“Precious boy, you are home,” he said, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I understand you’re here with your sister today. Tell us your name, and where you come from.”
The boy hesitated again. “My name is Clay. Live on a farm with my mom and dad and my sister. You…your friends killed my parents.”
His voice trembled, and Claire looked as horrified as I felt.
“An unfortunate casualty of the cause, Clay,” Jim J said softly, as if this fucking guy had a sympathetic bone in his body. “We appreciate your sacrifice. I promise that if you work hard and devote yourself to the cause, you will discover a whole new family right here within the Order, and a life that you couldn’t possibly have imagined living on that little Wasteland farm.”
Even from a distance, the kid looked like he was about to burst into tears, but he was hurried off the platform by an attendant. Jim J smiled again as the masked crowd applauded him—there were even a few cheers. I shook my head in disgust. Claire just looked heartbroken.
Jim J let the applause die down before speaking again.
“Dear family, I can finally show you the gift I’ve promised,” he said, happy as a clam. “For your loyalty, you will be rewarded with the one true gift: life.”
Jim J drew a jagged, jeweled dagger from his jacket pocket, and before I even knew what the hell was happening, he plunged it into his own chest. He sighed, then twisted it, groaning.
“What the actual fuck?” I breathed.
Claire’s eyes were wide as saucers. “What is he—”
Before she could finish, he’d pulled the dagger out. Blood spurted everywhere, but the man had an honest-to-God smile on his face. He didn’t even seem to feel pain. He held up the dagger, and an attendant came running.
“Again, Sampson,” Jim J told him. “Show the people that this is no trick.”
Sampson took the dagger and stabbed Jim J again in the chest, this time with even more force. He pulled it out and stabbed again, and again, and then I lost count.
A minute later, Jim J was still grinning, even as his life bled out of him onto the stage.
“So, you see, family, that Odessa’s gift is true,” he said to the crowd, who broke into deafening cheers. They were loving whatever the fuck just happened. “The Mistress of Cruelty rewards me with eternal life. Once we achieve the Ascension, I will be able to grant each of you this same gift. Remember this as we take all that is ours.”
He took out a handkerchief and casually started to clean the dagger. I exchanged a look with Claire, who looked as shellshocked as I felt.
“Whatwasthat?” I asked her.
“An illusion,” she replied breathlessly. “There used to be people—magicians—in the Old World who used illusion to make magic seem real. But they were just skits.”
“Gotta say, that’s the best damn skit I’ve ever seen,” I said.
She bit her lip, looking unsure. But Jim J had already moved on, ushering Claire’s mother onto the stage.
“Welcome our guest speaker: Meredith Ainsley. Woman of my heart. Mother of the Vessel. Odessa sent her to me, in the knowledge that I would have need of her strength and courage, and of the Vessel she once bore into this world—a Vessel for my Ascension.”
I saw Claire gulp, and I squeezed her hand.
“It’s alright,” I soothed. “She can’t hurt you. Take another breath. Slowly.”
She did, in and out, just as her mother started speaking.
“Family and friends,” Meredith said with a malicious little smile. “Thank you for that warm welcome. I come bearing a history that holds lessons for our glorious movement, lessons from the Eye itself.”
“You may know that before I met our Jim J, I was married once,” she continued, and the crowd booed. “Some of you knew Brandon, and some of you even witnessed his greatest failure: the rebellion of ’83. Of course, Omega suppressed all knowledge of these events, so if you’re in the dark, you aren’t alone. Together, we conceived the Vessel: the key to Jim J’s Ascension.”
Claire’s grip on my hand was now painful, and I murmured more comforting words, wishing this shitshow would just end already.
“During the Great Sickness, when we moved into what would become the Cave, Brandon had so many ideas of how the compounds would save humanity. But, as we now know, it became nothing more than power seized by those too weak to rule in the Old World: Omega.”
There were jeers from the audience at that last word. I shot Claire a look, but she shook her head. She didn’t know what Omega was any more than I did.
“But Brandon was a visionary. An artist.”
