Page 40 of Judas

Now, I’m waiting for him to finish up what he’s doing and toss the file into the secure server Mav has us use. I’m not the most tech-savvy man, but it's as easy as a few clicks. Then Havok has my laptop set to auto-open new files in chronological order. That way I can read through them quickly—probably what is taking him so fucking long. While I wait, there’s a ruckus outside of the gas station Little Miss Sunshine and her grim entity stopped at. He took his time filling the gas tank while smoking a cigarette—fucking idiot—and even went inside. On his way out, his arms and hands empty, I’m guessing he went to drain his lizard. Asshole could have taken the girl, too; I’m sure she’s about to burst.

She’s in the trunk, by the way. Not my greatest moment, watching him throw her in there for the second time. There are too many restrictions around this job that I’m starting to hate. Being forced to sit back and be more of a spectator than a damn protector. Whoever is paying for this, they must have attacheda bonus or twelve—it’s not like Mav to let this sort of treatment happen in front of one of us. I taught him better than that; hell, his pops would be smacking him upside the back of the head.

Let’s hope there is a good reason he is making me standby.

Sweeping the binoculars across the parking lot, I see ol’ boy lift the trunk door open and my blood goes nuclear when he reaches inside and grabs Sadie by her dirty hair. Wrenching her head around, which I know hurts like a bitch, he drags her out until she falls onto the motor oil and petrol grime-coated ground. The fuck starts leading her around like a show lamb, yanking her head up to force her posture.

Welp, strike three, dickhead.

Throwing my binoculars onto the dashboard, I shove the door open and jump out. The heavy falls of my boots become masked by the roaring of cars and trucks driving along this main strip of road. I’m just crossing the street, beelining to the two of them, when my phone starts to scream in my back pocket.

Fucking hell.

Snatching it out, I jab the green bubble that pulses on the screen.

“Get your ass back in the goddamn SVU, Elias. It’s not time.”

“You mind who the fuck you’re talking to.”

“I got you on the damn cameras and now have to scrub you off of them. I will be en route as soon as I’m done. You had to go in all hot-headed before I was ready. Now I have more work to do. Leave the scene, and get back in your damn truck!”

Click.

Havok— he’s a surly son of a bitch.

Minding the cameras, I take a few steps back and watch the two of them together. He’s walking his little lamb to the fuel pumps—my stomach churns because I know what the fuck he is about to do. I’ve been to war, for fucks sake. I’ve taken downterrorists, followed protocol, seen many lives sacrificed in front of me but watching this breaks my heart.

Like a bad movie, he pulls out the nozzle, flips the lock to the open position and begins pouring fuel all over that little girl. Memories of bodies being burned alive smack me like wrecking balls and I can’t stay. Torn between my duty to the innocent and following formalities, I stalk back to my truck. The moment I’m inside, it rushes in, my fists collide with the steering wheel and I find myself questioning my loyalty toduty.

Chapter fifteen

Beast

“Shhhhh, shh, shhhh.” A sneaky little giggle creeps and claws its way out of my throat. Thickly deviant, slick until it gags me.

No-hahaha-noooo.

I know the sounds are technically mine, because I can feel them. They start in my toes, inching their way up until they slide up my esophagus like a soda bubble that pops at my lips. Slapping my hands over my mouth, I try desperately to silence the residual snickers that always seem to echo soon after. Deep in the dark hole of the place Samael shoved us—hidden away from prying eyes that pay to mind to troubled girls.

“Silence!” I snap into the void.

They need to be quiet or he will come back and add to my array of bruises and scrapes. Not that we can feel them—well, I do, but not in the way he inflicts them. He aims for pain, fear, and submission, but all the ache does is fuel me for what’s to come. With every strike, I feel a piece of my shell break and release theraw-creatures underneath. Every atom of my being itches to be released, to run with the wolves, the monsters—for my fractured mind to find its individual vessels and burn out the vermin.

And submission?

Unlikely.

Never, actually.

Too long have we been shrouded in this bleak and confined existence—the Scold Bridle and Soyjack all over again. Blinded, muted, humiliated. We remember, and the self-proclaimed holy man in the front of the car aggravates the demons within. They writhe in my psyche, squirming and twisting, slick as their scales glide over one another in a ball of pure hatred and villainy. Yearning, yet waiting, to slither out of my human vessel, to curl around men like the one up front—the ones that snuffed out the lives of many when they were only young women.

Off goes the snickering again, seeping through the spaces my fingers can’t quite barricade. Far too full of malice, strife, and how I have missed them. My mirrored selves, the aggregate of my makeup, a cumulation of the dreadful.

“Shhhhhhh,” the only sane part of me coos—not that the hags will listen. They’re too active, excited even. Vibrating and bounding, eager to slay. The veil has lifted, and through me, three sets of eyes stare into the world. Prepared to dismantle a carefully constructed society who caters to predators since the days of Yahweh and his silly little garden.

“Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est fa fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa fa better. Run run run run, run run run away. Ay ay ay ay ay, ooh.”*

His—Samael’s—voice feels like the hairs of fiberglass being scrubbed into skin that was recently scorched by the sun and left to blister. Irritating, chagrin, and caustic. My fingers have curled and since started to dig and scrape the nails against the skin of both thumbs, the sting spurring me further. Anything to preserve my splinter of sanity.

---