“What?” I understand her words, but I have no idea what she’s saying. “What are you talking about? The Father of Fire? That’s not real. None of this is. Mom.” I take her shoulders. “What’s wrong with you? If you can get free this easily, why haven’t you come to me before? We could have been away from here a long time ago. We need to go—”
“Go?” She shakes her head, her gray hair dull though her eyes shine. “We can’t leave. This is where we belong. All of this should be ours. And it can be. With you as the new Prophet, the compound can be something we’re proud of. Somewhere the faithful can be free.”
“Free? Here?” I grip her harder. “Mom, there’s no way to be free here. This is a prison. Every bit of it needs to be burned to the ground.”
“Let her go, pendejo.” Castro edges closer.
“It’s fine.” She pats him on the stomach. “Don’t worry. My son would never harm me.”
“And what’s he got to do with this?” I snarl. “He lets Dad hurt you. He—”
“And you don’t?” She may as well have slapped me.
I recoil and try to understand the person standing in front of me, but nothing is making sense.
“Just listen to her.” Grace moves closer to her side, the three of them staring me down. “We have a plan. Everything is already in motion. We’ve already given the Father of Fire a great sacrifice. He was so pleased with it that he’s shown us the way. It’s taken time, but we’re almost there, at the cusp. And we did it for you, Adam. So you can be the Prophet.”
My head spins, but I hang on to a single piece of what Grace said. “What sacrifice?”
Grace drops her gaze.
My mother reaches out again and takes my hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me. What have you done?”
Mom shrugs, as if she’s confessing to nothing more than an inadvertent mistake. “Just one of your father’s harlots. A girl. She was Noah’s Maiden. The one with the blonde hair—”
“Georgia.”
She nods. “Her.”
“You mutilated her, then killed her.” I can’t tell if I’m asking a question or making a statement.
“We did.” Mom says it so calmly, as if we’re speaking about dinner plans or current events, not the ruthless murder of an innocent. “It was so easy to lure her away. She kept talking about seeing her sister—until Castro tied her up.” She looks at her hands, the skin thinner now and spotted with age. “I didn’t know I could do it. Cut her throat. But it was so easy. Easier than I ever imagined.”
I clench my eyes shut, trying to set my world to rights when it is so, so wrong. I don’t know what to say. There’s nothing left. She’s gone. Whatever light she had in her when I was young has been beaten, tortured, and ground out of her. Now there is only darkness—the same shades that paint my father.
She is lost.
And I am in mourning. For her, for myself, for the life we could have had. Blinking, I open my eyes and look into hers. I don’t see my mother. She’s gone somewhere so far and so deep that I’ll never be able to reach her.
“Adam.” She speaks with my mother’s voice, but she is not my mother. “We had to. For you. Don’t you see? Everything we’ve done was for you. This is your chance to take what’s yours! Get rid of your father. Keep this place for yourself and your brother. You could make it pure again. Lead the people into the light. Show the Father of Fire why you deserve to be a king among men.” She pauses and turns her head to the right, looking through the trees toward the Cathedral. “We’ll have to do something about your father’s other whores and their bastards, but that can come later.”
Everything goes numb, and though my mother continues speaking, her words don’t make it through to me. My mother would never hurt anyone, especially not some young girl with her whole life ahead of her, and not children. But this creature isn’t my mother, I remind myself.
“—and once you’re the Prophet, I’ll be able to help you with the public side, guiding you as your mother. Noah will fall in line, as will the rest of the Protectors, and Castro can deal with anyone who gets out of hand. He’ll be your number one Protector and my companion. All the men will have to swear a new oath to you, and we’ll probably need to tighten the reins a bit at first to make sure they are obedient. But all the rest can continue—building Monroeville, consolidating our people under one umbrella, using them to work the land and make us self-sufficient. We’ll still allow several of them with high-paying jobs to work off-compound and increase their tithes in increments.” She tsks. “That’s something your father never understood. He wants them all here, but that doesn’t make sense when we can pull money from out there.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m rambling, but I’m just so excited to start this new chapter.” She takes my hands again, though I can barely feel her touch. “Just think of it—you, me, Noah, all of us a happy family again.”