Page 64 of Judas

Sucking in the deepest breath I can manage, I look around the belly of the tree back at the lodge. It’s quiet again. My eyes have adjusted enough to see movement coming out of the side of the porch—bodies. People. I watch as one of the figures shoves the other down what I’m guessing is stairs, and they land at the bottom and let out a wail. Almost similar to the scream before but peppered with laughter.

What the fuck.

In an instant I’m inching forward, keeping my steps light enough to not attract their attention even while they get louder and I close in on them. Hands squeeze my weapons like lifelines, as if I’m not walking onto a battlefield bringing a knife to a gun fight. All nerves and adrenaline until the sight before me makes my knees buckle and I’m back on the ground. It’s… Lucien and Sadie.

“Get up!” Lucien shouts at her. He stomps over, reaching for the clothing that barely covers the bulk of her body, and snatches her up by her shirt. She continues to laugh at him. Full delight in her features, ones that are not as bruised and swollen from the security cameras I watched a good week or so ago. No, she’s healed now.

He drags her behind him; she’s digging her heels into the dirt and rocks of the forest floor. Pulling back and making him struggle to lead her away from the house. Forcing him to putin work if he wants her to do much of anything. Hands circle his wrist where her nails are digging into the flesh there, but he doesn’t flinch at that pain and keeps hauling her along with him.

“To ward the evil from the land, it must be cleansed in the fires of hell,” Lucien recites.

My gaze moves ahead of them, searching for where I think he may be taking her. Two heavy wooden crosses come into my line of sight and I’m sucked back into the dreams I used to have of Sadie. Nailed to crosses that look just like those; screaming as skin melts off of her body after Lucien sets her ablaze. Even the scent is present—death, dirt, and rot. I look around and gag when I spot an arm sticking halfway out of disturbed ground. The fingers have been gnawed down to the bones from the wildlife, the remaining muscles are bloated and slipping under the skin.

Fuck, I’m going to be sick.

Her maniacal laughing brings me back to the two of them. Sadie is still battling Lucien but he’s not putting up with her shit. He secures a cord around her wrists and wrenches her arms over her head. Standing close to the cross now, he’s able to fling the cords slack over one of the rungs. Stepping around, he takes hold and pulls until Sadie is on the very tip of her toes—her never-ending voice gravely and unnatural.

“In the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered: and let them that hate Him flee from before His Face!” Lucien bellows.

Sadie does nothing but wiggle and try to lean forward. The contorting of her arms looks painful as she is suspended while leaning forward. The insistent crowing has now faded to a softer clamor—her mouth moving as if she’s repeating the same words Lucien speaks.

“We cast you out, every unclean spirit, every satanic power, every onslaught of the infernal adversary, every legion, everydiabolical group and sec, in the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ!”* he continues.

“God the Father commands you. The Son of God commands you. God the Holy Ghost commands you. Christ, the Eternal Word of God made of flesh, commands you, who humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, to save our race from the perdition wrought by your envy.”*

She’s thrashing now; I can see the bend and twist of her bones beneath the pressure of her suspended arms. Even her body shakes and trembles as she mutters, and the uneasy sound of her giggles perforate Lucien’s prayer. Testing him, tongue lashing at the words she mimics.

He’s exorcising her and I can’t fucking look away.

“Begone, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of man’s salvation. Give place to Christ in Whom you have found none of your work; give place to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church acquired by Christ. Powers and Dominions of heaven are humbly submissive, this Name which the Cherubim and Seraphim's praise unceasingly repeating: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of Hosts!”*

Her screams are so loud, drenched in pain and suffering. I don’t know why he’s doing this, why he’s come so far to hurt me and my family, but he’s demented. Deranged, obsessive beyond anything normal, and he needs to pay for his sins. Shifting to the side, I move around the trunk of a tree a bit more. Trying to step over an uprooted tuber, it catches my foot instead and throws me to the ground. Snapping my head up, I see Lucien's profile before his irritating voice calls out to me.

“Are you watching, Nadia?” His voice freezes me in place. “Keep up, Nadia. Watch how I bend and twist her. Watch how I ruin her.”

With a shove, I scramble to my feet and look at the enemy—my brother—and how he has my daughter hoisted up for a worldof absent people to watch her sacrifice. Taking a few hasty steps, Lucien lifts his hand and shakes his condescending finger at me. Tsk-ing me and raking his hypocritical glower up and down my body.

“Don’t. I will light her up, Nadia. Plans change, as you can see. I hadn’t intended on nailing my niece to the cross, but that nagging voice in her head has caused more trouble than I’m willing to deal with any longer. So, here’s what we are going to do. You can climb up there and cut her throat yourself, kneel at my feet like you’ve should have done since the beginning and I’ll hang you by your neck next to her. Or I light all three of us up in this forest. Be quick, as I said, I’m at the end of my goddamn patience!”

This psycho… there’s no fucking way we are related. Not by birth, not by choice, nothing. Hard-ass, that’s what my dad raised me to be, not some perverted angel of death. Gripping the baton, I take another step forward. Slow and steady so he doesn’t do anything additionally stupid. Watching every little tick and movement, his own cautious glare follows me. Which, if the Darkwater riot was any indication, he will follow through and set this place on fire.

Lucien won’t let this go. Not an obsession he’s had for the bulk of his waking life. He wants me, I’ll trade, let him have me—go with him, disappear, whatever he wants. The lunatic can kill me for all I care, as long as Sadie is set free.

Her life over mine.

Only ten feet from him now, I lift both hands and show him the weapons and kneel. Lowering as if I’m being held at gunpoint, my grey eyes meet his slate colored ones as I simultaneously drop the baton and brass knuckles to the damp woodland floor. Lucien flicks his wrist, beckoning me over, and I go willingly—leading the lamb to slaughter. Lucien reaches for me when I’m at arms length, and his touch is dauntingly gentlewhen he cups my face. This is the closest I have been to him since the day he smelled me. He never got that close again, even when we were in the pit, and hell it’s uncomfortable. He brushes his filthy fingers through my hair a few times, tangling them in the silky strands reverently. I turn my head slightly to look at Sadie, and he yanks me back to him—glaring darker now. Displeased with my attempt to keep eyes on my child.

“Don’t look at her, look at me.”

“Why are you doing this, Lucien?” Murmuring for him, I don’t want to drown out Sadie’s sounds. I need her to stay with me.

“Because, whore, not all people should have children. People like our parents have released plagues on this earth that cause more destruction and chaos. Your daughter is proof of that. Listen to the devil writhing in her. She speaks in tongues, is violent, and uncontrollable.Youdid that, you gave her life when there shouldn’t have been one. Now, you need to be punished for tainting a world the Lord gave you out of the kindness of his heart.”

His fingers are brushing against my cheeks now, peering into me as if he’s searching for the answers he swears he has. Looking deep inside of me for a soul I’m sure I have but it belongs to someone else. Not to Lucien’s creator, not to anyone else. It’s Kace’s. It’s Sadie’s.

“Lucien…” My lips move in a tender whisper.

“Things will be alright, sister. Trust in me, trust in the Lord.”

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