Page 52

I walked down the dirt path that led to the center, where the mass of flames were alight from the bundle of dry wood. Five men surrounded the pit of flames, all covered in long, hooded cloaks. They didn’t have to show their faces for me to know who they were. They were my husband’s soldiers. They believed in this atrocious cause just as much as my husband did. Blinded by some false perfection of what the world should be.
My husband has always been an overachiever on a larger scale. It would frighten me at times, because when he was fixated on something or someone he wanted, he stopped at absolutely nothing to get it. It was almost as though a blood thirst would start in his bones, and he wouldn’t sleep until he had his feeding. His latest obsession, I knew it wouldn’t pass. They never did. He always got what he wanted in the end, above all. But I had hoped he would change the plans, the rules.
Though, he said there were no rules. “” he would write, which means “There are no rules” in Aramaic. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, at least not right now, at this moment, but it wasn’t long before I would learn exactly what he meant.
I walked toward the men, my son cradled in my arms.
“Katsia, give me the boy.” My husband hurried from the other side, standing near a large, flat, cold stone.
I looked down to my little boy, my throat contracting and my tears welling up behind my lids. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t care about building a syndicate of men who would rule for generations to come. I didn’t care about riches or power. I cared about my child. But my husband swore that no harm was going to come to him, not one speck. So, slowly but gently, I headed toward the stone, the flickering of the flames lighting up the dark moonlit night like large fireflies.
“Put him down, Katsia. We will do no harm. That, I promise you.”
Clutching my son in my arms, the little swaddle wrap he was tucked into flush against my chest. “Your promises don’t do anything to calm my erratic thoughts, husband.”
He stepped toward me, taking my baby away and placing him down onto the rock before unwrapping the cloak I had him snuggled into. “Your feelings are no business to me, Katsia. Now, leave if you can’t handle this.”
“I will not leave my child with you, Humphrey. Not ever. Do it fast and give my boy back.”
His eye twitched, just as he drew his hand back and then pounded it across my face, a loud slap sounding out just as a sharp sting erupted over my cheekbone. I fell to the ground in a mess, clutching the damp , loose dirt ground under my fingernails. Pushing myself up slowly, I looked up at him from the earth.
“You call me Husband. Not Humphrey. Get up and stand like a real woman should. You’re embarrassing me.”
I stood again, squaring my shoulders. He looked down to my son, just as someone else came over clutching a metal stick.
“He has to be initiated through correctly,” my husband said, looking toward David, one of his men. “Bring me the girl.”
A young teenager was pulled from the forest, stuck in between two other cloaked men. She had a blindfold around her eyes, and her hands were bound behind her back. She had slits already sliced around her neck.
“What are you doing?” I asked Humphrey, watching the frantic girl pant for escape from beneath the gag in her mouth.
Humphrey smirked at me. “This is the ritual. It’s what every initiation has to go through after the branding, and then once again when he hits puberty.”
“What?” I whispered, because I had quite possibly lost my voice.
He walked toward me, running his rough hand down the side of my cheek. “Oh, sweet Katsia. I told you. This is the process, and you have to trust it.” But I didn’t. “This woman will be kept for him until he comes to puberty.”
“And then what?” I muttered, holding back the bile that was rising in my throat.
“And then she will take his virginity.”
I shook my head. “No.” But even as I denied it, the snarling grin that popped up at the corner of his mouth told me that he was far from finished with revealing his sick plans.
“And then he will kill her.”
With my stomach churning, the ringing of my phone interrupts my reading, and I fish it out, flicking to answer it without looking at the screen.
“Hello?”
“When the lights go out, and no one is about, will Madison scream or will she pout? Because one thing I know, that you may not so, is how you scream for me, down below.”