by Cole, Tillie
“Finn!” she cried, reaching out for him. “Finn! FINN!” The boy fought, but Father Burke’s hold was too strong. The girl gasped for breath as she passed Diel. She looked him dead in the eyes. “Finn … please … help me … remember me …”
Every muscle in Diel’s body locked tight. He watched the girl being taken away. As she disappeared though the door, he looked at the boy … and Diel found himself looking straight into his eyes. Father Burke dragged the boy forward, but the boy never moved his stare from Diel.
Diel knew that stare. Those sapphire eyes. That black hair. He recognized the monster underneath the boy’s skin, revealing his claws. Diel began to feel hot. The pain in his head clawed its way back toward the surface. But this time it was lightning war in his mind. He clutched his head, trying to stop the thunder crashes, the clashing of dark clouds in his brain. But they were too strong.
The pain was all-consuming; he couldn’t breathe. But then he heard a whispered, “Help me … remember me …” He shook his head, trying to find relief.
“Come back to the hallway,” a voice said. But Diel couldn’t listen to it. All he could hear was the girl. The one who had been taken away. “Finn … help me … remember me …” He groaned, searching for air, for something to stop the burning in his lungs, the fire in his veins and the crushing of his skull.
“On the count of three, you will return. You will come back into the room where it is safe.” The voice was a whisper in a distant part of whatever hell he was trapped in.
“One.” The voice began the countdown, but the pain was drowning him. He clutched at his hair as the pain became a million needles pushing into his skin. Remember … the girl said … remember me …
“Remember … ?” Diel groaned, pleading for answers. He thought of the boy screaming for his sister, fighting, clawing to get to her, to save her.
Remember me … she said, looking Diel straight in the eyes.
A black hole erupted inside Diel, a blazing black hole that spread like a tumor. It was erasing every mental block that was in his way, smashing down the wall that had been built within him for so long.
“Two,” the voice said, but Diel was floating, pain seeping from his pores … from the scar around his neck. It pulsed, it burned, it stung and throbbed, and Diel opened his mouth to scream. But no sound left his mouth as the final parts of him were exorcised of whatever had possessed him. He bellowed and screamed. Then the pain began to subside; the bricks of his internal wall reduced to rubble, too-long separated sides colliding into one.
Finn … help me … remember me … The girl’s voice was stronger now. She no longer sounded as though she were in a vacuum. The high timbre hit his ears and moved right to his soul.
Finn … Finn …
Diel froze, his heart stuttering to a standstill as that name began to penetrate his flesh.
“Finn,” Diel said, his lips wrapping awkwardly around the name. But he said it again. He said it again and again until it was no longer foreign, no longer strange, until it began to sound familiar, until his heart lobbed back into a steady beat—until it recognized the name.
“Finn,” Diel said again, and the air he breathed in afterwards sat purer in his lungs. “Finn,” he repeated, the last of the pain and aches in his head fleeing, leaving him comfortably numb, leaving his blood flowing freely though his veins, streams not rapids. “Finn.” His hands began to shake. “Finn Nolan.” Recognition fired down his spine, and the boy’s eyes shone in his mind.
Eyes just like Diel’s. No, not just like Diel’s …
Diel gasped as he remembered the boy’s hair … hair just like his. His inner monster, the darkness, the head tics, the blinking … the—
“Cara.” Once the name slipped from his mouth, he knew. Tears flooded his eyes and spilled over his cheeks. “Cara,” he rasped again. The little girl. The little girl with the birthmark, with one blind eye … Cara, Finn’s little sister.
A fist plowed through his chest.
Diel’s sister.
“Three,” the voice said, and Diel was ripped from his subconscious. His eyes snapped open to reveal his bedroom in the manor. But his heart was a heavy-metal drum thrash. He breathed and breathed like he’d just run around the perimeter of the manor’s grounds at breakneck speed.
Finn Nolan. He was Finn Nolan. And Cara …
“Cara!” Diel jumped from the bed, fury energizing his muscles. His body was alert and ready to fight, to search the fucking earth for his sister, his little sister who they had taken, who that Brethren fuck had said was evil!
“Diel.” Someone was calling his name, but he didn’t know who.
He was coming out of his skin, all the memories he had lost as a kid slamming into him like a hurricane, swirling around him as they filled every cavern of his too-long numbed mind.
The Brethren had taken them away, sent Diel straight to Purgatory. Sela was the first brother he’d met in the dorm. Then the monster took its hold of him. The monster had roared as they abused him, exorcised him, and it had jumped to the forefront of who Diel was. It had pushed Diel back to protect him, taking away the pain … taking away any memory of his former life so he could simply survive. Memories of her. Of his little sister. Where the fuck was his little sister? What had the Brethren done with her? Had they killed her?
Grief, instant and strong, gutted him.
Diel’s arms fell to his sides, and suddenly Noa was there, hands on his cheeks and tears in her brown eyes. “I have a sister,” he whispered, lips shaking and voice raw.
Noa nodded. “I know, baby. We heard it. You talked us through it all while you were under the hypnosis. You told us everything.” Diel lifted his head. All his family were gathered around him. He met the eyes of his brothers. He could see the fury in their faces, the tension in their bodies. Gabriel came toward him, pale, sadness in his every step.
“Brother.” He pulled Diel to his chest. Diel closed his eyes, but all he could see was Cara’s face. Her arm stretched out, trying to reach for him. But he hadn’t saved her. He hadn’t protected her.
Diel drew back, shame and guilt replacing any confusion he had felt over the past two months. He’d failed her. He’d spent all his days up to that point protecting her, but in the end, he had failed her, and they had fucking taken her away.
“They took her.” Diel backed toward the door to his bedroom. “The Brethren took her.” He met Sela’s eyes.
“Brother,” he said, sympathy flooding his expression. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Diel laughed but there was no humor in it, just shame. Pure shame. His feet shifted faster toward the door.
“Baby.” Noa tried to approach him. But Diel needed to leave. He needed to get away from the bedroom, from the memories that were still slamming into his brain like kamikaze planes, one after the other bringing another missing puzzle piece of his life that felt like napalm to his shredded black soul.
Diel grabbed the doorknob and started running. He ran down the stairs and out into the grounds and just let his feet take him away. His mind was flooding like a capsized boat—the shack that they were raised in, his mother’s constant drug use, the abusive boyfriends she brought around, one after the other, an ever-revolving door.
His feet stumbled when he remembered Father Burke coming to their secluded house in the middle of nowhere. Charity, outreach from the church to those who needed it most. To minister to the poor and forgotten, to give out the Catholic Church’s aid. Only it wasn’t the Catholic Church offering aid; it was them, the Brethren. Using the mainstream church as their guise, to find sinners to hurt and destroy.
Lies. All fucking lies. And they’d set their sights on Diel and Cara.
Cara …
The wind slapped at Diel’s face as he ran past the lake. His lungs burned, but he relished it. He wanted the pain back. He searched for the monster within his dark soul, needing it to rise and take all this pain and the headfucks away. But it wasn’t there. It wasn’t separate from h
im anymore. It was him. It had been him all along. It was Diel who had forgotten his sister. He had failed her years ago as they took her away. By forgetting she even existed, he had failed her in irredeemable measure.
The folly came into view. The rain pelted down on his head. Diel burst through the door of the folly, the place where Noa had taken off his collar. The place where monster and man had merged. Only now he knew it hadn’t been a fucking monster within him. It had been fear. Fear had made his soul split in two, to hide the reality of his life from his broken, unfixable heart.
Tension built in his muscles. Diel’s hands balled into fists, and when he couldn’t take the guilt anymore, the sorrow, the shame, he threw back his head and released it all in a deafening roar. He roared and roared until his body lost all of its strength and his knees buckled. He hit the stone floor with a thud, his palms slapping flat on the ground, prostrate before the memory of his little sister. He didn’t know what the priests had done with her. She’d been all he’d ever had, and he didn’t know where she was.
Arms threaded around him, and a soft cheek lay on his back. Noa. Tears fell from Diel’s eyes onto the floor below him, crashing to the old stone tiles in a guilt-ridden baptism.
“I have a sister,” Diel said through a thick throat.
Noa kissed his skin and held him tighter. “I know.”
“They took her.”
“I know.”
Diel’s face contorted with sadness. Such sadness that it robbed him of all strength. His head bowed lower and he felt exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept since that day the Brethren took him and his sister from the shack. But Noa was right there, holding him up. From the minute she had burst into his life, a thief in a black hood, she had held him up. She had opened his eyes. She had stolen his once-dead heart and wrenched it back to life.
At this moment, it was no different.
“Finn Nolan,” Diel said, eyes blurred. “My name was Finn Nolan.” He swallowed the emotion in his throat, the invisible hands that threatened to choke him. “My sister … my sister was called Cara.”
“It’s beautiful.” Noa moved her arms. Diel mourned their loss, but then she was before him, holding his face and guiding him to meet her stare. She looked just as wrecked as he felt.
Diel sat back on his haunches. His head tipped back for a moment, then he faced Noa. He couldn’t move. The rain beat on the stained-glass windows; the wind whistled down the chimney of the unlit hearth. And Diel was depleted. He was broken. He was completely destroyed.
“We’re going to find her.” Noa’s stern, determined voice injected fuel back into his body. He searched her expression. She meant it. His Noa meant every word she said. She moved closer, her lips just an inch from his. “We’ll find Cara. We will find her and bring her back to you.”
Diel’s stomach fell, and dread filled the space it once held. “What if she’s no longer alive?”
Noa’s chin lifted in defiance. “Then we’ll search the entire fucking underworld to find her.” Diel’s comatose heart beat then. One lethargic thump, followed by another, and each one was powered by Noa. Each inhale and exhale was because of the woman before him. “Do you trust me?” Noa asked, an echo of the question she had asked him earlier that day.
“Always.” Something shifted in Noa’s eyes, something settled in her soul as he spoke that word. Because it was true. He trusted her completely.
Noa pressed her forehead to Diel’s, followed by her lips pressing against his. He closed his eyes and lifted his hands to clasp the back of her head. He needed her close.
He just needed Noa.
Noa’s kiss deepened, her tongue slipping into his mouth to glide against his. Diel moaned as he felt her all around him. Her hands fell to the waistband of his jeans and pulled them open. Then she stood, and without breaking his stare, she removed her leather shirt and her bra.
The folly was cold; goosebumps ravished her skin. She moved her hands to the waist of her pants, pulling them down along with her underwear. Diel sucked in a quick breath at the sight of her. More beautiful than any statue of a saint the Brethren had made him pray to. But Diel would pray for her. Every fucking day of his life, he’d pray for this woman. He’d worship every move she ever made, her every word.
Noa stepped closer to him. Diel planted his hands on her thighs, then ran them up the sides of her body, callused fingers kissing her curves. He held her waist, then pulled her toward him. Diel closed his eyes as he laid his head against her stomach. Noa’s hands fell to his head and she cradled him close. The shame he still felt over Cara lessened some, the conviction of Noa’s promise helping to stanch the unhealed wound of that day—the day Cara was taken away from him. Noa would help him get her back. His brothers, the Coven … they would all help him get her back.
Diel looked up to find Noa’s eyes already waiting for him. They were filled with warmth. He knew that the affection in their depths was reflected in his own. His heart started to race, but the frantic, out-of-control feeling only guided him to confess, “I … I love you.”
Noa stilled. Her eyes widened and her lips parted as she released a sharp breath. Diel kissed her stomach—once, twice, tasting her skin.
When he looked back up, Noa’s eyes were glistening. “I …” She combed her fingers through his damp hair. “I love you too.” Her voice was quiet, but the sentiment was strong.
Peace. It was peace that washed over Diel in that moment. A peace he had never had before. A ceasefire to the constant war raging inside of him.
Silently, Noa lowered herself until she straddled his thighs. Her hands held his cheeks; his hands held hers. Connected. Unbreakable.
Noa sank down onto him, and he filled her completely. He never moved his gaze away from hers as she gently rocked her hips. Not rushed, not frantic. Just Noa and Diel sharing silence, sharing what their souls already knew—that they were bound. Their hearts were entwined, their souls woven.
They were meant to be.
Diel’s breathing stuttered as Noa rocked back and forth, and a blush coated her cheeks, her pupils dilating. The cold room quickly warmed as their bodies created heat, the sparks that had existed since they first collided bursting between them.
He rocked inside her, meeting her thrust for soft thrust. Noa’s head fell against his as their bodies glistened, as their breaths mingled and the telltale pressure of climax began chasing up his spine, his thighs. Light moans sailed from her mouth, and Diel kissed her, swallowing them down whole.
Their tongues dueled as she rocked against him, faster and faster, until she broke from his lips, her fingers clutching at his dark hair. Fire exploded through Diel’s body, pleasure engulfing him, the feel and scent of Noa everywhere around him. Noa moaned out his name, and her thighs locked around his waist to keep them joined, to keep him inside her where he should always be.
As they came down from the high of their pleasure, Noa laid a soft kiss on Diel’s cheek, then the other, his forehead, his nose, then finally his lips. “We’ll find her,” she said breathlessly. “I promise you. I swear it.”
So Diel kissed her back.
He was Finn Nolan. His sister was named Cara. They had both been lost to the Brethren. Diel had been liberated. He had been found. Now it was time for Cara to be found too.
It was time for her to come home.
Chapter 19
Gabriel stared at the door that Diel had fled through with Noa quickly following behind. The room was thick with tension, with anger on their brother’s behalf.
Diel had a sister. Finn and Cara Nolan. Gabriel’s gut squeezed in sympathy for his brother. To have gone this long repressing his past, only to discover the truth, the sad and tragic truth of who he used to be. It had broken him; Gabriel had seen that in his devastated expression.
He closed his eyes, breathing through the heaviness in his heart and his soul. Later, he would go to the chapel and light a candle for Finn Nolan, the boy born into such dire conditions. He would light a candle for Cara
Nolan, another little girl lost to the sinful labyrinth that was the Brethren’s organization.
“Friday can’t come quick enough.” Gabriel opened his eyes as Raphael spoke, his tight voice echoing the feelings of everyone else in the room. Gabriel caught Maria’s eyes. She was pale; the regression had clearly impacted her too.
“I’ll study the ledger harder,” she said. “I’ll study everything we have on the Brethren, try to find something out. There must be some trace of her somewhere, some record of them being taken.”
Gabriel nodded, but he knew there was nothing in the few files they had. They needed more information. They needed more on the Brethren. He just had no idea how to get it without risking everyone he loved.
Movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Naomi was placing the flashlight back in her bag. She had done this for his brother. Gabriel felt anger stirring inside him. He tried to quell it. But when he recalled how Naomi had sounded when she spoke, how fearful and embarrassed she had been to speak aloud in front of them due to her tongue being cut …
The Brethren had done that to her too. They had taken from her the ability to speak clearly. Why? How could they do such things? How did they call themselves priests of God when they did such ungodly things?
Naomi walked silently back toward her sisters. Gabriel opened his mouth to thank her for all that she had done, but before he could, Bara was on his feet and stepping directly into her path.
Bara towered over the petite redhead, the impressive breadth and height of his body shadowing hers. Gabriel tensed. Nothing good came from Bara confronting anyone. Out of all his brothers, Bara was the one who caused him the most restless nights.
Naomi stopped dead. She slowly lifted her bowed head to see who had blocked her path. Gabriel noticed that Dinah’s face fell, and she stepped forward to intervene. Dinah was the heart of the Coven. He wasn’t sure if she knew it, but she was. She was their fiercest protector.
