But Noctis keeps shifting the image until a third figure appears—grinning like the smug little shit he is, arm slung around Mark’s cousin.
Jonathan.
46
EVIE
“Looks like I arrived just in time.” Jonathan steps from the shadows, all pretense of the upstanding citizen erased as he surveys the forgotten space and meets my eyes. “I thought this was fitting, meeting in the basement of our church. Lord knows you’re too filled with sin to set foot among the pews. Isn’t that right, sister?”
My fingers grasp the chains suspending me, my breath coming in short, ragged gulps as I try to find a way out of this. But there’s nothing—nothing.
And I’ve wasted so much time. Years trying to fit into their version of what is right, that I forgot there’s more than this city—than the family I was born into. Tempest, the Seven, Silas—they’re my family. The ones who see all of me and choose to support me. To pick me up when I’ve been kicked down.
“Thank heavens you’re here, Jonathan.”
Mother’s gentle coo pulls his attention, gifting me a moment of reprieve from his stare. He’s always acted for her, insisted on giving her the version of him she expects. Hope bolsters my failing limbs, keeping me afloat in a sea of despair. Maybe thisisn’t as bad as I think. Maybe kidnapping and physical assault are Jonathan’s way of ‘purging my soul of sin’.
“I’m afraid Jameson got confused,” Mother says. The smile she offers Jonathan is forced, too tight around the edges, and there’s a slight wobble to her words. “Would you mind releasing me, dear?”
“Jameson did as instructed, Trisha,” a deep voice tsks from behind Jonathan. I crane my neck, looking toward the far end of the room, where the man I’ve called “father” my entire life steps from the shadows. “As did Jonathan.”
He strolls forward, around the messy stack of barrels, past Jonathan, and stops once he’s directly before my mother.
“Roy.” She makes a choking sound, something between a gasp and a sob, before schooling her features. “Thank goodness. You’re just the man I need. Help me down from here and we’ll go home. I had Maria marinate steak for tonight’s dinner. It should be ready soon.”
There’s a moment when I think she’s gotten him. That Roy will unbind her wrists and they’ll walk hand in hand up the steps. And I’ll be here, left bleeding and alone for Jonathan and Jameson to toy with.
“You almost had me, Trisha.” Roy starts pacing before her, his mannerisms eerily similar to Jonathan’s when he first discovered he could lock me in a room with a camera. “All this time I thought I’d found the one woman who complied with the Lord’s teachings. Women are weaker. Dumber. And meant toserve.”
The last word is a paralyzing growl delivered inches from her face. Spit flies across her cheek, tears pooling in her eyes for the first time.
“Jonathan warned me about Evie.” My stepfather’s cold, haunting eyes swing to me, dragging down the length of my body in a way that has bile searing the back of my throat. “Heshowed me pictures she took like a slut, meant to tempt even the best of us.”
“She’s fallen into sin,” my mother spits, matching his fury as she tries to redirect the fallout. “Punish her, Roy. Marry her off. Sell her. Do whatever you need to, but don’t place blame on the mother for the actions of the daughter.”
Hope is just as deadly as despair. And far more painful. Because the hatred staring back at me from my mother’s eyes hurts more than it should. She’s already shown her hand, waving the cards in my face, and yet I still want to believe there’s a part of her that loves me. That wants to see me safe. But this…
“Yes,” Roy drawls. “I thought surely I’d be able to beat back the talons of hell in my own child. I would ensure a daughter of my blood would be fit to marry and breed, despite her constant flirtations.”
“I told you, she needs the opportunity to atone for her sins,” Jonathan says, shaking his head. “The darkness is too deep. Evie needs to beg for forgiveness, like the rest of them.”
My stomach twists.
“And now that we know she’s not your daughter,” Jameson adds, flanking the other two as they train their hungry gazes on me, “or your sister, you two can join in the cleansing of her soul.”
“What do you mean?” My mother’s confusion rings in her voice, but I don’t dare look away from the three monsters before me. “Surely you can’t mean to beat her any further. Think of the cost of the surgeries it would take to make her presentable again.”
“Us,” my stepfather corrects, withdrawing a gun from his pocket.
Mother’s eyes go wide, her chest heaving, but she schools her expression, tilting her chin up even as he lifts the barrel to her chest.
“You meant to say ‘us’ instead of ‘her,’ Trisha,” Roy says. His voice pitches, the wild gleam in his eyes half-hunger, half-deranged fury. He scratches his chin with the gun, shaking his head as he starts to pace. “Because you’re just as guilty. All these years and the little bitch isn’t even mine.”
Roy points the gun at me, but Jonathan steps in front of him, tilting it down. “We must give them a chance to repent first.”
My mouth runs dry at the exchange. They really believe this shit. That they’re doing the right thing by abducting and torturing us. And the others. The other women they’ve alluded to. What happened to them?
“In need of saving,” Roy murmurs, his gaze settling on Mother’s suspended form. “If you can’t find absolution through us, then we’ll have no choice but to send you through the circuit. But I have faith it won’t come to that.”
