Page 54 of Judas

Curling my hand around the back of her head, fingers tangling into the messy blonde strands, I yank her head back and she grins. All I can see is Sadie, a child, a dubious abomination, but still a child. Soft pale skin, unmarked by the wrath of atonement, soft features who have yet to shed all of the baby weight, and a sacrifice.

Leading her in, I press a kiss to her temple. The being inside of her snickers but doesn’t fight me. Her curious hands wander up my sides and around to my mid-back, until they draw me close.I’m taken aback by the motion, by her unabashedness at drawing me in. Then she goes and does something to me that I’ve not experienced since I was a tiny boy—Sadie hugs me.

Simultaneously a filthy lie, and jubilation.

Chapter twenty

Judas

This is weird—feeling anyone against me in this way, that is. Part of me is warring with the young boy inside who has been starving for something more than anger and resentment. While the other side is ready to snap Sadie’s neck for her entity touching what isn’t hers to touch. I can’t, though, it’s not Sadie’s fault. Then there’s the fact that I still need her alive for when Nadia gets here.

Stick to the plan, Lucien, no matter the anomaly. We cannot fail.

The darker one is a bit lenient right now, which is odd, but I’m not deviating. I need her to sin and that’s what her gift is. Wrenching her away, my hand still tangled in her hair, I drag her along with me. Aiming for the door then the living space of the cabin. The strange cackling she has produced in the past is now making its grand appearance. I wonder if she has a much darker part of her, like I do. Lingering about in the recesses of her mad little head, waiting until it needs to show its face.

Her tittering gives way to slurred words and some that make no sense at all. I thought she was speaking in tongues on our way up here, but there’s no way this gibberish is tongues. It’s too chaotic, as if there were several people speaking blended languages at once and the volume is too low to understand.

Reaching the common area, I lead her over and drop her where the other buckets of blood are gathering. The girl hisses, actually hisses, when she gets too close and one nearly sloshes over after she lands beside it. Unable to contain the laugh that escapes me, I observe her when she bounces up like some sort of spring-loaded toy—my era, of course, not hers.

Not Bathory, now, let’s poke this one.

“Name, give it,” Ordering the dweller.

Back at the island, giving the registrants that hold our interloper down a quick check, I turn and lean against the counter. Arms folding over my chest, mimicking disinterest when that is not even remotely close to the truth. This is far from reality, but in essence, I’m dying to know more. Yearning to know about the ones that have taken my sweet girl hostage. And from the looks of it, for a really long time. What I don’t understand is why she is on Risperdal and is still acting so manically. She’s young, underweight, and hasn’t taken her medication in days. While unable to control the switching back and forth, she seems much less erratic now while she’s cooped up with me than she seemed when I plucked her out of her home.

It’s not working because she’s not a schizophrenic, Lucien. She has whole people living inside of her.

“That doesn’t matter, Mother. She still would have been more subdued when I abducted her than she is now.”

“Ooooohahaa,” Sadie sing-songs. “You are one of many, too.”

Not as fond of this voice as I was the last. It’s scratchy and slightly shrill—unnatural.

“Name,” I bite.

“Shhhhhhhhhh, we don’t ask what we don’t need to know.”

“Name.”

“Name, name, name, name, name, name, name…“ she repeats several times over.

Sadie’s arms reach out, similar to a crucifix, and it reminds me of the riot at Darkwater when I did something similar. I hate how much she resembles me in her most uncontrolled moments. Actually, it really irks me how much she is like everyone else and not quite individualized. Well, for the most part, when her riders take over. I’ve seen the real girl underneath; the immature behavior she still exhibits as a sixteen year old. How she clings to the things that a younger child may gravitate to—she’s been like this for a really long time, I’m coming to realize. My sweet girl hasn’t been young all her life, and here she is now, about to break into a world she won’t survive. All because I deem it—and if that power isn’t intoxicating, I don’t know what is.

“Name!” I shout this time and that’s what catches her attention.

She comes to an eerie stop and sneers. Standing there, drenched in blood, angry, resentful, problematic, and all fucking mine.

“Kate Batts.” The name comes across in another hiss.

“The Bell Witch? What does the Bell Witch and Elizabeth Bathory have to do with a young girl from Michigan?”

Don’t dig any further, Lucien. We don’t need to know who all inhabits the girl. Make her sin.

Hmmm. Interesting.

“Never mind, come here. I have a gift for Sadie.”

“She’s tucked away for safety.”

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