The Prodigy Slave, Book Three: The Ultimate Grand Finale (Revised Edition 2020)

by Londyn Skye

  Despite the searing pain from the bullet that Elijah had lodged in his shoulder, Gideon kept his horses galloping at full speed. His only focus was on carrying out James’s plan for Lily. He recalled that James told him to get Lily to Harrison, if all else failed. Fail was now an understatement. Gideon’s shoulder was bleeding too badly to carry on to Harrison’s home without treating it. Once he was certain that Elijah was no longer a threat, he pulled over and hid in a cave. He bravely removed the bullet from his own wound, stitched it, and carried on trying to find Harrison. As misfortune would have it, Harrison was out of town indefinitely, tending to an important murder trial. Assuming he would return soon, Gideon had hidden in Harrison’s barn and waited. In that time, he did all he could to take care of Lily, who was now drifting in and out of consciousness. But Gideon, himself, suddenly felt his own body beginning to fail as he waited. When Harrison did not return home by nightfall, Gideon felt he had no choice but to take Lily to his good friend, Ava. Out of desperation, he then began making his way to her tiny hidden hospital. He was weak and disoriented by the time he arrived, but Gideon was determined to get Lily to safety and save her life … just as determined as James had been to save his little boy’s. Gideon’s determination and Elijah’s bullet, however, had ultimately cost him his life.

  … Dr. Gideon Whitfield was the final victim of Elijah’s vengeful killing spree. He had senselessly taken three lives out of jealousy and anger, while on in his quest to avenge the death of his parents and destroy the relationship of a couple that he now realized never deserved it. Regret for his actions slowly began to devour him the night Elijah sat around the bonfire, listening to the way James spoke so passionately about his love for Lily and Rose. His words brought clarity to the reason James had attacked him in a blinding rage when he spoke ill of Rose the morning he arrived at camp. Elijah now believed he deserved to have his skull nearly bashed in for it. In fact, whenever he recalled what he said about Rose, he got sick to his stomach.

  Witnessing the way James had tortured his father further opened the floodgates of regret about Elijah’s role in the destruction of James and Lily’s lives. Worse yet, he had to accept that he even bore some responsibility for the death of their beloved child. Now, after eavesdropping on James’s conversation with Harrison, all those regrets had finally eaten away his insides completely and had begun nipping away at his soul.

  As Elijah stood there reliving his life regrets, an explosion rocked the ground and jolted a single tear from his eye. James and Harrison both halted their conversation after hearing the distinctive noise too.

  “It’s afta’ midnight. That can’t be what it sounds like,” Harrison commented.

  “It shouldn’t be, but I think that’s damn sho’ what it is,” James replied, grabbing his musket and bolting out of the tent. Harrison was quick to follow. He and James stood alongside Elijah, their eyes wide in disbelief as the sounds continued in rapid succession. All three tried to convince themselves they were in the throes of a nightmare when their eyes were then met with the hellish sight of cannonballs raining from the sky, that began pelting their massive campsite like a meteor shower. Far off to their right, several cannonballs landed directly on tents of sleeping men, exploding on impact. The blood-curdling shrieks of injured men were quick to follow. James took off running to help, ditching and dodging his way by other soldiers, who had been torn from their sleep by all the noise. There were dozens of men emerging from their tents with weapons in hand, trying to make sense of the chaos that was suddenly erupting in their besieged campsite. James felt as though his legs could not propel him forward fast enough to assist the wounded, but shock suddenly stopped him on a dime. “Holy shit,” he murmured when his eyes caught sight of a horde of men, rising up over the ridge of a hill. After lighting their way with fires set by cannons, a tidal wave of growling confederate soldiers had come storming toward the Iron Army Brigade.

  The Elite Confederate Infantry of Virginia had received intel that finally led them to the Union troop responsible for the secret nighttime thievery of slaves. Their raid was in direct retaliation to the so-called Freedom Riders, embedded within the Iron Army Brigade of the East. The Elite Infantry was hell-bent on putting a stop to their tradition of freeing slaves and planting American flags on the sacred grounds of the new confederate country they were fighting to build. Mimicking the midnight ritual of the Freedom Riders, the Elite Confederacy’s infantrymen had also strategically hidden until nightfall and attacked in the dead of night, in an unwarlike fashion. The warning of an impending battle was never given to General Blackshear. Their blatant disregard for the rules of engagement was so that the Freedom Riders were left just as vulnerable as the innocent civilians they had stolen property from. The Confederate Elites felt as though the Freedom Riders’ lawlessness made them unworthy of any respectable fair rules of war.

  With a meteor shower of cannonballs as their only warning, the Iron Army Brigade was indeed caught off guard. After sleeping soldiers were jolted awake, they chaotically scrambled out of their tents to the nightmarish sight of their enemies swarming them. Before Iron Army soldiers could attempt to defend themselves, angry Confederate Elites began savagely tossing them into the massive fires that were now ravaging their camp. With his campsite now completely under siege, James now had no choice but to abort his mission to help his fellow injured soldiers. He suddenly dropped to a knee, lined a man up in the sight of his musket, and fired the only round in the chamber. The single shot was enough to literally blow the man’s brains out. With the horde of Confederate soldiers now surrounding him, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Union troops, James had no time to reload his musket. Acting on unadulterated rage, he picked up an axe out of tree stump and hurled it, end over end, directly into the chest cavity of a man running toward him at full speed. He pulled the axe out of the dead man’s chest and proceeded to drive it into the face or chest of any man who dared to come within his vicinity.

  Harrison and Elijah had quickly joined in fighting close to James. The trio had their backs to one another, protecting each other as they slaughtered dozens of southern troops. With their axes swinging, heads had literally begun to roll. The fire-ravaged camp easily illuminated the face of a man that rolled near James’s foot. He then briefly glanced at several other dead bodies nearby. He had grown up seeing some of their faces when they were not cowardly hidden behind masks with distinctive eye holes. He had no doubt he was staring at deceased Ghost Riders. Their ghostly white robes had been traded for Confederate uniforms. His father’s brethren were swarming his men. That fact sent James into a homicidal rage. He bore his blood-stained teeth, grunting and growling as he commenced to slaying men that had been loyal to his father. Amid his blinding rampage, James savagely butchered over a dozen men in minutes, reveling in the glory of sending his father’s henchmen to burn alongside him in the devil’s paradise.

  As the battle waged for nearly an hour, the so-called Elites proved only to be superior at dying at the hands of Iron soldiers. Despite being caught off guard by the sneak attack, the Iron Army Brigade was slowly dwindling the number of Confederate Elite Infantrymen. His long hair now dripping with the blood of those he had slain, James leaned over his latest victim and snatched his axe from within his chest, ready to continue his killing spree. In the vulnerable split second that he took to retrieve it, an Elite infantryman began approaching swiftly from behind him. With the blade of his musket leading the way, the Elite soldier came barreling toward James at full speed, hell-bent on impaling him through the chest, the very second he turned around. With the infantryman’s blade just feet away from James’s heart, Elijah swung his axe and chopped the man’s arm off. Simultaneously, Elijah’s name erupted from James’s mouth in a blood-curdling scream, as the world suddenly seemed to slow down in his eyes.

  In the very same moment that Elijah had turned to defend James, a bayonet had been driven into his back and out the front of his chest. With his boot, the confederate soldier th
en kicked Elijah off his blade and watched him slump to the ground. Growling like a primordial beast, James swung his axe and sliced the head clean off Elijah’s attacker. When the headless man fell to the ground, so too did James. He dropped to his knees, picked up his fallen brother, and held him in his arms. “Hang on, Elijah, it’s gonna be alright,” James tried to reassure him, despite seeing the life start to drain from his eyes. “Keep your eyes open, Elijah!” James prompted him, trying desperately to keep him conscious. “Look at me!”

  Elijah used what little strength he had left to do just that. “P-p-please t-take care of my s-sista’,” he coughed. “T-tell ‘er, I l-love h-her.”

  “For what? You’ll be able to tell ‘er yourself soon.”

  “I’ll t-tell your l-little Rose her f-fatha’ loves ’er,” he promised, just before he took his final breath.

  “ELIJAAAH!” James screamed, trying to shake the life back into him.

  “Just the way I figured I’d find ya’ … all snuggled up with a nigga’!”

  James looked up at the man who had just uttered those words, only to find himself face to face with the barrel of a musket. It was held by someone he had longed to torture to death for four grueling years.

  What had guided The Elite Confederate Infantry of Virginia to the Freedom Riders was a letter that was delivered to one of the leaders of the troop:

  Lieutenant Jesse Adams Jr. January 3, 1865

  It is with tears in my eyes and a truly heavy heart that I must relay the sorrowful news of your father and brother’s passing. My sorrows run even deeper knowing that their deaths were not by accident, or by an act of God. Your cherished father, and my beloved husband, were both senselessly murdered. In a matter of days, thousands of slaves were stolen from dozens of Fayetteville plantations. The Parker plantation was among the victims. On the night their plantation was raided, Mary Jo was a witness to her father’s heinous beating. She is certain that the man who brutalized him was your youngest brother, James. Hours after Mr. Parker’s unjust beating, your father’s slaves were also stolen. Your father and brother’s lives were both ended that very night. I have since learned that your youngest brother, James, is the leader of a group of men embedded in a Union army brigade. They call themselves “The Freedom Riders.” I have no indisputable evidence, so I am only left to speculate that James, or a member of his despicable group of bandits, were likely responsible for the unspeakably gruesome way that your father and brother were murdered. I am eternally sorry for the loss of your family. Please know that I have buried them at your family’s gravesite, following the honorable ceremony they both rightfully deserved.

  Praying for your safe return,

  Analyse Adams

  James’s greatest mistake as a lieutenant was leaving Mary Jo Parker alive. After his serious head wound, Joseph Parker had no recollection of what happened on his plantation Christmas morning. Mary Jo had not forgotten a single detail, though. After staring down the muzzle of James’s rifle, she was finally able to name the man at the helm of the notorious group, who had emptied nearly every slave quarter in Fayetteville. Mary Jo retold an over exaggerated version of her harrowing experience to anyone willing to give her the attention she craved. As usual, the salacious gossip about Fayetteville’s most wanted outcast quickly spread like a raging inferno. It was through such rampant gossip that Jacob’s wife, Analyse, had learned the identity of the person who was likely responsible for murdering her husband and father-in-law. That gossip was scripted by Analyse and sent to a man who was also a leader in his own right.

  Just as hard as James was fighting to dismantle the institution of slavery, J.R. was shedding blood to maintain it. Much like James, J.R.’s dedication to his infantry had earned him Lieutenant status. That position gave him the power to make decisions, including those involving strategery. “To hell with the war rules of engagement!” J.R. had angrily denounced, during a motivational speech to his troops. “These nightcrawlin’ so-called Freedom Rida’s ain’t worthy ‘a respect! Them cowardly sons ‘a bitches been sneakin’ ’round, tormentin’ innocent families in the middle ‘a the night, stealin’ their slaves, and burnin’ their homes! When we find these cowardly pieces ‘a shit, we lie low and attack while they’re curled up like babies, dreamin’ about the pussy they ain’t had in years! What’s good for the goose, is good for the fuckin’ ganda’! LET’S DESTROY THESE FUCKIN’ FREEDOM RIDERS!”

  The eruption of cheers that followed let Lieutenant Jesse Roscoe Adams Jr. know that his men stood behind him on his mission. However, they were unaware that the true motive for the attack was far more of a personal mission than anything else. After reading about how “unspeakably gruesome” his brother and father’s deaths were, J.R. was not left speculating about who their true murderer was, like Analyse. He was convinced that James had succeeded in half of the promise he had made to kill him and his father, the day they stood face to face in court. The driving force behind the plan for J.R.’s nighttime raid was to avenge his family, and to see to it that James failed at carrying out the other half of his deadly threat.

  J.R. now stood looming over his youngest brother, with a raging need to satiate his thirst for spilling vengeful blood. With the vulnerable position James was in while holding Elijah, J.R. definitely had the upper hand. When James tried to make a move to get up, his brother kicked him in the jaw. He nearly lost consciousness as he fell backward. Just as his dizzy haze cleared, a sudden searing pain in his right upper thigh caused James to cry out in agony. J.R. had snatched a bayonet out of a nearby dead body and drove it straight through James’s thigh, pinning him to the ground. James then looked up and saw the handle of J.R.’s musket coming toward his chest. When he tried to maneuver out of the way, he cried out again, as he ripped even more muscle and flesh in his thigh. Unable to get away, J.R. repeatedly piledrove the handle of his musket into James’s chest, hitting him in the diaphragm and ribs. The repeated blows fractured a multitude of James’s bones and left him gasping for air. A savage urge for more up-close and personal torture motivated J.R. to toss his weapon aside and spit on his brother. He then dropped to his knees on top of James, pinned his arms down, and began choking him with every ounce of force he could muster. J.R. squeezed so tight that his own face flushed red. The blue tint now painting James’s lips gave J.R. near orgasmic pleasure. But, still, that was not enough to satisfy his wanton lust for torture. Bearing his rotten yellow teeth, J.R. repeatedly slammed his brother’s skull against the frozen ground, grunting with every blow, as he split a deep gash in the back of James’s head. James was beginning to fade into unconsciousness when J.R. suddenly eased the tension on his neck and looked his brother in the eyes. “Your whore had the best pussy I eva’ had in my life. Makes me hard just thinkin’ about the way I rammed my cock in her sweet little cunt, ova’ and ova’ again. I’d buy ‘er just to fuck ‘er in the ass like a mad dog, until she’s bleedin’ and beggin’ for mercy,” he grimaced. “Please James, help me, help me,” he said, mocking Lily.

  J.R.’s unsightly smile broadened, and he let out a sinister chuckle when his words made James start thrashing to get up. James’s movements began to shred even more of the muscle tissue in his leg, but his rage made him oblivious to the pain. Still unable to unpin himself, James spit blood in his brother’s face. J.R wiped the blood off and began punching James in the face for his disrespectful actions. “You nigga’ lovin’ son of a bitch!” he growled, repeatedly pummeling his brother. James was completely numb to the heavy blows, though. Killing his brother suddenly trumped everything, even the pain of his now fractured eye socket.

  Killing James dominated J.R.’s mind as well, but he was determined to do it in a way that would make his father smile up at him from the fiery depths of his new eternal home. After blackening both of James’s eyes and damn near breaking his nose, J.R. was now ready to fulfill his murderous goal. He suddenly stood up and straddled his youngest brother’s body. He flashed another wicked grimace, proud of the bloody, b
lack and blue living work of art he had just created. He then reached down and picked up the axe that James had slaughtered a multitude of his men with. “Nothin’ good eva’ comes of a nigga’ lova’,” he said as he raised the axe over his head, ready to slowly pick his brother’s body apart.

  With the axe hovering high above his head, J.R. suddenly grunted and froze. An intense pain had erupted in his groin and ricocheted through every nerve ending in his body. When the shockwave of pain exploded into his fingertips, he dropped the axe by his side. J.R. looked down to find the blade of James’s hunting knife buried deep in the soft tissue between his legs. James had snatched the weapon off his hip and drove it with wrathful force into the part of his brother that he had used to violate Lily. The repulsive thought of his brother, forcefully stealing pleasure from the pureness of Lily’s insides, had sent James spiraling into the pits of madness. His desire to annihilate J.R. had stewed for four unbearable years and had now erupted with volcanic force through the tip of his knife. Bearing his bloody teeth, James began twisting his blade deep in the recesses of J.R.’s bowels, raping his scrotum with murderous intent. He then yanked the knife out of his brother’s body, slicing through the front of his pants when it exited.