“She will come around, she will forgive me. The girl is incapable of holding a grudge.”
“Did you even make an attempt to get to know her?” Dean asked in disbelief.
“What does that mean?”
“It means she is not going to forgive you. You hurt her too badly, she won’t put herself back in that vulnerable position again, with either of you.” The sympathy in Dean’s voice had Razer feeling fear for the first time that he wouldn’t get Beth back once he explained. He had never doubted that once she understood why he had broken it off with her they would resume where they left off. Now by the look in Deans eye, he felt he had overestimated the ability of Beth to forgive, if not forget.
“Come with me.” Dean left the parking lot, walking towards the church across the street.
“You two go on back to the club.” Shade nodded and left with Evie at his back.
Razer rode his bike across the street, parking it before going inside the church to find Dean waiting in his office. There was a filing cabinet and he was taking a key out to unlock it when Razer walked in.
Razer watched as he took out a medium size box and handed it to Razer. “Go home and watch a couple of these. When you are done, destroy them. I could only stomach watching a couple of them, but I think you need to see what you are up against.”
“Why are you helping me? You already paid your favor back to me.”
“This isn’t about you Razer. This is about a pastor doing what is best for a member of his congregation that he put in harms way.” Razer took the words like a punch in the stomach. Dean felt as if he had hurt Beth by giving Razer a chance with her.
Razer left without a word. Strapping the heavy box onto the back of his bike, he headed to the clubhouse. Once there, with the box in his hands, he searched for a private room with a television. Finding none, he ended up in the back room and finding it empty, he hooked up the VCR recorder that Dean had given him. Opening the box, Razer found each tape neatly dated and the title of the sermon Beth’s father must have taped. Razer started at the earliest date.
Hitting play, Razer took a seat on the couch and watched as the grainy film came to life. A tall thin wiry man with wire framed glasses stood behind the pulpit giving a sermon. It was a thing to shrink a grown man’s balls. With hell and damnation as threats, he gave a blistering sermon that would have put the fear of god into a grown man, much less the tiny girl sitting on the front pew by a rigidly stern woman who nodded her head in agreement with every sentence the preacher mouthed. Razer recognized Beth immediately and a smile touched his lips to see her sitting so quiet and still throughout the longwinded sermon. Not that Razer listened, he fast forwarded through much of it and was about to stop it when a movement from Beth’s father caught his eye and he pressed play once again. He was motioning Beth to stand in front of the large congregation.
“Now we come to the part of service where I give everyone a chance to repent their sins and take their punishment to be forgiven of your sins. My daughter will begin. Beth?”
Beth stared straight ahead as she stood before the congregation. Razer’s gut clenched, it was the same look she had given him earlier that night
“I am pleading for forgiveness from my Lord to forgive my tardiness to dinner twice this week. My mother works hard to make the meal and my father works hard to provide the meal. I should be more appreciative, showing my respect by being on time.”
“Beth, do you repent your sins?”
“ Yes, Pastor Saul.”
“Then kneel before your peers and take your punishment.”
Beth got to her knees. Her father stood behind her carrying a leather strap.
“REPENT” he screamed and the strap struck out hitting the girl on her back.
The church members yelled back. “Repent.”
Three more times the leather struck her on her back before her father allowed her to resume her seat. Razer was unaware of Shade and Evie entering the room standing behind the couch watching. Clumsily, Razer removed the tape and put in the next tape. Razer watched the next six tapes, each with Beth getting strapped for little or no reason. Razer noticed no other members of the congregation volunteered to repent their sins, yet each sat mindlessly as Beth took beating after beating. The room began to fill as member after member came to get dinner, becoming engrossed at the tapes playing.
Cash stood shakily behind the couch as one particular tape began. He remembered it well. In fact, he still had nightmares because of it. He had done two tours with the seals and no single sight had affected him as much as the tape brought back to life.
It wasn’t a regular church meeting, instead it seemed as if they were in a smaller church and the parishioners were standing around chanting. Razer didn’t know what they were doing or saying. They were dancing in place and chanting in a language he had never heard before. A large bearded man went behind the podium and pulled out a snake. Beth who had been stepping slowly back and forth between her parents was pushed forward as the snake was held out.
Beth did not speak, but continued moving, holding out her frail arms. The snake slid up her forearm, pale and obviously frightened, she couldn’t have been nine years old. A look of pain and a whimper escaped her as the snake reared back and struck her in the upper arm.
“Praise god.” The man pried the snake’s teeth from her arm, she fell to the floor crying as the parishioners circled around the whimpering child.” Suddenly the tape ended as if the machine taping it had fallen to the floor.
“I remember that day. I tried to get to her and knocked the machine taping it over.”
“What the hell was that?” Jewell said in shock.
“Snake handling. Her bastard of a father would take us into the mountains once a year to a sister church. Every year I watched the same scene. Didn’t Beth tell you when you saw the scars on her arms?”
“No.” Disgust was eating at Razer that he hadn’t tried to get to know Beth.
“Did they take her to the hospital? Why didn’t someone call social services?” Bliss questioned.
“No they never took her to the hospital. The proof of faith is when she doesn’t die. So no medical treatment, no one reported it to social services, and the Sheriff back then was a member of the congregation. The congregation prayed over her all night. Her little body was wracked with pain till morning. It was the last time I ever prayed.”
“The next year they went, they didn’t make her do it again did they?” Viper asked.
“As far as I know from what my grandmother told me, yes. A couple of times it was a close call, but she survived. The members took it as a sign of their faith, but I would say it was more likely she built up immunity to the venom. I wouldn’t know, I left town the next day and enlisted in the Navy. I never went back to that church.”
Razer went to the next box and picked a tape from a couple years later. Beth would be about eleven, he thought. It was more of the same, except the beating became worse. Razer noticed one deviation, she begged God’s forgiveness, never her stern faced father no matter how many times the leather struck her back.
The next tape had Lily’s first appearance. The small underweight child was brought forward as they explained the charity they had to give a child in desperate need a home. No mention was made of where she came from. Several tapes were gone through before the minister ordered Lily forward for a misdemeanor for punishment. When she would have stepped forward, Beth pulled her back explaining it was her fault Lily had committed what had been deemed as sin. The pastor thwarted in his desire for new prey and took it out on a blank faced Beth. This continued on until a tape when the pastor ordered Lily forward and when Beth would have stepped forward, was denied.
“You will sit Beth, Lily will take the punishment for letting you influence her and then I will punish you for your part in it. It is time that Lily should learn not to let you force her from the path of righteousness.”
The strange part was that Lily didn’t look frightened. A l
ook of peace came over her and she clasped her hands in front of her. Her silky black hair falling forward as she repented in a strong voice. When the leather struck her, she didn’t flinch or move, her voice the same monotone as before.
“I am going to throw up,” Natasha warned.
Shade walked forward and jerked the tape out of the VCR, throwing it at the television, busting it with sparks flying and not one member chastising him.
“Did that shit continue until the bastard got killed?” Razer asked Cash
“No, by then the new sheriff was in town and from what my grandmother wrote me, he had heard of what was going on, but no one would talk. Beth and Lily were home schooled, so he couldn’t get the girls alone to talk to them. The next day after that, Beth disappeared for an afternoon. The parents searched for her and found her at the restaurant across from the Sheriff sitting eating a sundae. Granny wrote she was frightened for Beth that following Sunday, but the new Sherriff showed up before church and had a talk with Pastor Saul. After that the Sheriff was there every church meeting, rain or shine. The girls both entered school the next school year also.”
“The sheriff probably threatened them with social services,” Bliss guessed.
Cash gave an evil grin. “Bet he threatened to kill him if he touched them again.”
“She won’t forgive me not after what I did. I humiliated her in front of everyone, just like he did. She was hurt and I ignored her just as those people stood around and didn’t do a damn thing.” His hands clenched into fists. “She begged me to talk to her in private…” Razer couldn’t continue.
The women’s smothered sobs could be heard in the silence of the room. The men moved to stand by their brother who stood staring sightlessly at a broken television, with no hope in his heart that he would get the girl and did what they always did, support their brother and come up with a plan of action. Because this mission was a rescue long overdo.
Chapter 20
The week ended up becoming a nightmare for Beth. Her clients seemed to be abnormally demanding and by the weekend she was worn out. As she drove home, she refused to let herself think of Razer and the customary Friday night gathering at his house. When she got home, she showered, but found herself antsy and couldn’t settle down. Determined to get Razer and his activities out of her mind, she texted the girls she had met at the gas station on the way to visit Lily.
She had been surprised when they had first texted her and the conversation was stilted. Several times she had wondered if they were trying to get information out of her about The Last Riders, but when she hadn’t responded to their questions, the conservations had turned to girl talk. The women were as bored with their lives as she was with hers. They had met up a couple of times, going to the movies or out to dinner. Both times Beth had driven to their town. Tonight they were coming to Treepoint and they were going to meet up at the Pink Slipper, a nightclub on the outskirts of town. It was the direct opposite of Mick’s, with regular guys wanting to hook up. Beth had never been there before, but her new friends had wanted to celebrate Sex Piston opening her own beauty salon.
Beth dressed in a black dress with a plunging neckline that complemented her full breasts. The dress came to below her knees, but the silky feel made her feel seductive. She slipped on her black heels and jewelry and was ready to leave. She was almost out the door before she turned back and changed her shoes to dark purple high heels. Now, feeling as if she was going out to have fun instead of a funeral, Beth left to meet her friends.
Beth waited at the door for the girls to show up. A bright green four-door Chevrolet parked and out they came, dressed like biker bitches. With the leather skirts or pants cupping their asses and black t-shirts showing pert breasts, they made Beth feel old and ready to retire.
“Hey girl been waiting long? Would have been here sooner, but T.A. had to stop for a piss.”
“Don’t blame me, you drive like my grandma.” The good-hearted ribbing continued until long after they were seated at a large table.
“Ok, let’s order some drinks and get the party started.” Killyama ordered the waitress to bring drinks, then sat back proceeding to flirt shamelessly with a good-looking blond man at the bar.