Illusions of Evil (Illusions Series Book 1)

by Lily White

  Why did she have to get under my skin so easily? What was it about Sedra that was driving a spear through my gut as I drove away? Glancing in the rearview mirror, I’d watched as she’d stared at the back of the truck. I saw every emotion flash across her face. Surprise. Fear. Sorrow and shame.

  It was the last expression that hurt me the most. The girl had nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn't her fault she'd believed Jericho's lies.

  He was an expert at telling them. I should know. I was an expert all the same.

  But I'd given up the games of our youth. I'd taken a life - not intentionally, but does intention ever matter to the dead? Because of me, Cassandra was no longer breathing. She was dust in the wind, cremated by her family and scattered over the ocean she'd loved as a child.

  It's you Jacob, only you, forever...

  My fingers gripped over the steering wheel as her voice whispered in my head, the red needle of the speedometer pushing higher as my foot sunk down of the pedal. The shadow of trees became a blur, the road rushing beneath me faster than was safe. And as the memories came crashing back, no longer still pictures, but film with action and sound, I slammed my foot on the brake, and held on as the truck fishtailed while the rocks and dust beneath it were scattered.

  The truck groaned as I pulled off onto a side road, the body lurched when I finally brought it to a stop. And as my forehead fell down to press against the steering wheel, I witnessed a memory that I would have given anything to forget.

  Before Cassandra, I was never loyal to any one girl. Jericho and I had started our games at sixteen, two boys just coming into adulthood, who learned quickly that girls found them desirable.

  It had been a break from our strict upbringing, a secret shared between twins. But, God, how those girls could play.

  The first time we cornered one, the first time we discovered what a succulent drug temptation could be, we fell easily into its rapturous hold, emerging from that room as tarnished and changed men.

  But that first taste had been so sweet.

  Little Ellen Baker, a devout Catholic like us, had grown up in the same church. She attended catholic school and wore the uniform, her knee socks and the hem of her pleated skirt leaving just enough skin exposed in between for us to imagine what it would feel like between our teeth.

  Her blond pigtails had disappeared as she'd grown, becoming a wave of long hair that flowed down her back with the sheen of finely spun silk. Big blue eyes that only saw God when she'd been a child, were opening onto her adulthood, being exposed to the handsome faces of the boys she'd known since they were children.

  We didn't do it on purpose, but intent doesn’t always speak for action. And in a moment when we were left alone together, the three of us preparing for a charity dinner being hosted by the Diocese where we lived, we learned how addictive sin could taste as we explored the gifts of our bodies.

  Deep down in that dusty basement, Jericho had been the one to start the game.

  It had been a joke at first - a tease. Jericho's fingers slipping up her skirt, the flip of the hem giving us just a peek of what she wore beneath. Pink panties with turquoise ribbons at the side, innocent, pure and inviting. Ellen swatted at his hand but still smiled brightly. She liked being teased. She liked having both our attention.

  Another flip of her skirt, a soft brush of a hand across the swell of her breast over her shirt. A kiss planted lightly on her cheek as the warmth of our breath rolled down her neck. I don't remember which one of us had been the person to lock the door, but once that lock was thrown, Ellen's clothes had come off.

  Jericho bent her over a folding table, one of the ones that would be used to serve the parishioners their charity meal. Her small breasts pressed against the wood as he stood behind her, his hands exploring as I circled in front. Squatting down so I could watch every expression that flashed across her face as my brother stuck his fingers inside, I was hard beneath my hand, desperate to know what wet heat felt like.

  She'd purred when he touched her in forbidden places, guilt a simmering flame behind her eyes. But she never said no, never told us that we weren't exactly what she wanted.

  We took advantage of a childhood crush. Ellen had always followed us around like an adorable puppy that was looking for someone to pet her just right.

  In that moment, hidden down in a basement full of tables and chairs, the nativity scene for Christmas and the white, glitter edged wings of the angels who would raise their voices in chorus, we obliged her the attention she sought, and we took our first taste as well.

  Jericho hadn't yet penetrated that sacred space before her lips wrapped around me. And fuck, for days after I thanked God for her mouth. I praised it. I worshipped it. I could think of nothing better.

  I wasn't the one to take her purity, my brother had that honor. And when virginal blood ran down her legs, she sang in the pain and pleasure he gave her.

  It had been innocent at first, but things never seem to remain that way. Not love. Not forgiveness. Not tranquility or passion. Not my life after I'd left for college and before becoming a priest.

  Jericho and I had worked our way through so many girls before I left to start my adult life. And every seed had been planted, every sin had been explored, every devious, dark and dirty cruelty had been brought to life inside me. I carried those tastes with me when I left, still clutching to them like the only island within a sea of lies and promises when I met Cassandra on Halloween night.

  Ironically, I was dressed as a priest, she was a nun wearing a white habit. We'd met because of those costumes, but they hadn't stayed on our bodies long.

  Divine sexuality, a woman born for sin. Her body was so beautiful that even time and God must have mourned its destruction. With long, dark hair and green eyes that were the color of fresh leaves in spring, Cassandra was everything I could have asked for. Her submission was absolute, her love of pain exquisite. She craved the sting of clamps and collars. She worshipped my body when I undressed in front of her.

  She wasn't religious, but she found God when her arms and legs were bound. She didn't sing in a choir full of innocent youth, but she sang my name when her body came to life beneath mine. She didn't pray, but she praised Heaven when I pushed her over the edge of temptation into the deep waters of ecstasy that stole her breath away.

  Through it all, I became just as addicted to her as she was to me. She didn't know it. I would never admit it. But I loved her after that first night I found her.

  If one person can be made for another, Cassandra had been made for me. And I was ultimately the one to destroy her.

  The coroner's report said it had been a blood clot. They blamed her veins, they blamed her health, they blamed the bruises on her skin that showed she was clumsy and often hurt. But most of the bruises had been from me.

  I was the one who'd used clamps on her body, and I'd been the one to deliver pain with the palm of my hand. I'd been the one with my hand wrapped around her throat at the moment her climax forced her heart to pump harder making it possible for that clot to reach her brain.

  Although her death had been peaceful - sex sending her into the open arms of eternity - it had been my hands that put her there, no matter what the medical examiner had to say.

  I watched the color drain from her face as I shook her and screamed her name. I held her hand as the warmth seeped from her skin and the ambulance sirens blared as they tore down the road. I walked behind the gurney as they escorted her body away, and I cried alone that night begging God to forgive me for my sins.

  It was the moment I chose to return to the Church, the moment I decided to give myself to God and never have sex again.

  Yet, here I was, a celibate priest, sitting on the side of a deserted dirt road wanting to race back to that compound and steal away a woman who looked and behaved so much like the one I'd killed.

  Where God had created Cassandra for my use, Jericho had created Sedra. I had to wonder if both the Almighty and the twin who understood my darkne
ss hadn't known I'd be destined to fail.

  I hadn’t been able to save Cassandra, but everything inside me told me I still had the chance to save Sedra.

  My palms banged against the wheel, every curse word I'd avoided saying for twelve years rolling effortlessly off my tongue. And when I put the truck in drive and turned it around to head back to the main road, I didn't make a right towards my parish like I should have, I turned left toward Sedra instead.

  EVE

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Psalms 23:4

  You haven't known loneliness until you've walked down a dirt road in the dead of night. You haven't known fear until you've been abandoned to the wolves.

  My bare feet ached, the rocks and pebbles over the ground digging into the bottoms without mercy or apology. It was becoming normal for me to feel this pain - penance, I assumed for my sins - and for as often as I'd run over broken twigs and jagged stone, I could probably walk over hot coals at this point and not feel a thing.

  I couldn't feel anything really. But I could see and I could hear. That's how I knew a car was careening toward me, its headlights blinding my eyes and music blasting away the silence of the forest that surrounded me.

  The car fishtailed this way and that, dust kicking up from its tires until the road looked like the gateway to Hell. But it slowed when it approached me, when its lights caught me in their beam and illuminated my entire body.

  "Damn, baby! What's a beautiful girl like you doing walking all alone on a night like this?"

  I didn't like the smell that emanated from the car when he rolled the window fully down, I didn't like the music that was blasting or the way his bloodshot eyes looked me over. He was one of the wolves that would tear me apart with sharp teeth if I let him. But still, despite my fear, despite everything, he was the only living, breathing soul that was near me. And his car would be a faster way to Elijah than my feet.

  Maybe God had sent this man to help me along in the direction I traveled. I'd been praying to him for help, after all.

  "I'm walking to church," I answered, my voice not strong enough to be heard over the blaring music.

  The man turned the music down and leaned low to look at me through the passenger window. "What was that, baby? I couldn't quite hear you."

  A tremor of fear shot through me, but I put my faith in God. The only problem being that I was too focused on what I'd prayed for Him to send me to hear Him whispering in my thoughts to run.

  "I'm going to church," I said again, adding what strength I could find to my voice.

  The man smiled, his lips crooked and sloppy, his eyes bloodshot and studying me with sharp focus. "Church?" He laughed. "What would make a woman like you need a church at this time of night?"

  "I'm a sinner," I answered, figuring the explanation Elijah had always preached in his sermons would resonate with any person who knew why God was needed in our lives.

  His grin widened. "Aren't we all?" he murmured.

  The response he gave made me feel a little better. He understood that we were all damned without the grace of God's light. He must have been sent in answer to my prayers.

  "Well, let me help you out, beautiful. Ain't nothing good that can come from being so alone in the dark like this." His hand hit the handle to the door, pulling it quick so that he could step out of the car that sat idling with its headlights casting a bright glow over the landscape around us.

  Rounding the front end of the car, those headlights caught his face, brightening it until I could see the scruff over his cheeks and the greasiness of his brown hair where it dusted his shoulders. He wore a pair of baggy blue jeans and no shirt, dark hair dusting his chest and running a line down his center. That trail disappeared beneath those jeans and I couldn't help but follow it with my eyes.

  The only man I'd ever seen without clothes was Elijah. This man didn't hold a candle to him.

  "What's your name, beautiful?"

  His voice lowered to a deep baritone as he approached me and continued talking. I stepped back without realizing it, my arms coming up to cross over my body as if that would stop the trembling.

  "Eve," I said on a shaky breath.

  "Eve," he repeated back, his tongue peeking out to roll along his bottom lip. "That's a good Christian name."

  "Hebrew," I blurted out. "They wrote the Old Testament."

  He shrugged a shoulder. "It don't matter. We're all the same in the eyes of God."

  Elijah wasn't. He was blessed with the strength of God's hand. But I didn't tell him that.

  "The biblical Eve, huh?" He scrubbed his hand against his jaw. "Guess that makes you responsible for the fall of man."

  "I haven't made anybody fall."

  "Oh, what a sweet thing you are. Don't worry, Darlin', I fell a long time ago."

  He lunged forward faster than a snake to wrap his large hand around my bicep and pull me close. I didn't like the smell wafting off him. I knew it was alcohol that rolled off his breath. Never having tasted a drop of it myself, I recognized the smell from some of the men in the family. They'd been indoctrinated with that stink on their skin, but Elijah had wiped it away as he'd eradicated them of sin.

  "Why are you fighting me, Eve? I'm just trying to talk to you."

  I wasn’t fighting, not like he claimed I was. All I wanted was to pull away from him, but every time I tried, his hand gripped tighter and his smile pulled wider apart.

  Realizing I wouldn't get away from him, I settled down. But instead of letting me go, he pulled me even closer, his chest brushing up against my arms where they were crossed over my chest.

  "There you go, baby. Just calm down a little. Daddy wants to take care of you. It's not safe for a girl to be alone." His gaze scanned down my body. "Not safe for you to be barefoot on a dark, deserted road either."

  "He didn't give me shoes," I explained, not liking the fear that cut through my words.

  "I don't know who he is, but it sounds like he's not the kind of man to take care of a woman. Not like she needs anyway."

  Although he'd turned down the music in his car when he first pulled up to talk to me, it was still a soft beat across the wind. There was still a voice crooning a song that crawled across the surface of my skin.

  "Dance with me, baby girl. I'll even let you step on my boots so you don't hurt your feet."

  Frightened to the point of losing the ability to think, I clenched my teeth together and tightened my arms over my body. "I don't dance," I finally said, hoping the confession would make him go away.

  His hips swayed against me, his large arms wrapping around my shoulders as I was pulled flat against his chest. "There's nothing wrong with dancing, Eve. God wouldn't give us music if he didn't want us to move to it. You know what I mean? Now step up on my boots so you don't hurt yourself. Let me take care of you for a change."

  An owl called out in the distance, lending his voice to the music that softly played. Beyond the glow of the headlights beaming from the car, I couldn't see the road, the forest, or anything that would help me. This man was the only person who knew where I was. The only person who could help me escape the thick darkness of night.

  Slowly placing my feet on his boots, I let him crush me to his chest.

  "There you go, Eve. Now doesn't that feel better?"

  We swayed left and right, my stomach pressed up against his jeans, his excitement hard and bulging. A shiver coursed through me at the feel of him. I didn't like this man, but I didn't know what else to do. I had to play along. Had to hope that a simple dance would be enough for him to open the car door, tuck me inside, and take me where I needed to go.

  Elijah wouldn't be happy to know I'd let another man touch me. He would reject me if he knew I was no longer pure. But Elijah wasn't here to save me from the man who had his rough, strong hands wrapped over my hips. He wasn't there to keep those hands from traveling farther south.

  I flinched when his fingers massaged over the cheeks of my butt
. I bit my lip when he rested his cheek against my head and moaned.

  "Damn, baby. You certainly are a sinner, aren't you? You definitely have the body of one."

  His voice was gritty and low, his hands working over me as his excitement pressed into me more. "Tell you what, baby girl. You need a ride and I need something else. And there ain't nobody here to know what you've done. Why don't you let me take a little look at you? It'll be a secret between us."

  Tears welled in my eyes, my arms shaking from how hard I held them against my chest. "You can't keep secrets from God," I argued, my voice shaking and weak.

  "God never said there's anything wrong with looking. I give you a ride. You let me take a peek at what the Good Lord gave you, and we can call it a fair trade."

  The tears welled harder and the man tsked to see them stream down my face. "Don't cry, baby girl. You just found a man who's willing to save you. You should be celebrating."

  I was so confused. So lost and terrified. It was pitch black in every direction and if you listened hard enough you could hear the animals moving around in the woods. It was only a matter of time before one of them got curious and walked out to see if I could be a snack.

  What could I do? If I ran, he'd catch me. And that was only if I was strong enough to break free of his grasp.

  "Just a look? That's all? You promise?"

  "Shit, beautiful. I'd promise you anything just to have a chance to see what's under these baggy clothes."

  "And you'll take me where I need to go after?"

  He laughed, his chest shaking against me. "Baby, you just tell me what direction and I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

  Just a look. How big a sin was that? I wondered if Elijah would understand. If he would know that I didn't have a way to escape. It was just a look. Just a peek so that he would save me from the dark that threatened to enshroud me in its cold fingers until I forgot how to breathe.

  "Okay," I mumbled. "Just a look."

  "That'a girl. I like a woman who knows how to make a deal."