, her movements pass in front of my eyes in slow motion. A wave of nausea comes soon after, forcing me to double over and heave—taking my eyes off of Sadie far too long.

With the finesse of a dock worker, Sadie winds the plastic tubing around my neck as if she’s mooring me to a pier in the midst of a hurricane. Amidst the urge to vomit and the newfound panic of a rubber noose, I scramble for the line and pull at it. The dizziness lingers when my legs shove me up off the windowsill and I nearly barrel over Sadie to get distance. She clammers along with me—hands holding onto the tubing’s end in iron clad grips.

She yanks, I choke and thrash. Wrenching me left and right, up to the edge that begins to drag my vision away from any sort of light. A gaspless breath aches to be expelled and replaced with new oxygen. My vision blurs at the edges, hands still struggling to get a good grip on the too-sleek line as it compresses from the way Sadie keeps pulling at it.

The fight has winded me; pair that with the asphyxiation and I’m ready to throw in the towel. Were I spending this timeteaching her how to refine her movements, things would be different, but she’s moments away from killing me.

One… last… push is all I need; one moment of opportunity and I’ll have her.

Making the mistake, she steps to the side and I feel her rather than see her. Throwing my arm out, I snatch her hospital gown and haul her to me. It’s not gentle nor calculated, a full-forced pull that takes her off her bare feet before she crashes to the floor. I’m over her instantly, pinning her to the frigid tile as she thrashes and fights me to the point her saliva has foamed at the corners of her mouth. Like she’s just rabid and needs to be put down.

She also kicks like a fucking mule, jolting her hips up, twisting and gnashing at me as if she’s some untamed animal. Even with her hands pinned to the cold, cream-colored floor, speckled with her blood, her fingers claw inward, attempting to dig into my flesh. I stare down at her, sucking in ragged breaths as hard as I can while keeping her restrained. Watching the wild creature struggle for control, I’ll be damned if it doesn’t break my heart to see her this way. Young and all twisted up on the inside, where no one can really reach in and break the knot she’s wound up in. Damaged in a way that may not ever be repairable.

“I got you,” I murmur, even if her feral sounds drown out my whisper. “Please don’t hate me.”

Leaning up, I look over her disheveled bed, and shout.

“HELP!!!!!!”

Chapter thirty-eight

Judas

“Some things are better left unsaid, Samael.”

Naamah’s voice whispers in my ear, reminiscent of the last thing she said in the hell specially crafted for me. Instinctively I pull away from the direction it’s echoing, body quaking through pain and unease as the urge to move causes me to test my restraints. The binds coiled tight around my limbs, still securing me to my chair after days of abuse and torture, chafe and pinch. Aches of festering bruises, wounds, and too-cold extremities have me ready to just… quit. Yeah, I said it. I’m drained; emotionally, physically, mentally, in every way that counts.

What’s the most terrifying, regardless of the torture and interrogation, is how I’m doomed to experience ongoing prosecution due to the thing squirming inside of my head. Writhing like some sort of worm, tunneling through the tissues, gnawing away at the last bits of my sanity. I hate that thedarkness, Samael, was something more tangible than mere thoughts delivered by God.

Samael, as learned from the doctrines—let’s face it, I have researched many—says he is the angel of death. Walking a path similar to that of Lucifer himself, in some cases confused for the Devil. Complex, destructive, tempting, a harbinger of death. Everything that I am. And, as it may, the consort of Naamah herself.

All this time, the voice I once associated with my creator was a lie. A farce…trickery. The grip Samael has around my soul and mind is near crushing at that. My body, these remaining thoughts, and the tiny boy I no longer feel are all that remains of ‘Lucien.’ A fallen angel used me, corrupted my mind from teenage years up until now. Sought me out for abolition, for the extinction of a family over personal dissonance—stuck in the middle of a feud neither Nadia nor myself were ever equipped to handle.

Samael slated Nadia because of her appearance, an innocent girl trying so hard to not crumble under the weight of a neglectful father and a mother who abandoned her so young. He… he drove me to Darkwater. Slick scoundrel pried the pages of the Lord’s will open, stealing glimpses of our predetermined lives. Choosing to pervert our souls and mortal bodies to destroy a daughter of Naamah, of Nadia.

I don’t care about plagues and terrors. Let them scourge the Earth however they wish, just leave my family alone.

Feeling her before hearing her, my head tilts into a normal position when Nadia takes the chair close by and places it down before me. She doesn’t straddle it like Kace did, no. Instead, she’s leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, fingers of both hands lacing together as she glances over me with mistrust. Her silver eyes judge me without the sparkle they used to have—I can sense the desire for answers, even if she doesn’t know how to ask them.

In a pair of dark wash jeans with rips in the knees, black long-sleeve shirt under a Zakk Wylde tee, hair pulled back the way she used to wear it in the prison, and bare feet. She doesn’t realize how everything about her, every movement and choice, has a meaning. And in the forty years of knowing her, she still doesn’t see the significance in anything she does. The humility of being barefoot with me is completely lost on her, but it doesn’t escape me.

“Sister.”

“Lucien.”

Ouch.

“To what do I owe your presence? Things with Kace not all you thought they would be?”

Drawing her hand up, she waves me off—brushing the jab away as if it holds no weight. Lacking her typical bristly energy, trading it with a flat-toned voice and a pensive look. Quietude isn’t the conventional aura of our interactions which peaks my interest. Maybe if… nah. She never would have looked in my direction had I approached her in any way other than violence and ire. Programmed to lick love off of a knife's blade when we deserve to drink it from caring hands. My damage seeks and speaks to hers.

“I have questions. Doubt he will let me close enough to you to ask them before another screw loosens.”

Huffing a tiny laugh and processing what she just said, my tongue slides over chapped lips. Seems to be the going rate, ‘question Lucien to the brink of insanity,’ which is all fine and dandy. Figured we could, at minimum, have a conversation on a substantial topic. Discuss things like people, siblings, adults. My fault for expecting more. Stealing a bit of air, I give her a nod and the open floor. If big sis wants to ask things, then I’ll indulge.

Nadia begins and all I can see is Naamah now; all Samael can feel is the aggravating vibration of her existence.

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