Souls Unfractured
The air left my lungs at the mention of that fucking house. My hands fisted at my sides and I shook my head.
Maddie stepped even closer. “Do you know where your father went to? Do you know what happened to him?”
I flinched as the thought of my poppa pierced my mind. I shook my head. “No. I have no fucking idea what happened to that cunt,” I snarled. Then Maddie lifted the blade and held it out for me to take.
Maddie walked back into the bedroom and I watched her go. I looked down at the rusted old blade in my hand. All the feelings, about being trapped in that fucking hellhole, rushed back. I looked across at the hatch. The hatch installed when the cabin was built. The door that reminded me I was evil. A place to leach away the flames.
A place where he could continue to take me…
I suddenly felt sick.
Dropping the knife to the floor, I staggered back into the bedroom, to find Maddie on the bed. She was sitting down, naked, with her arms wrapped around bent legs. She was crying.
“Maddie,” I whispered as I inched forward.
She lifted her head and spoke. “In my life I had two things that I used to pray for. Two things that I imagined, if I could just obtain, I would be set free.” Maddie wiped at her cheeks. “I wanted Moses to die. I wanted to stand above him and know he was dead. And I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel safe in my heart. I wanted to know that I would never again be hurt.” She sniffed. Looking me dead in the eye, she emphasized, “And you gave me both. In fact, you gave me more than I wished for. Because you also gave me you. I fell in love with you. And I can touch you. I can make love to you, and I know completely, that I will not be hurt.”
My stomach turned and my chest tightened. Then she said, “You are living in a world where you do not know if your torturer is alive or dead. You lived in a house which echoes the methods under which you suffered.” She lifted her head and asked, “Of course your fractured soul cannot be fully… fully… unfractured. Because you are living with uncertainty, you are not truly free.”
Hating to see her crying, I hesitantly moved closer, and whispered, “Maddie.”
I could hear my deep voice break in my ears. Maddie lowered her bent legs and opened her arms. “Come to me,” she hushed out. I rushed to the bed and lay beside her, crushing her to my chest.
I held her as she cried in my arms. But all I could think about was what she’d said. I never knew what happened to my poppa. I never knew what happened to him after I left. What happened to our house? What happened to Isaiah’s body?
I then thought of the hatch in my living room. The one I’d never had the courage to open or step inside. But the one I kept to remind me of what I was—wrong. Evil. That I was darkness. That I was motherfucking death.
Even after I left that house, then the hospital, he would still take me, he would fuck the sin from my flesh, in my head… until Maddie. Because she made it all better. No getting fucked over the hatch by my poppa. No church. No snakes. No screaming… no pain…
Holding Maddie tighter, she eventually fell to sleep. But I couldn’t. All I saw in my mind was darkness: Isaiah dying in my arms, my mama gripping my fingers through the floorboards, then bleeding out on that bed, blade at her side, my poppa’s whiskey-breath rippling down my neck.
And my muscles tensed, my blood ran hot and I thought one thought …
… that motherfucker deserved to die...
Die by my hand, with my motherfucking blades...
*****
“Two more buyers down. That means the Klan are flexing their fucking muscles. We’re hanging back to see what their next move is, but if it continues, then a war will be coming, whether Rider’s backed the fuck off the women or not.”
I watched Styx sign, and heard Ky translate, “Tanner, you got anymore intel?”
Tanner shook his head. “They’re laying low on tech. But their new guy didn’t manage to hide all their accounts. And there’s a shit ton of money coming from a private offshore account. Israeli.” Tanner shrugged. “Gotta be that cult. And they’re pumping some serious arms to U.S. soil.”
My body tensed at the mention of that fucked up cult. Styx glanced to Ky. I could see the brothers’ rage in their faces too.
Then they both looked to me.
Because now, I too had a cult bitch. I had Maddie. I had just as much revenge in my blood for that fucked up pedo ring as the Prez and VP.
“We’ll keep watching our turf. But the game’s now changed. Landry and Governor Ayers have reach. They have half the feds on their books, we've half on ours. Could be a fucking interesting ride ahead.”