It’s Eloy.
Bloodied, bruised, damn near mangled, with a pile of rocks sitting around him. He’s not alive; he can’t be. Vaughn did the one thing I couldn’t do. He saved his brother from a life of anguish, misuse, and deviance.
By stoning him to death.
Placing him in the chair afterwards was symbolic. It was his way of saying that the bond between Pater and I isn’t real, that I could have saved all of us had I only managed to muster up the courage he was forced to have.
Did he tell his brother he loved him before he killed him? Did he tell his brother that even though this isn’t how life is supposed to be, I tried my best and loved him too? Did he tell his brother that, no matter how long it takes, we’ll rid the world of Pater and his evil ways? Did he tell his brother that he’ll never have to see either of us again in the afterlife?
Did his brother believe him if he did?
Vaughn was the only one he could trust, and since I don’t see any evidence that he was bound to the carved chair, I know he willingly gave up his life so that Vaughn wouldn’t suffer if Pater found him alive.
He sacrificed himself to save his brother and give Pater one less person to deal with. He saved himself by welcoming death, and I stand here a coward, unwilling to go down as easily because I’m wracked with thoughts of vengeance.
But the first Task is done to completion, as Pater would have seen it, and as I turn to walk away from Eloy’s lifeless corpse, I feel rage in the empty spot of my heart that once held unconditional love for him.
My son is dead for the second time, because I wasn’t strong enough to put an end to the monster that holds us here.
Chapter Sixteen
"Damn.”
Pater has finally made it into the clearing and is shaking his head in what looks like appreciation.
“Rocks, huh?” he asks, crouching down in front of Eloy’s torn body. “I wonder which one of them chose that. Must have hurt like hell.”
“Eloy,” I say softly, a single tear slowly trickling down my cheek. “He always liked looking at nature. It’s only fitting that he chose it as his end.”
“Guess I really should’ve got to know him. I always feel so damn bad when you tell me things about these kids that I didn’t know,” he says, reaching up and pushing his face back. I can see the cuts and scrapes on Eloy’s face now. His eyes are still open, but vacant. They’re looking into a void that neither of us can see, one we should have gone to in his place.
“What’s your next Task?” I ask Pater. He glances up at me curiously as he lets the boy’s chin fall back onto his chest and stands back up. I wait patiently as he crosses his arms over his chest and looks up at the trees.
“They weren’t really tasks, Joce. They were tests of your loyalty to me, and as much as I hate to say it, you failed, baby girl.”
“So kill me, and fucking get it over with,” I shout in desperation, shoving him as hard as I can.
Pater rolls his eyes and reaches for my arms as I try to shove him again, forcing them to fold over my chest.
“If I kill you, we can’t have forever. I promised you forever, and I plan on keeping that promise,” he says in a soft voice.
“You promised Mama forever. And the one before her the same thing, and the one before her. What makes me so fucking special that you have to keep doing this to me? Haven’t you destroyed me enough?” I scream at him as I try to rip my arms away from his vice grip.
Pater gives me one firm shake to stop my hysterics, before wrapping his arms tightly around me and holding me close to him. He looks deeply into my eyes, almost soulfully, and I can tell that whatever words he chooses to speak next are of some meaning to him. Whether I’ll find any meaning in them is of no consequence. Anything I could have ever felt for this monster is as dead as the boy listening to us with hollow ears.
“If you want me to answer you honestly, I’m gonna need you to calm the fuck down and listen,” he says sternly. “If you insist on flailing around like a fucking lunatic, I’ll just tell you what you want to hear and make you believe it. It’s up to you.”
With that, he releases me and steps back, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting for me to make my choice. Pater is a patient monster, and he’s used to always getting his way. This time will be no different, I decide, as I push my hair back from my face and nod in agreement.
Pater clears his throat and runs a hand over his chin. There seems to be more gray hair than black now, and his eyes look so tired that I almost feel bad for him. He’s been through a lot, not as much as the three...two of us have, but he seems to be feeling the weight of his decisions finally starting to press down against whatever humanity he tries to hide deep inside of him.
“Alright. Yes, there were others before your mother, but she was the first one that actually gave me kids. The others before her tried, but could never conceive. Either that, or they aborted and never told me - I don’t know. Since you were my first born, you held so much more meaning to me than anything else in the world. You’re a symbol that I actually did something right for once in my life, and I tried not to fuck things up, Jocelyn; you have to believe that. I tried.” He takes a deep breath for a moment and closes his eyes tightly before opening them again and looking back into mine. “Did I mean for all of this to happen? Yeah; I honestly did, but not like this. I wanted those boys to stay alive even though I didn’t have any fucking use for them, because I could see that they made you happy. And once I realized that you could make me happy in every way a man could feel, I got rid of your mother. She would have just gotten in the way and tried to stop us from being together. Don’t you wanna be with me, Joce? After everything we’ve been through?”
The tone of his voice is bordering on pleading, but he doesn’t change his demeanor to match, and it leaves me confused.
Would I have ever thought this way of living was okay? At one point, I didn’t know any better. I thought this was how a father loved his children, because when he plucked my innocence from a garden I’ve long since burned to the ground, I did love him. In every way he wanted me to, I loved him.
The older I became and the more he pushed Vaughn and Eloy away, the endless nights spent in the oubliette, and the constant having to stay awake to keep the boys safe wore down every thread I was hanging onto that made me believe, once upon a time, that Pater was worthy of my love.
“We’ve been through nothing together,” I begin quietly. “You forced this life on me. On Eloy. On Vaughn. We didn’t have a choice in any of this, and because your love is so weak that you chose only one of us to care for instead of all of us, I can’t say that I want anything with you, much less forever.”
He puts his hands on his hips and looks away. I can see it now, the monster inside of him coming to the surface, but I don’t stop. After all, he offered me honesty, and I feel it’s only fair to offer him honesty in return.
“This will come to an end someday soon, and one of us won’t survive. The only question left to answer between us is who.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t make idle fucking threats when you know I can snap your neck any time I want to,” he warns, shaking his head vehemently.
“But you won’t. You want another child, and I refuse to give you one, knowing what you’re going to put it through,” I spit back stubbornly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to that fucking hell in the ground you’re so keen on keeping us in, and retrieve Vaughn. Dead or alive, he deserves to be with Eloy, and that’s exactly where I’m going to put him.”
As I spin on my heel with fire in my veins, I can hear Pater call my name out, but I don’t stop or turn toward him.
He’s had too many chances to make this right again, and he’s always chosen the path that best suited his needs. His disregard for us, the death of Eloy, the possibility of finding Vaughn dead in the pit will be his downfall. His reckoning is coming, and I will be the hand that delivers it, so help me God.
Chapter Seventeen
I don’t go directly to the oubliette. Instead, I walk back into the house,making my way down the entire length until I reach the front door.
A-ha! It’s still there.
I gather up the rope ladder that Vaughn had used to rescue me, and open the front door. I can hear Pater calling my name as he makes his way toward me. He sounds damn angry at being disregarded, but it’s time he knows what that feels like for once.
Pater’s taller and much faster than me, so I know he’ll catch up to me if I don’t quicken my steps. I throw the rope over my shoulder and begin to jog toward my destination. If he won’t tell me what’s really happened to Vaughn, I’ll climb down into the abyss and find out myself. Besides, seeing it with my own eyes will serve my intentions much better than hearing a story venomously packed with sweetened lies.
“JOCELYN!”
Pater’s booming voice as he exits the front of the house almost stops me, but I need to know what happened to Vaughn, and I need to know now.
I break into a run. As fast as my legs will carry me, I fucking run. I reach the top of the dungeon in no time and flip the door open. I quickly wrap a large part of the rope ladder around the cylindrical stone and pray that it holds as I toss the rest of the ladder over the side. I give it one hard tug and I’m over the side, descending into the darkness.
“Goddamn it!” Pater yells angrily.
I glance up momentarily to see him leaning down into the oubliette, attempting to reach for me, but I’m already too far down for him to snatch me back up.
“Fucking kids,” he shouts, slapping his hand against the door before he disappears from sight.
Good.
He’s angry and he knows he can’t reach me, because there’s no way in hell he’ll crawl in here to retrieve me.
Pater is afraid of the things he can’t control, and the darkness is my home, not his.
There’s not a lot of room to move down at the bottom, but what little space there is I know like the back of my hand.
“Vaughn?” I call out as I come closer to the bottom.
Please be okay, I will desperately.
I’m nothing like Pater; I can’t think of things and make them happen. I can’t read minds, and I can’t take control of people’s lives, but what I can do that he can’t or won’t do is help those who need it the most.
I don’t deserve help, because I should have been able to save us from this, but I was too blinded by his deceptions for so long that I welcomed everything he did to us.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to leave Pater. My world would crumble without him and I know it, but if I can just save one of these boys, then I’ll be okay with being left behind.
The ladder is too short to get me all the way to the bottom, since I wrapped a good portion of it around the opening, so I hop down the last couple of feet and hope that if Vaughn is alive, he’ll either be capable of pulling himself up, or give me enough help to get us both out of here.
“Vaughn?” I ask into the darkness. I rub my hands together before wiping them on my thighs and narrow my eyes.
I’m not a nocturnal animal, but it’s easy for my eyes to adjust to the darkness they know so well, and from what I can tell, he’s not standing if he’s down here. Dropping to my knees, I begin to crawl in a small circle, following the pattern of the constructed abyss, and it finally dawns on me.
Pater lied.
He never threw the boy down here, and I blindly followed my heart to save someone who wasn’t even here to save.
Chapter Eighteen
I don’t know how long I’ve been down here. The sun has already set, which leads me to believe it’s been a few hours, but I could be wrong. I don’t know where Pater is either, and because I chose to defy him, I know he won’t do a damn thing to help me if I can’t reach the ladder.
I haven’t tried yet. I’m too full of rage at myself for trying to be something I’m not, and failing Vaughn yet again. Maybe he’ll be better off if I just stay here. After all, the only thing I’ve managed to do is consistently fuck up every attempt I’ve made to help these boys, and because of it, one of them is already dead.
It would be so easy, almost too easy, for me to die right now. I could simply tie the end of the ladder around my neck and sit down, letting the weight of everything I’ve allowed to happen crush my neck.
I stand up and walk over, touching the tip of the ladder, and sigh. I deserve far worse than this, and that’s the only thing that stops me.
That, and the hope that maybe Vaughn is alive out there somewhere. He’s already deserted me by rebuking me as his mother, but I don’t hate him for it. Had I been the one in his shoes being rejected at every turn, I would harbor the same feelings he does toward the “favorite.”
I let go of the rope and sit back down on the cold, stone ground, wiping away bitter tears. There has to be some way to stop Pater; I just can’t see it. I’m willfully blind to it because I need him as much as he needs me, even if it’s not in the same way.
He wants to give me my own child, but then what? Will he do the same thing to me that he did to Mama if it’s a girl? He said he’d never discard me, but what if that’s the only way? To give him what he wants, pray for survival for the next fifteen years, and then allow him to finally end me when he takes the child as his new bride?
I’ve been in love with you since I first held you.
How is that possible? How can such a monster feel love for anything? And while I know I’m not better than Pater, I’m also not his equal. My love for the boys came from a need to protect them. The nights I’ve spent in Pater’s bed, feeling his touch, were out of necessity, to keep them far from it.
I’m afraid part of my needing Pater is that I’ve learned to feel as much safety in his hands as I do down here in the darkness.
If there’s an end to this, I can’t see it; I don’t want to see it. Maybe he’ll be willing to come to some agreement of sorts, if what I have to offer is enough, but what can I give him that he hasn’t already taken?
I rest my head back against the hard stone and almost laugh in relief. The answer is so clear to me, in a place where it’s damn near impossible to see your own hand in front of your face. I do have something to offer Pater. Something he can’t take unless I give it willingly, and it’s the only way to get him to let his guard down.
With a renewed conviction, I get to my feet and wipe the dirt off on my legs, before I reach up and begin to pull myself up the rope. I’m better at this than I should be. Even though I’ve spent countless nights out here alone, I’ve also had rare moments alone with Eloy and Vaughn when they’ve been able to sneak out unnoticed and throw the ladder down to me.
In a way, I feel like I’m clawing my way out of hell, and to be quite honest, maybe I am. The darkness no longer wants me because I’m no longer pure of heart. I have blood on my hands. Even though not spilled by my own hands, my misdeeds have caused the death of an innocent, and I’m being rejected by my safe place.
I understand it and I accept it.
I’ll make my way back down here again once I’ve purged myself of that malady, and the only way to do it is to give myself completely and unconditionally to Pater.
I have to love him, need him, the way he loves me. It’s the only way to earn his trust, and the simplest way to bring a tyrant to their knees. It’s not an easy thing to topple an empire as an enemy, so I’ll be his willing lover until the sun sets over the both of us for the last time.
Chapter Nineteen
I decided to sleep in the clearing behind Pater’s house. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing where I am just yet, and I still have to convince myself that being his perfect little wife is worth the price I’ll end up paying in the end.
I’m only awake now because the sun is breaking through the trees, and slivers of sunshine are hitting me in the face. I sit up with a sigh and look at the now empty stone chair. Eloy’s mangled body is gone, and I’m sure Pater is the cause of it, but
I can’t worry about that now. He’s not here to save anymore, and perhaps, in his brutal death, he’s already received more salvation than I would have been able to provide for him anyway.
Today is the day I crawl out of my cocoon and become the delicate creature Pater has always longed for. The one he crushed when he decided Mama wasn’t good enough for him anymore. The one he worked so vigilantly to destroy on the nights he needed to feel another’s touch.
And I will become this. I’ve already decided it. The only thing I need to do now is stick to my plan, and hope he doesn’t see through me.
It shouldn’t be too difficult, but I have to remember that I’m dealing with a master of deception, and he’s more than likely already plucked the thoughts from my mind.
I lean down and scoop up one of the bloody stones, slip it into my shirt, and secure it safely so it has a place near my heart. It will serve as a reminder of why I will do these vile things I’ve committed myself to.
With the memory of Eloy tucked closely next to me, I make my way toward the back door of the house, and to my utter and complete fucking shock, feel like I’ve walked into a almost a do over of a few days before.
There’s a young woman and man I don’t know standing on one side of the island in the kitchen. Pater is leaning against the counter, and Vaughn is sitting there quietly, speaking to her.
“There she is,” he says with a warm smile, holding an arm out toward me. “This is my Jocelyn.”
I walk dutifully over to him and let him wrap his arm around me, then turn and smile at the young couple who greet me with wide grins.
“Your dad was just telling us about you!” the young woman says brightly.
“My ... Dad?” I ask, stealing an uncertain glance toward Pater. The stern look he returns to me tells me he’s already rejected me. I’ve defied him one too many times, and when he’s ready, I’ll have to pay the price.
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