Deep Redemption

I was clenching my jaw so hard it ached. Without conscious thought, I drew back my hand and smashed it against the wall. “FUCK!” I shouted, the frustration I had been feeling for weeks—no, since I had arrived at this place months ago—reaching its peak.

My hand throbbed at its contact with the stone, but I did it again, roaring out my fury with every strike. Sweat poured from my brow as my already weak arm shook with the exertion. My throat was raw from my outburst, but I welcomed the pain. At least I was feeling something. I had sat back in numbness for so long, that even hurting, my body felt revitalized, my blood was reborn. It was anger, pure and true, but the emotion was welcome.

So damn welcome.

I panted, slumping against the wall. I smelled the tinny scent of blood; I had ripped the skin off my knuckles.

As if to add fuel to my fire, the commune speakers slowly crackled to life. I waited to hear the voice that sounded identical to mine. When it came, a shudder ran down my back. Judah. Judah, my only family, was fucking everything up. He was unrecognizable to me right now. My chest burned. I rubbed along my sternum to try and ease it. It didn’t work.

“People of New Zion, take up your arms. Practice until your hands bleed. We will be prepared for The Rapture. We must not fail when the devil’s men try to take us down. We are the holy warriors of God!”

I made myself take deep breaths as the now-familiar sounds of target practice came darting into the cells. My anger was replaced by feelings of utter hopelessness. I had no idea what Judah had planned. I had recently learned that what went on in my brother’s mind could never be predicted. Not even by me. But I knew whatever it was could not be good.

Judah wanted blood.

He was fueled with hate for the Hangmen . . . for anyone that stood in our people’s way. My stomach flipped. I knew I was the only one who could stop him, but none of the people knew that an imposter had taken their prophet’s place. I had no one to help me. I had no allies to free me from these walls. Judah’s guards were loyal and just as bloodthirsty as he.

I had no one to help me take back the reins.

In despair, I listened to shot after shot, to the guards demanding more accuracy from the people. Even from this cell I could feel the clogging thickness of fear coming from our flock—their nervous cries; their silences. They were all terrified. Judah’s words of hate had drawn them all to the edge. What happened when they went over was anyone’s guess.

“Rider?” Harmony’s voice came through the wall during a pause in the gunfire.

“Yes?”

“Why are you so angry? I hear it in you . . . I can even feel it through this wall.”

My confession was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. I liked Harmony talking to me. I didn’t want her to stop. She must have felt a safety, a kinship with me to have confided in me about what Judah had done, to express her subtle hatred for our faith. If she knew who I was, she would never speak to me again. She would assume I was just like my brother.

My lungs seized. Maybe I was.

I had acted like he had. I had sinned like he had . . . I had killed, I had allowed monstrous things to happen in the name of a God I was sure had neglected me.

We are exactly the same.

“Rider?” Harmony pushed.

My eyes stared off to the corner of the room. “Because there is no hope. No fucking sun in this dark midnight of hell.”

“There is always hope, Rider,” Harmony whispered and my heart cracked right down the center. A lump clawed up my throat, and I felt tears pricking in my eyes.

“Is there?” I asked, my voice breaking. “To my eyes there is none.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I used to think there was none too, in my darkest times. But then I found people that held within them a light I had never seen before, people I once would have perceived as an enemy. People that are good in their heart of hearts . . . it made me believe that somewhere, out there in the sinners’ world, lies further hope. A world unlike the one we know.”

Her beautiful voice rolled over me like a balm. I closed my eyes so I could hear it more clearly. When she spoke I felt like I had a friend. When I spoke to her, I felt it was the only time in my life I had ever spoken the truth.

I was me, whoever that man may be.

“Those people,” I asked and lay back on the floor, placing my mouth near the gap in the stone. My chest was to the ground. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to hear her soft voice. “Did they share our faith?” Harmony did not say anything. “I ask because I . . . I think I have lost faith in what we believe here in The Order. I think I have lost faith in the people that reside here too.” My eyes squeezed shut. It was the first time I had let myself speak those thoughts, feel their truth. I, Prophet Cain, had begun to doubt everything I was raised to be.

Months in solitude ensured you did nothing but think, day and night. Think of every little thing you had done in your life, of every action, every thought—good or bad. It was a torment that burned from within. Wondering if you were wrong or right . . . wondering if you were on the side of good, as you believed, or whether you had blindly embraced the darkness.

If there was a God, I didn’t feel him with me now. I prayed it wasn’t the devil polluting my soul as Judah had declared. I still believed that evil was real. I just wasn’t sure if I was that evil.

“Yes,” Harmony said cautiously, bringing me back to the question I had asked. “The people I love are from here too. Though they do not embrace the acts that hurt people . . . hurt innocent little girls . . . and boys.” I froze. Little boys were hurt too? “They are kind in their souls,” Harmony went on. “They selflessly gave me hope when all that I loved was lost to me, my light snubbed out by the stark cruelty of men.”

I stared at the tiny gap in the wall and wished more than anything that I could see Harmony’s face. The more she spoke, the more I wanted to know her. Her voice, since she had arrived, was my savior. I wanted to look into her eyes and see the fire that she harbored inside. These past few months I had been perpetually cold in my heart. I wondered if she could melt its ice. Silence the loud screams of doubt in my head.

“What are you thinking?” Harmony asked, gently soothing some of the pain within.

My lip twitched. She had read my silence for exactly what it was—worry. “I was thinking that I would like to see you. I . . . ” My stomach flipped. “I like speaking to you, Harmony. More than you could ever know. I like that you are here beside me.” I glanced down at the gray stone. “You arrived when I needed a friend most. Someone to trust, when I believed there was no one out there that I could ever let in again.”