to my head wound, mopping up the blood with a dirty cloth.
He’d apologized softly, looking haunted but afraid.
Otherwise, he didn’t respond to my attempts to reach him, always looking to Seth for affirmation.
That hurt almost more than the flogging. I felt I’d failed him in letting this happen, that I’d been too wrapped up in my own goings-on to recognize a lost soul when I was faced with one. I had no doubt that he was terrified and clinging to the only stable thing he’d known these past few months, Seth and his God.
Priest stared at the child, jaw flexed, gun still raised.
“It seems we’re at an impasse,” Seth said with glee. “Why don’t you put down the gun?”
Priest cocked his head in consideration, his eyes flicking up to mine.
I didn’t know what to say or do to reassure him. I didn’t want him to drop the gun. I wanted him to shoot Seth in his stupid fucking face, but I also wanted him to spare Billy.
I had no idea what he would do, so I was shocked when he dropped the gun to the packed earth and lifted his hands in surrender.
“Priest!” I shouted as Seth laughed lightly and stepped forward to grab the gun, training it on my man.
Of course, it was too late. Seth leveled Priest’s gun at him calmly. “This is almost too good to be true, but I should have had more faith. God always rewards his disciples.”
He continued to babble on about being the chosen one as he escorted Priest to one side of the room before directing him to spread his arms wide in a gesture of supplication. Priest obeyed every order, his face almost lax, completely placid.
My heart thrummed in my ears.
Where was my ferocious killer? What was his plan?
“Seth, stop,” I cried out, wrenching painfully at my bonds.
He smiled over his shoulder at me as he retrieved a tool kit from one of the pews and plucked out a hammer and nail. “Hush, Bea, I want this corrupt soul to watch as I bring you into the light. Then when you’ve finally been cleansed, you’ll watch as I kill him.”
“No, please, don’t hurt him,” I cried out. “I promise I’ll do what you want.”
“Will you?” he asked in that low, deep monotone that sent chills down my spine. “I doubt you will. I think you believe you love this sinner, but your good heart has led you astray. Maybe it will do you good to see him hurt.”
Without hesitation, he placed a nail in the middle of Priest’s palm and hammered it home through his flesh into the wall with a dull, meaty thwack.
Priest hardly flinched, holding still, his face utterly immobile even when Seth hammered another nail into the right hand, a matching set of crucified palms.
Satisfied, Seth stepped back to survey Priest spread out for him the way I imagined he did as a surgeon clinically diagnosing his patients. Bile surged up my throat at the idea of Seth’s hands on anyone, but mostly on Cleo, operating on her after he’d been the one to ruin her as if it was some sick joke.
I couldn’t stand the thought of Seth adding more scars to Priest’s riddled flesh, taking perverse pleasure in his pain.
“He isn’t alive enough to feel anything. How can you think I have feelings for someone like that?” I cried out, trying to lace my voice with disdain. “Are you alive?” I addressed Priest in an angry yell. “Truly? Or are you just a breathing husk? So married to death, your life is as narrow as a coffin.”
“Oh, bravo,” Seth said without feeling as he clapped his hands together. “You’re terrible at lying, Bea. It’s that good heart of yours. Now, be quiet while I teach this man an important lesson about wickedness, or I’ll have Billy find a way to quiet you with that knife, hmm? You’ll learn, but a good wife always obeys her husband in all things.”
“I’m not your wife,” I spat, tugging at the ropes through the blistering pain. “I’ll never be anything of yours except a fucked-up obsession.”
Seth leveled me with a cool glare. “We’ll see how you feel when he’s gone.”
I struggled, but Billy moved the knifepoint away from my skin so I wouldn’t accidentally impale myself.
“Please, Billy honey, you don’t need to help him,” I beseeched again. “He’s a very bad man.”
“I know,” Billy whispered on a warbled breath, tears in his eyes. “He killed my mum. He told me