Three to Fall (Saint View Slayers vs. Sinners #3)

31. Ice

31

ICE

T he fire had worked beautifully as a distraction so I could get in and get Hayley Jade. I hadn’t counted on Kara fighting the fire with the others. I’d thought she’d run, or that Hawk would have forced her back. So that had slowed me down a bit, but in the end, it hadn’t mattered.

I’d found them both.

Now the cleansing ritual could begin.

I was so foolish for not understanding Josiah’s words earlier.

The night we’d gone to Ethereal Eden, when I hadn’t been able to save him, he’d preached of a ring of fire as he’d been loaded into an ambulance.

He’d been speaking to me. I knew that now.

I hadn’t had enough gasoline to save everyone’s souls like I’d wanted, but I knew Kara’s and Hayley Jade’s were the most important. She was Josiah’s wife. Hayley Jade was his child. The Slayers had never deserved them. They’d tricked Kara, lured her away from what was good and right. I saw that now, but I couldn’t save them all.

I would bring her back to the flock. Would return her to the Lord.

Josiah would accept me. Reward me for doing the Lord’s work. Take me beneath his wing and give me the family I’d always wanted.

The one Tulip had promised before she’d ruined it all.

My head hurt. My brain pounded against my temples, my physical body, ruined with sin, now trying to stop me from what was right. What needed to be done.

One good thing about Hayley Jade not speaking was that she stood there silently, watching while I shoved a rag in her mother’s mouth and put a thick piece of tape across it, holding it in place. Tears streamed down the girl’s face, but she didn’t move. Didn’t utter a sound.

Kara struggled against my hold, trying to communicate with Hayley Jade, but one swift hit to the head from the butt of my gun had her quieting down. The fight went out of her, and her eyes fluttered. I pulled the cord from my backpack, wrapping it around her wrists tightly like handcuffs. I stared down at the familiar rope, remembering the last time I’d used it. I liked the symbolism. “Same thing I used around Tulip’s neck,” I mumbled to myself.

Kara’s head snapped up, her eyes widening, full of fear.

I shook my head at her. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing this time. I won’t mess up again, like I did when we buried you.”

Her body trembled, but she stared at Hayley Jade, trying to say something, but the gag in her mouth and her bound hands did their job. Which was good, because I needed to concentrate.

I dragged Kara farther up the hill, loving the way Hayley Jade just followed along like a little lamb trailing its mother. I glanced down at her. “You’re a good woman of the Lord, Hayley Jade. Doing exactly as you’re told. Josiah will be so pleased.”

I frowned when she didn’t acknowledge my praise.

She just cried those silent tears and tripped over her own feet, stumbling across the rough terrain, dodging trees as she tried to follow Kara up the hill.

“Keep up!” I snapped at her.

She moved a little faster. That pleased me.

Shouts came from the area we’d just left.

They’d probably found Queenie and Rebel then. I’d pistol-whipped the older woman hard enough to knock her out. Rebel was normally feisty, and I’d thought she’d put up a fight, but as heavily pregnant as she was, she hadn’t been quick enough to stop me. I’d left her sitting on the ground, gagged with her hands cable-tied behind her back.

Then told the kids there was a sniper in the woods, ready to kill them if they so much as uttered a sound.

Another lie the evil here brought forth in me.

Kara’s name was shouted through the night air by a dozen different voices. Chaos’s, Hawk’s, and Grayson’s mixing amongst others.

A trickle of worry made its way down my spine, but I sucked in a deep breath and reminded myself I needn’t fear. God was showing me the way.

My van wasn’t much farther. Once we got there, I’d drive us back to Ethereal Eden. Cleanse our sins with fire. Then take my spot as Josiah’s right-hand, as he had foreseen.

The clubhouse loomed. I just needed to get past it. Get a little farther up the hill. I peeked around some trees. Hawk, Hayden, and Grayson all stood in the middle of the clearing, their panicked expressions so typical of men with no faith. No trust that the Lord knew what was best for them.

I knew I was on the right path. I could wait. They wouldn’t stay there long. They’d disperse, searching for Kara.

Kara noticed them, and I clapped a hand over her mouth so even her muffled cries couldn’t be heard.

The fight in her body didn’t last long, and I whispered soothing words in her ear, reminding her the fatigue she felt right now was the evil leaving her body.

“Kara!” Hawk shouted.

Footsteps drew closer, each one cracking twigs and crunching over dead winter leaves. “Kara!”

That was Chaos. But from the rumble of low conversation between shouts, he and Hawk weren’t alone.

Kara thrashed in my grip, though the hit to the head had clearly disoriented her. I pulled on her bindings, watching the cord cut into her skin. “Stop or I’ll kill Hayley Jade right here, right now. You’ll give me no choice. And then her soul won’t be reborn, and she’ll rot in Hell for all eternity. Is that what you want for your daughter?”

Kara stared at me like I was some sort of monster. When all I was trying to do was help her. I held her tighter and glanced at Hayley Jade. She blinked up at me with huge, scared eyes. I shook my head, finger to my lips, reminding her to stay quiet.

Chaos’s shouts grew near. “Kara! Hayley Jade!”

Hayley Jade’s gaze darted to Kara’s.

And then she ran.

She lurched out of the bushes, sprinting for the three men heading toward us.

I knocked Kara off her feet, shoving her down, and lunged after her daughter, rage coursing through me.

“Hayley Jade!” Hawk ran toward her, his big strides closing the gap between us fast.

But I was quicker. Smaller. I didn’t have any of the bulk Hawk and Hayden had.

I caught Hayley Jade around the waist, lifting her off the ground, her feet kicking the air, her fingernails scratching at my forearms as she tried to get to the three men her mother had been whoring herself out to like a common slut for months.

I backed up to where I’d left Kara, her head bleeding, her eyes unfocused.

Hayley Jade screamed, her high-pitched squeal piercing through my ears. She reached her arms to them, her fingers twisting in the secret sign language Hayden and Kara had been teaching her. “Daddy!”

Hawk, Chaos, and Grayson all stopped.

Even I was surprised by the ragged sound of her voice.

Hawk’s face crumpled, and he stumbled forward, reaching for her. “Ice. Give her to me.”

I pointed my gun at him. Idiot wasn’t even armed. Wasn’t even fully dressed, his bare torso streaked with soot and dirt.

Now he knew what it felt like, to feel small and useless. Incapable.

“Daddy,” Hayley Jade sobbed again, her voice stronger this time, her fingers still making that same sign.

Chaos looked like he wanted to vomit. His gaze trained on her hands. His voice was wobbly when he finally turned to me. “What are you doing? You’re scaring her. Let her go. She’s just a kid.”

I took a few more steps toward where I’d left Kara.

Hawk’s bleak expression morphed into anger. “Get your hands off my daughter. I swear to God, if you’ve hurt her—”

He lunged for me, but again I was quicker. And now I was pissed off. I shot a single round into the air. Then lowered the gun to point at Hayley Jade.

“Stay back.”

Grayson held his hand out, blocking Chaos and Hawk from advancing any farther, but his gaze was trained on me. “Okay. We’re not coming any closer. Let’s just talk, okay? What do you want? You have to want something, right?”

I tried to keep the tremble out of my fingers. “It’s not what I want. It’s what the Lord wants. What I must do to enter His kingdom! Prophet Josiah has foreseen it!”

Hawk blinked. “Prophet…you’re with him? You’ve been with him this whole fucking time?”

Anger coursed through me. “I was with you! I did everything for you! All the chores! All the shit jobs! Anything you asked of me! But it was never enough, was it? Never enough to get you to accept me.”

Hawk shook his head. “We’ve been waiting for you all afternoon. War and I decided to patch you in.”

I froze. “No. You’re lying. Just like Tulip lied.”

Hawk screwed up his face in confusion. “Tulip? What the fuck is Tulip?”

But Grayson swallowed hard. “Tulip was Alice’s code name on that app we found on Kyle’s phone, remember?”

Chaos’s head snapped up in horror. “You’re Golden? You’re the man she was texting?”

Hawk screwed up his face in confusion. “No. That man said his name was Xan. That’s not your name.”

I stared at Hawk, a seething anger rising inside me that, even after five years of being here, waiting on these men hand and foot, not one of them had bothered to try to get to know me, even at the very base level. “Isn’t it? What’s my name, Hawk? My real name?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t fucking know, okay? Is that what you want me to say? That I’m a prick who never bothered to ask? You aren’t a special fucking snowflake, Ice! I’m a prick to everyone! I don’t know anyone’s real fucking names! Gunner has been with this club since I was a kid, and I wouldn’t have a fucking clue what’s written on his birth certificate. I never asked because who you were before you joined this club doesn’t matter. You were some street trash no- hoper, right? Most of the guys were! Did you want me to remind you of that by asking about your messed-up childhood or the parents who didn’t give a fuck about you?”

“It’s Alexander,” War said quietly, coming up behind Hawk, his gaze steadily trained on me. “Your name is Alexander. Xan for short, I guess.”

Hawk hadn’t been wrong. I hated the name Alexander. It only reminded me, that at some point, I’d had parents who’d given me that name. And then they’d decided they didn’t want me enough to keep me not long after.

Grayson fixed his stare on me, his expression unchanging, though I saw the flicker of something in his eyes.

“What do you want?” he asked again.

I laughed bitterly. “What do I want? I want to walk out of here and take Kara and Hayley Jade back to Ethereal Eden where they belong.”

Grayson’s voice was eerily calm. “You know we aren’t going to let that happen. So let’s talk about what else you want. Because there has to be more, right? You didn’t just kill Alice for no reason.”

The lump in my throat rose swiftly at the mention of her real name. I couldn’t say it out loud. “Tulip was a liar. She said we were going to be a family. Her and me. That I’d come live with her at Ethereal Eden and be blessed by the Lord.”

Kara finally got the tape free from her mouth and spat out her gag. I didn’t bother trying to stop her. She was bleeding, a crumpled mess on the ground. She couldn’t hurt me.

But her gaze burned mine. “You were a victim of Josiah’s scams. Alice met you on that dating site and told you all about Ethereal Eden and how wonderful it would be for a man like you. A man who didn’t fit within the norms of society. A man who wasn’t accepted anywhere else. You had the Slayers, but they weren’t patching you in, so you were vulnerable. Exactly the type of man Josiah targeted.”

I shook my head, despite knowing in my gut that every word was true. It didn’t matter now.

Kara continued, “I read every single word of those texts. You never told her you were a biker.”

“Why would I? I’m nothing to this club. Nothing more than their errand boy.” Heat burned the back of my neck just thinking about admitting my lowly status to a woman I’d wanted to build a life with. The very thought of her knowing what a loser I was then was mortifying. “I never lied to her. Just kept parts of myself private. But she lied in every message. Every single one.”

Kara’s bottom lip trembled. “Except she didn’t. At some point, Alice developed real feelings for you. I saw the scripts she used when we went to save Jax. She’d used them almost word for word in the beginning, introducing you to Josiah’s teachings. Drawing you into his web. Until you told her about how you like art and how you like to bake. Until you complimented her and made her feel important enough that she switched to using Kyle’s phone so she could talk to you more.”

Bitterness sat hot on my tongue. “I was going to come to her. I wanted to. I knew I was never going to be accepted here.”

Kara’s expression morphed into one of understanding. “But then we left.”

Hayley Jade had gone quiet in my arms, and my fingers shook, still holding the gun at her back, knowing I couldn’t let her go. Couldn’t let my guard down for even a second or their evil would overcome me and I would cave into the alluring pull of the Devil. “Evil had gotten into her soul. She was supposed to be my wife. Good and obedient.”

Grayson nodded. “So you killed her. You lured her out to a nightclub. Teased her with the promise of freedom. And then you put a cord around her neck and tightened it until she couldn’t breathe.”

He didn’t understand! Nobody did. “She needed to be reborn. To be cleansed of her sins. I did what needed to be done!”

Grayson wasn’t finished. “And then you did the same thing to Kara, burying her alive.”

“When she showed up here, at the clubhouse, and I found out she was Alice’s sister, I realized the Lord was showing me the way. She’s poison. She poisoned Alice. Drew her from the safety of Ethereal Eden with lies and evil words.”

I pushed Hayley Jade at Kara and stood behind them, my gun never wavering. It was the only thing keeping the others at a distance. I knew that.

I eyed Hawk and reached over my shoulder to unzip my backpack. “If you so much as move an inch, I’ll pull this trigger and end them now. Their eternal damnation will be on your shoulders. Alice’s is on mine. I didn’t know how to cleanse her soul properly and I let anger get the best of me. But I know better now. Josiah has shown me the way.”

I raised my gaze to the sky and repeated the words imprinted on my brain ever since I’d heard Josiah speak them as he’d been loaded into the ambulance at Ethereal Eden. “We will all be judged at the feet of the Lord, our souls melded to our earthly bodies until the ring of fire is crossed. Repent! Repent! The Lord demands your souls be cleansed with fire and rain and blood. Repent! Repent!”

I took the final container of gasoline from my backpack with my free hand.

Then turned it upside down, dumping clear liquid all over the two females at my feet, as well as myself.

Kara screamed; clutching Hayley Jade close as the liquid poured down over all three of us.

Hawk let out a bellow of rage. Grayson and Chaos both lurched forward, only to be grabbed by other members of the club who I hadn’t even noticed surrounding us. Smoke still hung in the air; the darkness only brightened by the lights from the clubhouse that barely reached the circle of accelerant I’d made around us.

I pressed the gun down on Hayley Jade’s head hard enough she cried out, reminding everyone who was in control here. The rush of power sped through my veins, adrenaline pumping my heart faster than it should have now that the moment was here.

I needed to get this right. Needed for us to be delivered into His holy embrace. For my sins to be forgiven. I stepped forward. Raised my arms, a lighter clutched in one hand.

With a single flick of my thumb, I lit up the night.