Deep Redemption

She squeezed my hand tighter. “It may make me an eternal sinner, but one thought keeps occupying my mind. I keep praying for something that is savage and cruel . . . but I cannot stop.”

“What is it?” I asked in a rough voice.

Harmony took a deep breath. “I pray for death.” My muscles tensed. She wished to die? “For the prophet,” she quickly added, and I stilled. “I pray for Prophet Cain to die. I pray for our freedom from his enforced hurt and pain. And I think that could only happen if our leader died. If his cruel heart was no longer beating.”

I didn’t say anything in response. I didn’t say anything, because I fought with a greater internal war. A greater personal sin.

Because I was starting to pray for that too.

I was praying that Judah would be taken down.

I had started to pray that my own brother would die . . .

. . . and if those thoughts could only come from a sinner’s heart, then a sinner I was.

Chapter Seven

Rider

A week went by. A groundhog day of daily beatings by the disciple guards—and no sign of Judah. The only light was having Harmony beside me. It amazed me how quickly I had come to need her, covet her. Her hand in mine as we talked became the only thing that kept me from giving up.

Each day, Phebe would come to my room. She didn’t speak to me again after her confession. She washed me as instructed, and each day I watched as she grew further and further from the girl I once knew. I watched helplessly as she closed in on herself. Each day brought with it new bruises. And each day she became less and less of the vibrant woman she had once been as the consort to my brother.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway pulled me from sleep. I pushed away from the wall, filling the gap with the loose stone brick. I always put the brick back in place when the guards came for me. If they thought I had been talking to Harmony, they would punish her.

I wouldn’t let that happen.

The guards opened the door and entered my cell. It had gotten to the point where I didn’t even look into their eyes as they led me away. I didn’t even look at their faces as they pulled me to my feet. We took the usual course, the guards dragging me from my cell, down the hallways and out onto the path. Once in the now-familiar building, to my surprise, I was led to the room where I had talked with Judah earlier in the week.

My heartbeat sped up as the guards opened the door and threw me to the center of the floor, before leaving the room.

I heard another door open. I knew who would be walking through. I squeezed my eyes shut, my hands balling into fists on the stone floor. I breathed in slow, controlled breaths as I tried to make peace with the fact that I would see my twin again. Instead, a pit formed in my stomach.

He was my brother, yet I hated him. I hated my only family.

I pictured Harmony’s stunning face in my mind. Over the past several days, something had faded in her too. The light she shone so bright was fading to a dull glow. I pictured Phebe. I pictured her bruised face, the devastation in her voice when she confessed what her life had become.

“Brother,” Judah’s voice sliced through the war in my mind. I raised my head to see Judah standing before me. He stood as he always did—dressed in a white tunic, perfectly groomed with his hair down and eyes bright. Not a fucking care in his warped world.

“Judah.”

His eyes narrowed at the use of his birth name, but he shrugged and crouched down before me. “I see your attitude is very much the same, brother.”

“What did you expect?”

The flash of sadness in Judah’s eyes made me feel a slither of sorrow. “I expected you to repent by now. I have been waiting anxiously, expectantly, for the guards from your cell to come and get me. I expected by now that you would have asked me to come to you, to tell me you had thought everything through and that you want to be by my side. As it should be. I hope for it still.”

Judah’s dark eyes implored me to say it, to speak those words and join him. I wanted to. I wanted so badly not to feel this pit of doubt and disgust in my stomach. I wanted to take his olive branch and accept. I wanted it so much, but I just . . .

“Why the guns?” I whispered. Judah’s head tilted to the side. “Why do our people practice shooting day and night? They are not all soldiers. The women and children are not meant for violence. Prophet David declared the women to be home-dwellers. They are to procreate and keep the men happy. Not to fight.”

Judah’s face grew stern. “We are all soldiers in God’s holy war, brother. No person from our flock is spared. To win the greatest war of all, we all need to fight. Women and children too.”

“Fight who?” I asked. I needed to hear the plan from his own mouth.

I had to be sure.

Judah’s eyes shone with a crazed light and a vicious smile spread on his lips. “The Hangmen, brother,” he informed me. His hand slipped to my shoulder and he squeezed me with excitement. “God has revealed a great plan of revenge for everything they have done to us.” He leaned in closer. “For everything you had to endure when you lived with them all those years. They are to be punished by our hands. All of them. We will take God’s wrath to their gates and destroy them in their own backyard.”

“When?”

“Soon . . . ” Judah said happily. “Soon. In such a short time I will have conquered our greatest enemy, brought our salvation through marriage to the Cursed, and we will ready to embrace the coming end of days.”

“Peacefully?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Until the next enemy comes. Until the devil sends more of his sinners. Every person in the outside world is our enemy, brother. If we must fight them all, then we will.”

And then I knew. I knew that Judah’s quest for power would trump everything that our faith taught. I knew he would never back down. There would never be peace while he was at the helm.

He could never be redeemed.

“I want you at the wedding, brother. I want you to watch me wed the Cursed whore, then cleanse her of her original sin in front of our people.”

Every cell in my body turned to a heavy block of ice. The wedding . . . Judah would marry Harmony then take her in front of the people to begin the celestial exorcism of her sin. He would fuck her publicly after they had wed. And knowing my brother, he would do it violently.