Page 35 of Beautifully Shattered (Secrets & Scars #3)

“I was terrified of you that night.” I gesture to Jols and JD as well. “All of you.”

The image of him kneeling in front of Tahli and talking quietly is ingrained in my brain.

“But then, when my little sister opened her bedroom door and I was sure you were going to hurt her, you lowered yourself to her level, and spoke to her. You even lifted your mask so she could see your face.”

He nods. “That’s right.”

“What did you say to her?”

Pushing off the wall, Ringo closes the distance between us, my head tipping back as he towers over me, his fingers lifting to brush gentle knuckles over my cheek.

“I told her she was brave for reaching out to Lexi for help, and she asked me if I’d keep you safe, and I told her I would.”

“She wasn’t scared of you,” I point out.

“She knew we were coming. She knew Lexi was sending help.”

“But you must have looked like huge monsters to her.” My eyes drop to his chest, remembering how he’d told her to go back to bed, and that our parents had been put in the naughty corner for a while.

“Probably.” Ringo’s voice draws me back to the present, and I blink away the memories so I can focus on the here and now. “You ready to take a look.” He jerks his head over his shoulder, and I nod, taking his hand as he leads me down the hallway .

Tahli’s room is tidy, but her bed is unmade, which means when they left, they probably grabbed her straight from it and ran.

I bet she was so scared.

My room still has the locks hanging from the outside of the door, and when I open it, everything is the same as before that night apart from some stains on the carpet over by the far side of my bed.

Bloodstains, I realise, remembering how I’d cut myself on the glass deliberately, smearing blood on my face in a twisted attempt to look scary, hoping it would keep my parents away from me when they came back.

The shattered window has been replaced, the outside shutter rolled all the way up, making the room look like a pretty teenage girl’s space.

All I see is ugliness.

I rummage through my drawers, finding nothing of importance since Mum took everything from me.

I shove some clothes into a bag, happy I’ll finally have something of my own instead of wearing other people’s clothes, and then I hurry to the bathroom to get my personal items from there.

JD and Jols take my bags out to the car, leaving me and Ringo to continue our search of the house.

Maggie’s room is pristine. Her bed is made, and I just know she would’ve helped Mum prepare to flee, leaving Tahli out of the loop.

A quick search of her room gives me nothing other than her notebook which has a few passages from the Script of Symme scribbled inside .

In my parents’ room, their scent hits me the moment I step in, and my stomach lurches. What’s even more surprising is how messy it is.

The bed is unmade, my dad’s clothes scattered everywhere, which is unusual, and there are dirty plates piled up on his bedside table.

“That’s different,” I mutter, pointing to the dishes, and Ringo’s brows shoot up.

“Not like your olds to leave dirty dishes around?”

I shake my head. “They never ate in here. Maybe that changed after I was taken from them.”

Ringo frowns. “Maybe.”

JD and Jols come back in, and Ringo chats to them while I dig through my mother’s drawers, finding my old phone and charger, which I pocket, and my licence and bank cards.

She’s probably drained what little money I had, but having access to the things that were mine is important to me, so I reclaim them, and keep searching.

I’m not sure what I’m hoping to find. Maybe any clues about where they could be, though I know it’s a long shot.

I’m about to give up when I decide to look under the mattress and find what looks like an old scrapbook.

Frowning, I tug it out and drop it on the bed, gaining everyone’s attention.

“What do you have there?” Ringo asks, and I can see him moving closer in my peripheral, so I open the cover to see my mother’s name scrawled out in a purple marker.

Priscilla Louise Bane s

My breath stutters as I re-read it.

Priscilla Louise Banes

Surely I’m misreading that. Her maiden name was Bates. I’m sure of it.

“Angel?” Ringo asks, concern lacing his tone, and I angle the book towards him and point to the name.

“Read this out to me.”

His whiskey eyes flick to mine in confusion, his brows knitting together, but he nods, glancing down at the page.

“It says, Priscilla Louise Ba…” His eyes snap up to mine.

“Tell me I’m misreading it.” I rush out. “It should say Priscilla Louise Bates . That’s what she’s always told me her maiden name was.” I suck in a shuddering breath. “It says Bates… right?”

His eyes flick back down to the page, and he slowly shakes his head.

“Angel… it says Priscilla Louise Banes .”

I jerk away from the scrapbook like it’s going to burn me, but in the next second, I have it in my hands again, turning the page.

There in the middle of the page is a photo of a very young version of my mum. I know it’s her. She’s shown me pictures of herself as a child before, just never this one.

“Fuck,” JD mutters over my shoulder, and I can feel him and Jols flanking me on one side, and Ringo on the other. “Is that…”

I nod before he can finish. “That’s my mum,” I whisper, pointing to the little girl in the picture. “And that man…”

I can’t bring myself to finish, because surely this is some sick joke ?

“That’s Banes. Minister Banes,” Ringo mutters in a deep growl, and I shake my head in disbelief.

A youthful version of Minister Banes stares out from the photo, and on his knee sits my mum. Probably only six or seven years old.

Shocked, but desperate for answers, I flip to the next page, finding a photo of my mum as an early teen, surrounded by kids a similar age. They don’t look happy, but they don’t look miserable either. Just eerily neutral, like it’s a class photo where they weren’t allowed to smile.

“That fucker looks familiar,” Ringo growls, jabbing a finger at one of the boys in the picture, and my heart slams to a stop.

“Oh shit. That looks like that Daniel fucker,” JD snarls, but I shake my head.

“Not Daniel. It’s his dad. Karl.”

“Did he and your mum grow up together? Go to the same school?” Jols asks what’s running through my head.

“I… I don’t know.” I glance over my shoulder at Jols. “My mum never mentioned him, and when I first started seeing Daniel, it seemed like they didn’t know each other when we introduced our parents.”

The frown pulling at Jols’ face matches mine.

This is just all too confusing.

Turning the page again, I find a picture of a woman with her back to the camera, wearing a white gown like the one my mum forced on me that day at the chapel.

It was a wedding dress, and as I look closer at the picture, I can see the woman in it is walking down the aisle of a church.

“What does that mean?” JD asks, pointing to the scribbled writing below the picture.

“One blood to bind. One womb to bear. One heir to rise.” This will be me soon.

“It must be scripture,” I mutter. Turning the page, I gasp.

In the centre of the page is a grainy photo of a naked woman standing in what looks to be a shallow barrel, with other women around her bathing her in a milky liquid.

“The fuck…” Ringo rasps next to my ear, leaning in closer as he reads out the script written under it. “The body is not mine. The will is not mine. Let Symme shape me.”

I suck in a sharp breath as I read the words my mother has scribbled under the scripture. “I’m excited to give myself to him.”

“Uhhh, I don’t know about you guys, but this is giving me the creeps,” Jols whispers like we are about to get sprung by a lurking spirit.

“That church really is a cult, isn’t it?” JD asks, and Ringo lets out a low “hmmm” as I turn the page, my eyes going straight to the scripture first, reading it in my head.

“Before the Eyes of Flame, we bind blood to blood. Flesh to flesh. Womb to seed. Obedience to order. By right of line, let this vessel be claimed.” Today was Sally’s ritual. Soon it will be my turn.

A chill runs up my spine at the possible meaning of those words, and when my eyes drop to the picture stuck underneath, oxygen gets trapped in my lungs.

The photo shows a little girl, no older than fifteen or sixteen, lying on a table at the church altar.

Her dress is hitched up. Her legs spread wide, and a man in a suit is standing between them with a blindfold over his eyes.

Pain twists her face, and pleasure contorts his .

There’s no mistaking what’s happening… he’s having sex with her, perhaps taking her virginity with people watching on.

Minister Banes stands in the background, looking on with a pleased, almost proud expression. Behind him, the congregation is gathered, their mouths open like they’re singing… or chanting.

“Please tell me that’s not what I think it is?” Jols whispers, and I shake my head, too stunned to speak and tell her it’s exactly what she thinks it is, so I turn the page, needing more answers.

This time, there are two more pictures staring back at me.

The first is of a man, bare-chested, being anointed with trickles of blood on his chest from a chalice. The picture next to it is of the girl on the table, teetering on the edge with her legs spread wide, and Minister Banes holding the chalice between her thighs…

“Oh my fucking God… is he getting anointed with her hymen blood?” Jols screeches, and all I can do is nod as I read the scripture and my mum’s handwritten thoughts underneath.

“She bleeds for him, so he may rise through her.” I’m ready.

What the actual… I shake my head, bile rising in my throat as I shove the scrapbook away across the mattress, hearing it thud to the floor on the other side.

“This is sick. What is this?” I spin, completely freaking out as I face Ringo.

“Did my mum grow up in this cult? That’s it, isn’t it?

Otherwise, why would there be a photo of her on the Minister’s knee?

Is her maiden name really Banes? Please tell me it was just some sick fascination with the cult leader. ”

I’m losing it. Spiralling. Shaking my head, my stomach churning as I try to make sense of what this is.

Yet as I line up what we just saw in that scrapbook with what happened in that chapel only a few weeks ago, I know the wedding ceremony they wanted me to be a part of was so much more. Something sick and vile.

“Shhhh, Angel.” Ringo tries to soothe me, cupping my face. “Calm down. You’re safe, remember.”

I shake my head. “I might be safe, but Tahli’s not. I need to find her!”

“We’ll find her. I promise,” he rasps, but then he stiffens, his head snapping up like he’s caught a sound, and I force my ears to focus.

That’s when I hear it. A car door slamming shut, right outside.

My eyes go wide, and JD hurries to the window, peering past the drapes .

“There’s a car in the driveway.”

Then, as the last word leaves his mouth, the front door swings open and slams shut with a deafening crack.