by Lily White
He sighed before scrubbing his palm over his face. “I think we’ll need to get the state police involved. I’ll explain that local law enforcement is involved and needs to be kept out of the loop. If they’re killing people like you say they are, then we need to get in there tonight in hopes of saving whoever else they have ready to go up on those crosses.”
Wincing at the thought of the horrible deaths being delivered to the people dragged into the compound, the agent breathed out heavily and turned his face to the sky. “You know, I’m a faithful man, always have been. It’s hard being born and raised in this part of the country and not having Christian values shoved down your throat, but I never imagined an entire town of people could be led so far astray as to believe anything like this is right. These are good people. Hardworking people. Faithful people. But to hear about this? To know they’re involved?” He shook his head. “None of it makes sense.”
Stepping toward him, I tried to refocus his thoughts on the solution to the problem and not how Jericho had managed to brainwash an entire town. “Can you have a team out there tonight? How long will it take you to bring all of this together so you can get in there and rescue those people?”
He frowned. “Normally an operation like this takes weeks or months to put together. But with the Church breathing down our necks and with the possibility that a damn war could break out if your twin decides he’s angry about his wife disappearing, we need to move faster. I’ll have some agents come into town. Prepare them for what’s to come and I’ll have the state police ready to go. There’s a chance we can have this ready for tonight.” He stopped then, his feet going still over the dead leaves he was crushing with each step. Turning to me, he narrowed his eyes. “Why are you asking that question, anyway?”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I shot a look toward the cabin. “I have no supplies where I am, and I’m sure my truck will be easily recognized if I drive down the roads. I can survive out here on nothing if I have to, but Sedra and Joshua need food and water. I can’t keep them here for long with nothing to eat or drink.”
He shrugged, not in an effort to dismiss what I’d said, but more like my issue wasn’t much of a problem. “I planned on taking the three of you with me. I can’t fit you into the truck I’m driving right now, but I can come back with vehicle that will fit all of us. I wasn’t going to let you spend another night out here without some kind of protection. If the sheriff is looking for you, I’m sure he’s been instructed to kill you on sight and dump the body. That’s not going to happen under my watch.”
Kicking at an errant stone on the ground near my foot, I confessed that I had another idea. “I wasn’t planning on staying here. As soon as you can get Sedra and Joshua to a safe place, I was planning on heading to the compound.”
The agent’s eyes rounded into saucers. “Like hell you are. Are you fucking crazy?”
I locked my gaze to his. “Maybe I am, but it’s doubtful my brother has told the family about me, and we’re identical twins. There’s a good chance I can sneak into the compound without Jericho knowing I’m there. Especially if he’s out searching for Sedra and Joshua. The members won’t know he has a twin. They’ll let me in as soon as I approach the gates.”
“And what good will that do?”
Smiling, I answered, “That means you’ll have someone on the inside who can open the gates for you. If your team can get in without a gunfight just to enter, there’s a chance we can keep this quiet.” Growing quiet, I chewed on the inside of my lip before admitting, “and if it’s at all possible, I’d like the chance to save my brother’s life. He’s crazy. I know that. But that still doesn’t mean he needs to be put down like some kind of animal.”
The agent frowned, pacing a few more steps before turning to look at me. “Listen, I think what you’re suggesting is fucking insane, but you’re a free man and I can’t stop you. You don’t have to get in my car when I come to pick up those two inside. You hear me? You can go off and do whatever crazy thing you want to do, but it will be without my immediate protection.” Pausing he squinted against the sun again before wiping the beads of sweat from his brow. “But, I’m telling you now, Jacob, you’d better not breathe a word of this to your brother. Doing so would only mean that more people inside that compound will die.”
My expression softened, my heart beating with the truth of his words. “I know. I won’t say a damn thing. I’ll just make sure I’m inside and can open the gates when you need me to.”
I started to walk off toward the cabin when it was clear our conversation was over. Before I could reach the door, he called out to me.
“Hey, how will we be able to tell the two of you apart? Didn’t you say you’re identical?”
I’d given that question a lot of thought after leaving the Appalachians and returning back to the city where’d I’d been raised. Fortunately for me, buying the guns had been the perfect answer. I found it funny that I hadn’t thought of it long before I’d pressed my fingers against the inkpad on the counter and left the marks on a piece of paper that would tell Jericho and I apart.
“I purchased a shit ton of guns and ammunition before coming back here. I won’t lie. I’d intended to deal with my brother myself in this hopes that I could save him and keep him out of trouble. I’ll give you the receipt from the gun shop where I bought everything and you’ll know where you can find a copy of my fingerprints to use to tell us apart. It’ll be the only way. Everything else about us is the same.”
The agent’s expression twisted with hidden knowledge, an unspoken understanding between two men that even he didn’t want to voice into the silence of the forest.
“You try to stay alive in there, you hear me? You seem like a good man with a good head on your shoulders. Dying to save your brother isn’t the way a former priest should leave this world.”
Inclining my head, I smiled. “I helped create the monster my brother became with my silence about our father. If I deserve anything, it’s to die by his side as a way to tell him I’m sorry.”
The agent shook his head and cursed under his breath, but he didn’t attempt to argue. “Stay here until I get back to pick up your friends. After that, I hope I see you alive again once all of this is said and done.”
He stalked off and I watched him disappear through the woods on the way back to where his truck was parked. I wasn’t sure what I would do once I entered the compound, but I knew that if it was time for my brother to die, I would be the one to end him.
Jericho was a monster. He did horrible things to other people. But could you really blame a man for losing his mind when everybody he’d ever trusted had used him and hurt him so badly?
If nothing else, I could give my brother a compassionate ending, even if his beginning had been nothing short of a living nightmare.
ELIJAH
A full day.
It had been one full day that James or his men couldn’t seem to find one small woman and the brother that had taken her from the parish. How incompetent did you have to be to allow two people I’d intentionally kept stupid and unable to care for themselves slip through your damn grasp?
I would have gone out in search of them myself, but I didn’t want to cause confusion by my presence. At this point I wasn’t sure whether Jacob had anything to do with their disappearance, but I wouldn’t put it past him. A smile slithered over my lips as I remembered the pure pain that was written across his face on the day he believed he’d killed Eve. I wondered how long it had been since he returned to find out the woman he’d spent an entire week loving had actually been alive and in my bed.
The realization must have killed him – at least, that was, if he was involved in her abduction. It wasn’t like Jacob to sneak around. That was more my style than his. No, my brother was the type to march right up to the compound gates to make his demands known.
Sometimes I had to wonder about the way the universe worked, the odd coincidences that occur leaving many to believe there’s a holy figur
e upstairs - a giant puppet master deciding our fates and pulling our strings.
It hadn’t been very long between the time I thought about Jacob and the time Richard walked in, his gut protruding over his large belt buckle and a shit eating grin on his face. “We’ve got company.”
My head snapped up from where it had been angled down to study an errant scratch running over the surface of my desk. “What do you mean? Did the sheriff find Eve and Joshua?”
Shaking his head, Richard barked out a laugh. “No. But your twin brother is at the gates pretending to be you and asking to be let in. Shane came and grabbed me. He was confused because he thought you were inside with the rest of the family.”
Lips stretching into a feral grin, I practically growled out my response. “Well, now, it would be rude of us to keep my brother waiting. You run back there and let Shane know to open those gates and let Jacob inside. He wouldn’t happen to have my wife with him, would he?”
Shaking his head, Richard frowned. “No. Eve is nowhere in sight. If he has her, he’s got her stashed somewhere.”
“That’s just fine,” I drawled, “We’ll see what the bastard came here for and then give him no other choice but to give her up. He can’t keep her hidden forever. Not with the methods we have to make people talk. Run along, Richard and let him in. I’ll be waiting in the sanctuary.”
Richard lumbered out, the weighted pounding of his boot steps dying off as he walked farther away. When silence returned to the office, I leaned back in my chair and sighed. I’d never figured my brother to be a stupid man, but in this, he was practically signing his death warrant.
Wondering if he had Eve, I decided that there wasn’t any other way to find out than to ask him. And I knew exactly the place I wanted to question him, exactly the sight that would throw him off guard because even he had never been so evil.
Pushing out of my chair, I rounded the desk and was out the door on three long strides. I meandered my way through the halls of the compound, finally bursting through a door to enter the sanctuary, thankful that Jacob hadn’t yet been led inside. Taking a position by the altar, I leaned back against the wooden wall of the pulpit and clasped my hands together in front of my body. My eyes had just shifted up to look at the dying man on the cross, his hands practically ripped through for how long he’d been hanging, when I heard a commotion in the front hallway. One of the double doors swung open and Richard walked through dragging a pissed off looking Jacob behind him.
I knew the minute my brother saw the man hanging on the cross. His face lost all its color and he fell to his knees staring up at a symbol that for so many centuries had belonged to the faithful.
“What do you think of my sanctuary, brother? Is it everything you imagined and more? I fashioned it to look like our old parish back home with all the glittering golds and jewel encrusted treasures. Unlike the parish, however, my jewels aren’t real. But I have something they didn’t. I have the living embodiment of the dying Christ, a thief and a liar looking down on us like he didn’t deserve what happened to him.
Dumping Jacob in the center aisle, Richard stood back and looked to me for his next instruction. Knowing that this conversation was intended for brothers, I jut my chin in the direction of the doors and said, “You can go do whatever it is you need to do, Richard. I can handle my brother all by myself. Stay close, though. If I need something, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
Inclining his head, Richard stalked off. I knew he wouldn’t go far and I assumed that was a good thing in case this conversation with my brother didn’t go as well as I hoped. Pushing off from the pulpit, I moved around the altar to step down into the center aisle and walk toward my brother.
Unlike when he’d been a priest, he was dressed in a plain pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. I thought it suited him better than the stuffy black clothes and clerical collar that he’d always worn when he lived at the parish.
He didn’t get up from where he’d been dumped on the floor and upon closer examination, I could see that Richard roughed him up some while bringing him inside the compound. Kneeling down, I reached out to grip his chin between my fingers and bring his eyes level with mine.
“You mind telling me why you decided to return to town after all I did to warn you off? You’re not a dumb person, Jacob. I know you better than that. Were you just feeling like dying, but couldn’t bring yourself to commit suicide? Don’t tell me after everything that’s happened, you’re still the devout Catholic boy who believes any of the religious bullshit.”
His eyes searched mine and it was like looking into a mirror. Even after all these years, Jacob and I hadn’t changed much except in lifestyles, but then again, he hadn’t lived through what I’d lived through. He’d only been witness to parts of it.
“I came back after returning home, Jericho. After visiting our former parish and the old family home. I discovered a few things and decided to come and talk to you about what I found out. I know why you hate me now. And I wanted to apologize.”
Breathing in, I held the breath for a few seconds before letting it out slowly. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what secrets he may have discovered. I just found the timing of his arrival suspect. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Eve, would it? You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”
His brows pulled together with confusion. I didn’t buy the expression for a second. Like me, Jacob could play any part he wanted to play just as long as it got him what he wanted.
“I assume she’s buried wherever you put her. And no, this has nothing to do with Eve. This has to do with our father’s confession and what I found out about the abuse you suffered at the parish.”
Leaning back on my heels, I stared down at him. He wasn’t lying about what he’d discovered, and I was a little surprised he’d taken the time to go back home. However, hearing there had been a confession from our father was surprising. I hadn’t exactly given him time to go running to a priest before I’d shoved him down the stairs.
“A confession? I didn’t know dad had it in him. Tell me, what did this confession say?”
He reached for his back pocket, and I allowed him the slow movement knowing full well that if he had any weapons on him when entering the compound, Richard would have stripped them away.
Pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket, he handed it to me and said, “Maybe you should read it for yourself.”
Taking the paper, I toyed with the edge of it, noticing that it was old and thin. I had no interest in reading a damn word of what my father had written in order to clear his conscious before death. “Why don’t you just give me a summary? As I’m sure you know, I have no happy feelings toward dear old dad.”
Jacob frowned, the corners of his lips turning down into a steep shape of disapproval. “You may feel differently if you read the note. It might surprise you to discover what he did in the end.”
Laughter tumbled out of my lungs. “I know what he did in the end, Jacob. He screamed while falling down a flight of stairs. His last seconds on this Earth were spent staring up at the son who had shoved him down those stairs and wouldn’t move a muscle to help him as he lay there slowly dying.”
Blinking at the confession, Jacob didn’t seem surprised to hear it. “I was told after returning home that it was possible dad hadn’t died from natural causes.”
“Well, now you know,” I grinned, the expression not quite reaching my eyes. “What does the confession say, Jacob?”
Crumpling the paper in my fist, I made it clear I had no intention of reading it.
Jacob’s gaze followed the movement of my hand before returning to my face. It felt like I was staring at a mirror, the image reflecting back one that I wanted to shatter beneath my fist.
Swallowing down whatever lump had clogged his throat, Jacob shifted his weight over the floor until he was fully seated. He swallowed again. “I think you should read it. The impact won’t be the same coming from me.”
Rolling m
y eyes, I was tired of the drama and mystery. “Where’s my wife?”
His eyes snapped up to mine. “Your what?”
I knelt down, a smile stretching my lips to see him struggling to play the role of a stupid man. “My wife,” I said again. “You may remember her. A pretty little brown haired woman named Eve.”
There was shock in his eyes at my admission, but I didn’t believe it was genuine.
“Eve’s alive?” he asked, true confusion in his deep voice. “How is that even possible?”
My eyebrow cocked. “Would you believe I lied?”
He didn’t appreciate the humor rolling through my voice. The anger coloring his skin was surprising. And in that surprise, I started to believe he truly didn’t know that Eve was still among the living.
The realization only pissed me off more. If it wasn’t Jacob who helped Joshua take her from under my nose, then who?
Staring at my twin brother, I paused for a moment before asking, “You really don’t know. Do you?”
He shook his head. “No, Jericho. Not until now. My only reason for coming here was to give you that confession.”
JACOB
Disbelief had shadowed Jericho’s expression when I first lied and claimed I didn’t know Eve was still alive. However, after a few minutes of me clinging to that lie like it was a lifeboat saving me from the waves of a churning sea, he settled back on his heels and studied me, belief finally settling behind the crystal blue of his insane gaze.
I knew my brother had lost his mind, knew that evil filled him so completely that there was no room left in his heart for compassion or humanity, but I hadn’t realized until truly looking at him how deep his insanity was engrained.
Lips moving slowly over words spoken carefully, Jericho asked, “What is it about an old man’s confession that you think I need to read for myself? I just told you I killed him. Do you think I give a damn about anything he had to say?”
