by Tillie Cole
The longer I stared, the more my hatred grew. Grew for the fucks that had tortured our women. Fuckers that if I ever saw again, I would kill slowly and painfully. I’d give them what they deserved. I’d send them to Hades with no coins on their eyes.
To burn in fucking hell where they belonged.
Chapter Six
Rider
Every part of my body tensed as Harmony spoke those words. I am a Cursed woman of Eve . . .
No, I thought, her confession circling laps around my head. No, no no! My stomach formed into a black hole as we fell into a heavy silence. My deep breathing sounded like thunder as it bounced off the floor where I lay. Images of Mae, Delilah and Magdalene flashed across my mind.
I thought back to Judah. I thought back to when I told him we were all doomed . . . I have found another, he had said. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but . . .
He had another Cursed Sister of Eve to fulfill the great prophecy.
No, not again. I pressed my palms to the floor. My arms shook at the small effort of hoisting myself up, but I persevered and managed to move into a sitting position.
I shuffled closer to the gap and rested my head against the wall. I closed my eyes, fighting the darkness that had resided in my heart. The anger was so potent that I felt it sear through my every vein. My spine was stiff and my muscles corded from the tension wrapping me in its embrace.
“Harmony,” I called, my voice almost unrecognizable to my own ears.
There was a long pause, then she replied, “I am still here . . . I am sure he will never let me go anywhere else.”
My chest tightened at how sad she sounded, how completely defeated. I did not know the woman, but I did not care. She had been the first person I had ever spoken to without an agenda, without the heavy cloud of my devout faith guiding my tongue and actions. She did not know me as the destined prophet. She did not know me as the turncoat rat Hangmen brother. She knew me as the unseen prisoner—a cast-out sinner just like her.
“Harmony, listen to me,” I rasped, and laid my hand against the hard wall. I felt closer to her by doing this. I imagined what she looked like on the other side. She would be beautiful. Every Cursed I had seen was unrivaled in beauty . . . unrivaled in beauty but racked with pain and self-hatred. I knew that now. They were called Cursed because Prophet David deemed their beauty too irresistible to the men in The Order. Too stunning to be godly.
I winced as I imagined what Harmony must have gone through in her life . . . what my brother would do to her once he had her by his side. I did not know why, but that thought turned my blood into scalding lava.
My hand balled into a fist on the wall. “Harmony, where did you just go? Earlier today?”
I held my breath as I waited for her to reply. “To the prophet,” she eventually said. I exhaled sharply.
Gritting my teeth, I asked, “What did he do?” Because I knew my brother. I had seen for myself how the power of being prophet had affected him. Had gone to his head.
I did not want the question to upset her. I did not want to hear her cry. But to my surprise, her voice was strong as she said, “He wanted to make sure I was a Cursed after all. He has never laid eyes on me before today.”
“And?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“Yes,” she said softly. “He declared it to be true. I am a Cursed Sister of Eve, the chosen one that he will wed.” I caught a hint of anger in her voice. A flash of resistance. It made me feel a flush of pride. I had never seen her, had only just met her, but I could hear her strength in a few simple words. It warmed something inside me that had previously been ice cold.
Harmony was different. She had fight. The few women I had spoken to in the commune appeared submissive. I could hear in her tone that Harmony was no such thing. She had a fire inside her heart.
She was strong.
A strange sensation settled over me. I was not sure what it was yet, but whatever it was soothed some of the heat in my blood.
“He examined me,” she continued. But the firmness in her voice had dwindled. I heard the hurt pushing through to the surface. She stopped speaking and took a few stuttered breaths.
I opened my mouth, wanting to ask her what Judah had done. But I was not sure I could hear it. That did not matter, because a few seconds later, Harmony said, “He touched me between my legs. He”—she sucked in a sharp breath and my heart broke—“he hurt me. He . . . he touched me where I did not want to be touched.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
The anger that had ebbed came back full force as Harmony told me what Judah had done. And I could picture him doing it. As we had watched those sick videos of the children dancing seductively for their prophet, Judah had found them a pleasure to see. He had sexually awakened eight-year-old children. He frequently fornicated with Sarai, a girl of just fourteen. He would think nothing of touching a Cursed. He thought them the lowest of the low, his touch the purification they needed to regain salvation.
I was clenching my jaw so hard it ached. Without conscious thought, I drew back my hand and smashed it against the wall. “FUCK!” I shouted, the frustration I had been feeling for weeks—no, since I had arrived at this place months ago—reaching its peak.
My hand throbbed at its contact with the stone, but I did it again, roaring out my fury with every strike. Sweat poured from my brow as my already weak arm shook with the exertion. My throat was raw from my outburst, but I welcomed the pain. At least I was feeling something. I had sat back in numbness for so long, that even hurting, my body felt revitalized, my blood was reborn. It was anger, pure and true, but the emotion was welcome.
So damn welcome.
I panted, slumping against the wall. I smelled the tinny scent of blood; I had ripped the skin off my knuckles.
As if to add fuel to my fire, the commune speakers slowly crackled to life. I waited to hear the voice that sounded identical to mine. When it came, a shudder ran down my back. Judah. Judah, my only family, was fucking everything up. He was unrecognizable to me right now. My chest burned. I rubbed along my sternum to try and ease it. It didn’t work.
“People of New Zion, take up your arms. Practice until your hands bleed. We will be prepared for The Rapture. We must not fail when the devil’s men try to take us down. We are the holy warriors of God!”
I made myself take deep breaths as the now-familiar sounds of target practice came darting into the cells. My anger was replaced by feelings of utter hopelessness. I had no idea what Judah had planned. I had recently learned that what went on in my brother’s mind could never be predicted. Not even by me. But I knew whatever it was could not be good.
Judah wanted blood.
He was fueled with hate for the Hangmen . . . for anyone that stood in our people’s way. My stomach flipped. I knew I was the only one who could stop him, but none of the people knew that an imposter had taken their prophet’s place. I had no one to help me. I had no allies to free me from these walls. Judah’s guards were loyal and just as bloodthirsty as he.
I had no one to help me take back the reins.
In despair, I listened to shot after shot, to the guards demanding more accuracy from the people. Even from this cell I could feel the clogging thickness of fear coming from our flock—their nervous cries; their silences. They were all terrified. Judah’s words of hate had drawn them all to the edge. What happened when they went over was anyone’s guess.
“Rider?” Harmony’s voice came through the wall during a pause in the gunfire.
“Yes?”
“Why are you so angry? I hear it in you . . . I can even feel it through this wall.”
My confession was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. I liked Harmony talking to me. I didn’t want her to stop. She must have felt a safety, a kinship with me to have confided in me about what Judah had done, to express her subtle hatred for our faith. If she knew who I was, she would never speak to me again. She would assume I was just like my brother.
/> My lungs seized. Maybe I was.
I had acted like he had. I had sinned like he had . . . I had killed, I had allowed monstrous things to happen in the name of a God I was sure had neglected me.
We are exactly the same.
“Rider?” Harmony pushed.
My eyes stared off to the corner of the room. “Because there is no hope. No fucking sun in this dark midnight of hell.”
“There is always hope, Rider,” Harmony whispered and my heart cracked right down the center. A lump clawed up my throat, and I felt tears pricking in my eyes.
“Is there?” I asked, my voice breaking. “To my eyes there is none.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I used to think there was none too, in my darkest times. But then I found people that held within them a light I had never seen before, people I once would have perceived as an enemy. People that are good in their heart of hearts . . . it made me believe that somewhere, out there in the sinners’ world, lies further hope. A world unlike the one we know.”
Her beautiful voice rolled over me like a balm. I closed my eyes so I could hear it more clearly. When she spoke I felt like I had a friend. When I spoke to her, I felt it was the only time in my life I had ever spoken the truth.
I was me, whoever that man may be.
“Those people,” I asked and lay back on the floor, placing my mouth near the gap in the stone. My chest was to the ground. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to hear her soft voice. “Did they share our faith?” Harmony did not say anything. “I ask because I . . . I think I have lost faith in what we believe here in The Order. I think I have lost faith in the people that reside here too.” My eyes squeezed shut. It was the first time I had let myself speak those thoughts, feel their truth. I, Prophet Cain, had begun to doubt everything I was raised to be.
Months in solitude ensured you did nothing but think, day and night. Think of every little thing you had done in your life, of every action, every thought—good or bad. It was a torment that burned from within. Wondering if you were wrong or right . . . wondering if you were on the side of good, as you believed, or whether you had blindly embraced the darkness.
If there was a God, I didn’t feel him with me now. I prayed it wasn’t the devil polluting my soul as Judah had declared. I still believed that evil was real. I just wasn’t sure if I was that evil.
“Yes,” Harmony said cautiously, bringing me back to the question I had asked. “The people I love are from here too. Though they do not embrace the acts that hurt people . . . hurt innocent little girls . . . and boys.” I froze. Little boys were hurt too? “They are kind in their souls,” Harmony went on. “They selflessly gave me hope when all that I loved was lost to me, my light snubbed out by the stark cruelty of men.”
I stared at the tiny gap in the wall and wished more than anything that I could see Harmony’s face. The more she spoke, the more I wanted to know her. Her voice, since she had arrived, was my savior. I wanted to look into her eyes and see the fire that she harbored inside. These past few months I had been perpetually cold in my heart. I wondered if she could melt its ice. Silence the loud screams of doubt in my head.
“What are you thinking?” Harmony asked, gently soothing some of the pain within.
My lip twitched. She had read my silence for exactly what it was—worry. “I was thinking that I would like to see you. I . . . ” My stomach flipped. “I like speaking to you, Harmony. More than you could ever know. I like that you are here beside me.” I glanced down at the gray stone. “You arrived when I needed a friend most. Someone to trust, when I believed there was no one out there that I could ever let in again.”
Harmony sucked in a sharp breath, but replied, “Rider . . . I am here for you.”
The twitch on my lip morphed into a small smile. I rolled awkwardly onto my back, to relieve the ache in my joints, to find a moment of reprieve from the uncomfortable position on the floor. As I did, I caught sight of the white tallies on my wall. My eyes dropped to the sharp rock that I had used to mark the stone. An idea came to my head.
I reached out and clutched the stone, its jagged edges rough in my palm. “Harmony, I’m going to try something.”
I brought the sharpest edge of the rock to the patchy cement that kept the brick below our gap in place. Using my uninjured hand, I began working the pointed tip along the crumbling crack. My heart raced when the cement began to fall away. Flickers of light beyond the stone began coming into view.
Light from Harmony’s cell.
“My tray of food is still in my room,” Harmony said. “There is a knife. It is blunt, but it may work.” I heard the sounds of Harmony’s feet on the floor, moving away then coming back, then the sound of scraping on the other side of the brick.
I smiled, and worked the cement harder. When the cement above the brick was eradicated, I caught a glimpse of blue beyond the wall. “Harmony,” I whispered, the heat of excitement building in my chest. She stilled, and I saw a flash of what looked like blond hair. “Work the sides,” I directed and began moving the tip of the rock against the broken cement on the right. Harmony worked on the left, and after several minutes warm, humid air passed freely between the gaps.
“What now?” Harmony said softly, eagerly.
“Hold on,” I said, shifting my hands to find purchase on the stone brick. It was only small and narrow, but if I could remove it from its place . . . I would see her some. Even if it was just a little, I would see her in the flesh.
Just as I was about to move the brick, a sudden fear hit me. I would see her. But she would also see me. At least she would see some of my face.
She had seen Judah . . .
My hands fell away from the brick and I closed my eyes, disappointment rushing through my blood. I dragged myself to my feet and staggered to the sanitary part of the cell. Above the old basin was a small cracked mirror. Placing my hands on the edge of the basin to keep steady, I looked up at my reflection. I had avoided it for weeks; I had no need to look at my face. In fact, I had purposely evaded it. When I looked at myself, I always saw my brother. Would forever see Judah glaring back at me.
But now I looked . . .
My brown eyes widened in shock when I saw the state that I was in. My face was blood-spattered and covered with dirt and grime. My beard was long and stuck into clumps. My hair was heavily matted and had gathered in long, scraggly chunks. Even my eyes were bloodshot, the surviving white base tinged with gray —evidence of the endless punishments I had endured.
I barely recognized the man staring back.
Yet I could only feel relief in it. There was little resemblance to the twin that had locked me away out of sight. Judah had gone . . . Hell, Rider had gone. Harmony would not see the mirror image of the pretender prophet. She would see a dirty, beaten man. A prisoner, just like her.
“Rider? Where are you?”
Harmony’s sweet voice came drifting across the cell. I slowly walked back to the wall. My legs tingled as the blood rushed through my starved muscles. Slumping to the floor, I pushed my fingers into the gaps around the brick and pulled on the stone. Dust clouded the air as the old stone began to pull away. The stone suddenly got stuck. I opened my mouth to tell Harmony to push from her side, but the rock moved before I could.
My heart swelled. She had done it without being asked—she wanted to see me too. I pulled on the brick with as much strength as I could muster.
“It is working,” Harmony said as the brick moved, millimeter by millimeter, painstakingly slowly. Finally, after minutes of working the jagged brick out of its home, it was freed into my hands.
I exhaled, breathless with exertion. But my tiredness was soon forgotten as I discarded the brick, hiding it in the darkest corner of the cell. I stared down at the hole in the wall. My heart slammed against my ribs and my pulse raced faster in my neck.
“Rider,” Harmony said breathlessly. “It worked.”
I let my eyes close momentarily. Her sweet soft voice sounde
d clearer to my ears, no longer muted by the thick wall. Warmth spread along my limbs when she added, “Let me see you. I want to see you.”
Making sure my hair was over more of my face than usual, I gradually lowered my body down to the floor, my chest to the ground, controlling my breathing as pain shot through me. When my body was still, I moved my head to the gap in the wall and peered through.
My entire body froze. Looking back at me were the most beautiful dark-brown eyes I had ever seen. Long black lashes fluttered as Harmony’s gaze clashed with my own. “Harmony,” I said in breathless admiration.
“Rider,” she replied, her voice just as awestruck. She moved her body up further so the rest of her face came into view. I frowned. A veil covered her from the top of her cheekbones down to her neck.
A deep red blush blossomed on the skin that was free from coverage. Harmony lifted her hand and ran it along the light-blue material. “The prophet ordered that I wear it at all times.”
My eyebrows pulled down. “Why?”
“Because I am the only chance left to fulfill the prophecy. He wants me to remain pure before our wedding day.” She touched the veil again. “This veil ensures that I tempt no man into taking my body before our wedding night. It is why I am being kept in this cell. I am to be revealed to the people when the time is called for. Not a moment before.”
Tension filled me, anger burned within me at the hurt in Harmony’s voice. Judah. This was all Judah again. To calm myself down, I focused on Harmony’s eyes. My lips hooked into an unexpected smile when I caught a flash of blond hair escaping from her headdress. “You have blond hair.”
“Yes,” she replied. Her cheeks moved, and I knew that underneath her veil she was smiling. Although I couldn’t see her lips, she was smiling with her eyes. “And you have brown hair and brown eyes.” I panicked under her scrutiny, praying she didn’t detect any resemblance to Judah. My nerves were soothed when she said, “But I cannot see most of you through the blood and dirt on your skin.” Her eyes glistened, and her voice faded to a whisper. “Rider . . . what has been done to you?”
