Heart Recaptured (Hades Hangmen #2)(16)
There was no response, so I kept going. “I’m gonna lay it all out for you. You’re stuck here with us, with the Hangmen. The crazy little-hippy-wanna-marry-Jesus-pilgrim shit is done with—”
She tried to speak again, but a firm nod and a hard stare were all that were needed to shut her up. She was compliant, naturally submissive; I’d give her that much.
“Your commune is gone, done with, ground to dust. Do you get that, sweet cheeks? There’s no one left. The women that were spared have all disappeared with their spawn without a trace, the land abandoned. We’ve been back and checked. All the men were killed: the guards, the elders… that f*ckin’ crypt keeper fake-ass prophet you all liked to worship so goddamn much. That cunt took a slug right between his eyes, his brain worm food on your sacred commune’s ground.”
Lilah cried out as though in pain, and I watched as tears filled her distant gaze. I shook my head at her in disgust. I had no idea how she could be upset at losing that wrinkle-pricked pedophile.
Styx had told me some of the shit that had gone on at The Order. Mae’d shared some things with him in bed, and the brother almost lost his mind knowing his bitch had suffered that level of abuse her whole life. Hell, I’m an immoral outlaw biker and even I was shocked at their level of sadism.
Prophet “kiddie-fiddler” David made Charles Manson look like the f*cking tooth fairy.
Crazy damn Jesus freaks. Better to be on Hades’s side, the side of sin. At least then you know where you’re going when you meet the boatman. Don’t need to live striving to be something you’re not. And the best part of it? You can have a shitload of fun living all kinds of f*cked-up wrong, but it feels oh so f*ckin’ right!
“So this is what’s gonna happen. Me and you, well, we’re gonna be spending a whole lotta time together. And I’ll tell you now, don’t bother fighting against it. You’re in my backyard now, and you’ll do what I say. Yeah?”
Lilah instantly nodded her head, and I could see the intense fear in her eyes, feel her frantic breathing.
“Good. So the first thing that’s happening is you ain’t gonna try and kill yourself no more. I don’t like swimming. It’s too much like hard work. I don’t like getting wet. It f*cks with my hair.” I smirked, winked and added, “But I’m more than happy to get you wet in other ways, sugar tits.”
Lilah’s head shook back and forth, a determined expression on her face.
“What now?” I asked in exasperation.
“I… I was not trying to take my own life. I would never do that. Prophet David was very firm about destroying the Lord’s greatest creation, ourselves. It is a path straight to hell. I aim to be at one with the Lord in Zion when he so wishes and not a moment before.”
I rolled my eyes at hearing the name of that meat flap spilling from her lips, but her reply made me as confused as hell. “Then what the f*ck were you doing jumping in the river? You held yourself under after having a damn seizure on the bank. You were wailing and crying like you were losing your friggin’ mind, and you expect me to believe you didn’t try and top yourself?”
“A seizure? What is a seizure? I do not understand your words. You are so confusing to me! Why do I continually fail to understand the words that spill from your lips?”
I laughed and raked my hair back with my fingers. “I’m confusing? Sweet cheeks, you may as well be a f*ckin’ alien zapped down from Mars for how weird you’re always acting.”
“M-Mars? What is Mars? What is an alien? I do not understand!” she shrilled.
I tipped back my head and groaned, then fixed my gaze on hers again. “A seizure is when you roll around unable to control your body. You know, when something’s f*cked in your head and your mouth froths.”
Lilah’s face was blank. And that made me sure I hadn’t missed my calling as a doctor… or a teacher for that matter. I couldn’t seem to explain nothing right to this bitch.
“I am not ill in the mind, nor do I roll around uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth. I was talking to God.”
I stilled and, when her words filtered into my brain, I couldn’t help but laugh again. “Well, saying crazy shit like you were speaking to God ain’t gonna convince no one you’re not One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. I saw you rolling in the dirt, screaming nonsense. My eyes don’t lie. The words you were screaming didn’t even sound real.”
Lilah’s blue eyes narrowed. “I was speaking in tongues, Glossolalia. Those words are a sacred personal language between the Lord and me, a private language that you would not understand. I was filled with the Holy Spirit, with God’s pure love. I transcended to a place where I gave myself to Jesus. What you saw was the embodiment of my worship, of my connection to our creator.”
I was gaping at her. Filled with the Holy Spirit? What. The. Fu—
“I was in the river to cleanse my sins,”—her eyes bored into mine—“to wash away your offensive and unwelcomed seduction, a seduction that was a plague of immorality on my flesh. I needed to submerge myself in clean waters, just like when Jesus was baptized by John.”
Her eyes closed and a weird sense of calm took over her face. “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”