Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(55)
It took a full thirty minutes for the transfer to go through, and I left without bothering to thank the man for his effort. My head was swimming with all the conflicting emotions I had for my twin.
The last thing I wanted to do was return to that town, but I knew those parishioners were in trouble. With the amount of months that had already passed since I ran from the parish, I wondered how many of the young, faithful women in town had already fallen prey to Jericho’s attention.
Gritting my teeth, I ran out of the building and paused as my feet hit the sidewalk. Like a statue standing in the middle of a throng of rushing bodies, I remained motionless as I forced myself to stop and give myself time to think.
Getting to Jericho wouldn’t be easy, and entering the compound would be damn near impossible. If he had people watching the parish, I was sure I’d have a gun pointed in my face before I could cross the large lawn.
No. I had to think like Jericho if I wanted to discover what he was doing, and I needed a way to protect myself from his family.
I needed guns, and I needed stealth, and if I hoped to do anything to end Jericho’s games, I knew I needed to take my time, rather than rushing in there with guns blazing.
It would take a few days to put a decent plan together, possible a few weeks. But I knew when the time came to travel to that small, rural town, it would take everything I had inside of me to decide whether to let my brother live, or whether to kill him as soon as I saw him.
EVE
Elijah stared at me the entire time he fed me, taking his time to spoon the warm soup into my mouth. He never got impatient with me when the liquid dribbled out from between my lips. Much like a parent would do for an infant, he used the spoon to scrape up the spilled food from my chin and guide it back between my lips.
For the past few days that he hadn’t bothered to come see me, I’d wished for the demon to end my life. Wasn’t that what all evil wanted? The destruction of the good? To rip our souls from our bodies and drag us screaming into Hell?
I’d felt guilty to wish for it to end, felt like my faith in God had failed me. Was wishing for death the same thing as suicide? Was simply giving up considered a comparable sin?
Those questions had circled in my head when I hadn’t been sleeping or too agitated to think. Up and down, left and right, over and under, my mind had been scattered in so many places that, at times, I’d forgotten who I was or where I’d been.
But now that Elijah was back beside me, I could think clearer. The pain in my stomach eased with every spoonful of food he fed me, and when the last drop had been scraped from the bowl and fed to me with gentle care, I wanted to ask for another bowl, wanted to beg that he keeping feeding me, just so I could keep him here.
Using a napkin he’d kept tucked in his lap, Elijah wiped the moisture from around my mouth after placing the empty bowl on a bedside table. I was thankful for the way my throat was no longer sore, thankful that I could breathe easier beside him.
“I’d give you more, but I’m afraid it would make you sick. Richard told me you refused to eat since I left for the parish several days ago. Are you angry I didn’t take you with me?”
Shaking my head, I resettled myself against the soft pillows of our bed. “No. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the past few days. Only that I missed you terribly.”
Saying those words had been a lie – at least one made indirectly. It was a lie of omission, the confession of what I’d really been thinking tucked away because I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I’d almost given up to the demon inside me, I’d almost believed the whispered thoughts that this life wasn’t worth living.
“I’ll stay here for as long as you need, Eve. I’ll be here tonight, and in the morning, after we eat breakfast and take a walk through the gardens, we’ll see if you’re well enough to go back to the parish with me. Would you like that?”
Nodding, I admitted, “I don’t like being apart from you. I don’t like spending so much time by myself.”
His eyes softened at the admission, the corners of his lips tilting up into a gentle smile. Brushing his palm down my cheek, he rested his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve missed you, too. And you’ll be happy to know that everything we’ve worked for is coming to fruition. Soon, we’ll have all the demons plaguing our lives running back to where they came from. We’ll be free, my beautiful Eve, and we’ll live in peace and prosperity. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
I knew Elijah truly believed he needed me to walk with him toward the light. It didn’t make sense to me that he’d accepted me back after I’d run from the ceremony that night.
Leaning forward, he kissed my forehead, the smell of laundry detergent and cologne wafting beneath my nose. I always loved the smell of him, always loved the earthy notes. When I’d first arrived to the parish after running that night, I’d remembered wondering about the lack of his scent when he’d picked me up from the lawn and carried me inside. I was too frightened to give it much thought, too lost and twisted up in the games he was playing.
There was no doubt inside me that I deserved the games he’d played, that he’d been right to push and test me to ensure my faith in him was supreme.
His gentleness with me now reminded me of how gentle he’d been in the parish after I’d first arrived. It was stupid of me to think he was two separate people, to believe that something wasn’t right.