Page 51 of Silas

Terror fills my veins, first ice-cold and then boiling, acidic and choking. Zeke is, without a doubt, the single cruelest human being I’ve ever known; the way he treats his wife makes the way Papa and Jerry treat me look like kindness.

I shrink against Silas even as I feel his bulk go rigid with tension. He turns to me, looks down at me. “Breathe, honey. He won’t hurt you.”

“The fuck I won’t,” Zeke snaps. “That’s my sister. She’s coming with me. She’s due one hell of a punishment, and I’ll enjoy the shit out of giving it to her.”

Silas spares me one more look. “Don’t be afraid.” He grins at me, cocky, confident, and calm.

He turns and prowls toward Zeke. Funny—I always saw my brother as big and scary—he’s taller than Papa, leaner, harder, and sharper. He’s strong, too, and a good fighter. I’ve seen him take down men twice his size in training matches. But suddenly, faced with Silas, he doesn’t seem so big or scary anymore. Silas has ten, maybe even twenty pounds of muscle on my brother, and the way he carries himself purely reeks of predatory power.

He stalks toward Zeke and doesn’t slow when he reaches my brother. His palm lances out, snapping into Zeke’s chest, launching him backward into the sliding glass doors. The doors whoosh open as Zeke reaches them, and he topples to his butt. Silas marches forward, snagging my brother by the beard—Zeke’s beard is long and thick and glossy, hanging to his chest. It’s his pride and joy, that beard, and he’s always stroking it, oiling it, brushing it. Silas drags him out of the store by the beard—Zeke scrambles, snarling curses and trying to get to his feet. Once the pair are outside the store and on the sidewalk between the entrance and the parking lot, Silas finally allows Zeke to reach his feet.

It’s a momentary reprieve.

Silas makes as if to walk away, turning his back on my brother. Zeke takes this as an opening—which is a mistake. Silas whirls, ducking under the punch thrown by my brother; Silas’s fist rockets upward and smashes with lethal force into Zeke’s throat.

My brother drops to the ground, gurgling, clutching his throat, terror in his eyes.

Silas goes to a knee beside him. “Now. Listen up, fuck-face, ‘cause I’ll only say this once. Naomi belongs tono one. Not you, not your father, not her so-called husband, not me. She’s her own woman. She chooses where she goes and with whom. You got me? Now. If you survive, you crawl back to that pathetic old pissant you call a father and tell him I sent you. My name is Silas.”

Zeke can only gurgle helplessly.

Silas regards him coolly. Then, with a nasty smirk, Silas pulls Zeke’s hunting knife from the camouflage sheath on his belt, grips him by the beard, and with a single yank of the knife, slices through the beard.

He pricks the tip of Zeke’s nose with the knife. “I could kill you right now, and I’d get away with it. But where’s the fun in that?” He re-sheaths the knife and sprinkles the hair from Zeke’s beard onto his face. “I see you again, I’ll do worse than cut off your beard, you filthy little shit.” He leans close, whispering. “I’ll cut off your fuckin’ balls.”

There’s a crowd watching, and when Silas rises to his feet, he glares around at them. “Fuck off, all of you.”

His tone brooks no argument, because all of them scatter.

He looks at me, grinning. “See? No big deal.”

I stare down at my brother. “I’m not coming back, Zeke. You can tell Papa that.”

“Don’t call him that shit,” Silas says. “He’s no father.”

“TellBuddyI said I’m never coming back. Tell Jerry. Tell all of them. I won’t. Never again.”

Zeke is gulping and gasping, writhing in agony. “Pay…” he rasps. “You’ll…pay…”

Silas just laughs, pushing the cart around him. “Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that, dickhead.”

I stand in place, looking down at my brother from a few feet away, watching him trying to get to his hands and knees, and failing. A bystander is at his side, trying to help him, but Zeke shoves them away. Typical.

I feel a little lighter, somehow. Like some portion of a burden has been removed from my shoulders, from my soul.

“Come on, honey,” Silas says, having put the bags in the trunk and returned the cart. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

I leave Zeke and don’t look back.

the cabal arrives

Silas

Miles, minutes, moments: they’re all tangled up like the cords of a pair of earbuds left in a drawer.

Naomi is dozing next to me, head resting against the window. The frayed hem of her new denim skirt has risen indecently high, baring a mouthwatering expanse of thigh. My eyes wander to my right time and again, to the pale shimmer of smooth skin. My mind offers up erotic scenarios in a flood of cock-hardening images: pulling over on the side of the road, shoving that skirt up around her slim hips as she straddles me. She’d tug the gusset of her panties aside and I’d slide inside her, slicking deep into her wetness, filling her until she cries out and gasps for more.

Laying her back onto the hood, those beautiful thighs spread wide to bare her delicate sex for me, and I’d bury my face between her legs and taste her essence and she’d scream for all the world to hear how good I can make her feel.