Fear the Wicked (Illusions Series Book 2)(68)
His breath a beat against my ear, he didn’t speak or make any other type of sound, but I noticed the slight increase in his heartbeat, the way his lungs drew breath harder, letting it out with only a hiss of soft sound. Finally, my head was positioned where he wanted it, the room still silent, the nightmare ready to be revealed.
The heat of his hand pulled away, the cold air in the room coming in to crash against the skin of my face, and when I knew he was ready for me to see what he’d done to a demon who dared to touch what belonged to him, I opened my eyes…and screamed.
ELIJAH
I don’t think I need to explain the symbolism behind my display of a liar and thief, of a charlatan and criminal, of a man who lured people in to his seductive web with promises of safety and security all while knowing he’d take what was good in them and expose it to the scavengers and predators that exist in this world.
It wasn’t necessary for me to spell out the hatred I held inside myself for more years that I wanted to count of a fairy tale told for centuries that, to the good man, would come peace and happiness. Because beneath the robes of those good men existed the demons, beneath the skin of their faces was the mark of the beast waiting for the moment to come out.
Being a child in an abusive household is never easy. Hearing the screams of your brother, the deafening silence of your mother, the terrible, punishing words of a father who swore his allegiance to God and Jesus.
Running out the front door, I would go in search of something that could save me, of a protector, of shelter, of one comforting hand that would promise that it hadn’t been me who caused the hatred inside those pristine walls and the small unfinished room with dirt floors. I’d found that promise, and all it cost me was my sanity.
Every day, I was overjoyed to leave my family home in route to a parish I believed was a sanctuary from the horror I lived beneath the roof of my father’s house. I would jump out of my mother’s car and race to the large wooden doors, fighting against the wind that held them shut so that I could hide inside amongst the golden crosses and jewel boxed relics. I would look up to the doves that were painted into the stained glass windows and bask in the glow of candlelight as I breathed in the incense. I would look up to the music director and the gentle priest with hope in my eyes that one day they’d notice the bruises, that one day they’d approach my father to tell him, “Enough.”
Every day I’d appear with that hope in my heart, ignoring the grumbling of my brother who didn’t see the parish in the same way. He abhorred the routine, hated the Tradition, had already grown weary of the world to which we’d been born. But not me. I had hope in a story, in a fable, in the imagery I’d conjured of a strong God sitting in the Heavens looking down at me with love in his eyes.
I’d believed in Him harder than I’d believed in anything, and when the time came that the bruises were noticed, the belief I’d held in the Almighty and his messengers had all but destroyed me behind closed doors and secret meetings, on my knees that were burning against pristine carpets, and on my stomach as I leaned over the desk of my parish priest.
For years, YEARS, those men had used me and had relied on my father’s wrath to bind my tongue.
“He’ll only beat you harder if he finds out.”
“Good luck, boy, there is nowhere you can run.”
I believed their lies just as much as I’d once believed that God would look out for me and protect me from evil. Once the illusion had been stripped away from my innocent mind, I’d never believed in another thing again.
Not God. Not good. Not evil. Not redemption.
For a boy that was only temptation, there was no absolution.
I was a filthy whore. A petulant child. A mockery of what it meant to be decent and faithful. I was only nine when the sexual abuse started, and by thirteen, those men had shaped me and formed me, beating me down with punishing fists and heavy cocks, until they’d broken me enough to create a monster.
Eight years passed that I endured the abuse while my twin somehow escaped unscathed. And at sixteen, when Jacob and I had tasted our first girl in the basement of that parish, I understood then how good it felt to be the one to punish rather than the one cowering beneath the weight of abusive men.
Their laughter had always echoed in my ear. My father’s raised voice always chased me back into their clutches, but I’d come out the stronger man in the end when I’d decided to killed them, one by one.
First the music director, but he’d already been dead by the time I got to him. Then the priest. It was interesting to find out that he too had suffered an unfortunate demise after I’d searched for months to find him. Figuring the Church had done a decent enough job of covering their crimes, I felt robbed of my opportunity for violence, but I couldn’t deny I felt a keen sense of happiness after discovering that both men had been shoved into the bowels of whatever Hell devoured them.
My father, well, his death wasn’t exactly planned, but after he’d refused to accept his part in the sexual abuse I’d suffered, after he’d failed to acknowledge that if he’d just listened he could have stopped them, he took an unfortunate tumble down the steep, winding stairs. I never intended for that to happen, but then what can be done with a man who will confess his sins to God behind closed doors and in secret while refusing to admit them to his own flesh and blood?
Churning within the mist of all the memories that crowded my head was one symbol that stuck out, one ruse, one lie, one image that was the cause of it all.