This time blood seeped from my face, and I began to involuntarily shake. “My… my mother?” I asked, and I saw the triumph clearly expressed in my father’s expression.
Gripping the doorknob, his eyes flared. “Your mother was tried and found guilty of witchcraft and dwelling with the Dark Lord. She welcomed Satan into her bed, and her joining with him produced you. She was found guilty of heresy and paid the ultimate price. She is now burning in hell for all eternity.”
He opened the door and glanced back. “You may have left this commune once, Delilah, but there will be no escape for you again. New Zion is a fortress, a stronghold keeping the Lord’s people safe from the malevolent evildoers beyond our great gates. You are a Cursed and, as such, you belong here with us for the sake of your own salvation. It will not be long before the Lord will return for us all. Prophet Cain reveals it is so, and when he does, you had better pray Brother Micah has been successful in purifying your tainted core.”
As the door slammed shut, I shook with fear. The ropes were burning my skin, tightly bound around my wrists and feet. Casting a glance round the room, nothing felt familiar. These quarters were nicer than I had been raised in with Bella, Mae, and Maddie. The walls were a shade of off-white; there were gauze curtains at the long, wide windows and cherry wood flooring beneath my feet. I felt like a prisoner trapped in a cell of luxury.
Curling up on the white linen that covered the bed, I let the tears fall. And fall they did. I was so confused, so torn. I wanted Mae and Maddie. I wanted to talk to them, to laugh with them, but above all… I wanted Ky. I cursed myself for running to the river tonight after we made love, after he declared his love for me. I cursed myself for not fighting my captors harder. For not screaming, alerting the Hangmen to my presence. But even now as I lay here on this strange bed, in this strange room, in this new and strange commune, daggers plunged into my heart. I loved Ky, and that love was pure, unguarded, but his love was a ruse, a spell, the consequence of what I was… and would always be?
As hard as it was for me to accept, I knew being here amongst my kind, my people… my saviors… was the place I had to be. As much as my heart broke second by second, I must be here in New Zion… I had to be saved from sin. Only then would I know if Ky truly could love the lost girl underneath.
Chapter Seventeen
Ky
Standing at the front of the compound, I pulled out a smoke and took a long sweet drag as I watched the back gate like a motherfucking hawk.
Reaching into my jeans pocket, I checked the time on my cell. Four hours had gone by, four fucking hours since those pointy-hooted bastards took my woman and we had no idea where. Tank’s fascist friend was scheduled anytime with intel, and as soon as we got what we wanted, I was gonna rip some fuckers apart, tear off their limbs, and club them with the fuckers. I may be some pretty boy good-looking bastard, but I was a good-looking bastard with zero remorse and a distinct lack of shitting morals.
A cough sounded beside me, and I saw Styx. He pulled out a smoke, lit up, and stood watching the gate with me.
“Y-you good?” he asked, blowing out his smoke and taking another long drag.
“I’ll be better when this Klan deserter gets here and tells me where they took my bitch.”
Styx nodded and we listened to the silent road, not a soul this far out on this country road in the middle of nowhere Austin. I checked my cell again; only five minutes had passed by.
Fuck.
I couldn’t settle, couldn’t deal with this shit. What if those fuckers were raping my bitch? What if they were taking her over and over, loving her screaming, getting hard off her fear… Or what if they’d killed her? What if all they wanted to do was send a message to the Hangmen, send one of our bitches to the boatman just to piss us the fuck off?
Did they want a war? Did they want our turf? Were they planning to trade in guns? Drugs?
“Y-y-you’re th-thinking too m-much, brother,” Styx stuttered. “D-don’t fuckin’ go th-there.”
Running my hand though my long hair, I threw my cherry to the ground and lit up another cancer stick. “Then tell me what the fuck to think, brother. Because right the fuck now, I’m going insane. They’ve got my woman, Styx, my motherfuckin’ woman. I ain’t loved a woman my whole life except my momma and my sister. I never thought I’d take an old lady. Thought you, Tank, and Bull were just pussy-whipped motherfuckers who’d made the wrong choice by giving up the pussy we get strutting through this place.”
I took another drag, feeling Styx watch me, and added, “I fuck like a damn god, lick clits like a fuckin’ sex toy, and can fuck for hours, Styx, hours. You know our old men were cunts, but I always agreed with them on one thing. Pussies are to be licked good, fucked hard—never worshipped. But fuck, man, Lilah, my fuckin’ innocent and crazy pilgrim blonde, knocked all that shit outta the park. Hell, build me a fuckin’ shrine to that bitch and I’ll worship it. She’s fuckin’ bewitched me, Styx, and it ain’t just those looks. It’s just out and out her.” My back hit the wall and I thought my chest was going to explode with the pressure tearing my sternum apart.
Styx leaned against the opposite wall, and I could see in his expression the brother was hurting too, for me, for his woman, hell, for the club. Those three crazy bitches had wormed their way into all the brothers’ hearts.
Staring at the gate, my vision blurred, and I said, “For the first time in my sorry twenty-seven years on this godforsaken Earth, I care about something more than the club, the freedom of the road, and my brothers. Now some fucker may have ripped it all apart, before me and my old lady gotta chance to get going.”