Page 108 of Malachi
“Well, look what we have here.”
Ice ran cold through my veins at the sound of my father-in-law’s voice. I’d know it anywhere.
My spine stiffened as I stood straight, stepping reflexively in front of Talia’s still crouched form.
“What do we do?” Delilah whispered behind me, moving to kneel next to Talia and support her. My heart thundered. It felt like it would beat so violently it would come clear out of my chest and up into my throat. What would we do? Did we make a run for it? Did we wait for our husbands to rescue us?
That sounded like a terrible idea, relying on someone who wasn’t even physically here.
“Where do you think you all are going?” The Reverend’s voice may have sounded as normal as any other day, but there was something lurking, just beneath the surface. An edge of danger and evil that I had never noticed before.
Warning alarms were sounding off in my mind, telling me to run. They had never been louder in my life. My foot actively shifted, wanting to bolt and find safety.
I watched through my peripheral vision as the lot of them, the six Elders gathered, slowly moved around us. They were circling us.
This was bad.
Very bad.
I needed to run.
Now.
Now!
My inner self was begging at me to just move, to go anywhere, as fast as I could. But the threat posed to my new family kept me locked in place, stationary and unmoving.
“Did you actually think it would work?” Reverend Jacob scoffed with a humorless laugh.
“What are you talking about?” Ruth questioned cautiously.
“Did you actually think you’d get away with it? With your little plan?” He waited for one of us to answer. When none of us did, he simply scoffed, continuing his questioning. “What did yougirlsexpect to accomplish on your own, anyway? Did you expect to run all the way to St. George, stop the first cop you saw, and tell them all the lies that you’ve been fed by your traitorous husbands?” He continued,tskingat us mockingly.
“The things we have uncovered aren’t lies, Reverend. They are the horrible, ugly truths of Zion. And you aren’t going to get away with it any longer. We won’t let you continue hurting those girls,” Delilah seethed.
“You think I haven’t gotten away with it already, over and over, for years?” The Reverend said dismissively, not even bothering to deny it any longer. “That’s cute. Definitely an odd word to use for a woman of your size, to be sure,” he mocked Delilah.
I wanted to be shocked. I wanted to be floored that the man who had preached from the pulpit every Sunday of my life could ever utter such hateful words to anyone, let alone a sweetheart like Delilah.
But I wasn’t shocked.
I was over being shocked.
I was over being scared.
I was ready to fight.
“You think you can stop us, but our husbands know everything and —”
“Knew,” the Reverend corrected. It took a solid minute for me to process what he was saying.
“Excuse me?” I quietly asked, feeling fear pool into the pit of my stomach, heavy as a rock.
“Knew. Your husbandskneweverything. Grammar is key, you know, and seeing as how you are no longer the wives of the Temple brothers, but the widows of them, I just have to admit this one thing. I’m not afraid of you. Never was. Never could be.” His words were everything evil in this world, cutting through each of us in their own way, with their own damage.
“Our husbands are —” Talia stated with a shuddery breath.
“Dead. Yes. Quite dead. It’s amazing to see what kind of damage a bullet can do to a person’s body. It’s crazy. And a mess. But it doesn’t matter much,” the Reverend chuckled.
