Creed (22 page)

Mike finally shook his head, his face pale as the tears poured from his eyes. Like I’d done, he gathered Luke up in his arms and rocked him, quietly swearing against all that was sacred and holy to kill the person who did this.

“No.
NO!
” I thrashed in Joseph’s arms, kicked at his legs as the gut-wrenching realization hit me. Luke was gone. My boyfriend. My life. My everything. Gone.

One good kick to the shin and Joseph let me go. I fell to the ground and crawled to Luke. I went to take him, to pull him into my arms, but Mike wouldn’t let him go. He pushed me away with the heel of his foot and dragged Luke farther into his arms, buried his head in his brother’s neck and sobbed.

I slammed my fists into the ground and screamed. The pain searing through my hands and knuckles was barely enough to keep me conscious, to keep what little sanity I had left from slipping away completely. I pulled myself up and covered my ears to drown out Mike’s cries. It didn’t work. His guttural pleas bounced off the cold walls, piercing my soul. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It. Wasn’t. Supposed. To. Be. This. Way.

I went for the only thing I could reach—the lantern—and threw it at the wall. Small pieces of glass rained down to the floor, but that didn’t help. The rage inside me was building, drowning me, and I went for the chair.

It was bolted to the ground, but I yanked anyway, throwing all my energy into ripping it from its anchors. I screamed and tugged again, the force jerking me forward and straight into Joseph’s arms. I pushed at him, would’ve thrown him through the wall if I could’ve.

“Stop, Dee. Please, stop,” Joseph said as he pulled me into his chest again and folded his arms securely around me. “I promise it’s going to be okay.”

He kept chanting those words as if his assurances were what I needed. They weren’t; the only thing I’d ever needed was lying there dead.

“It’s not okay,” I sobbed as I turned my head to the side and looked down at Luke. “It’s never going to be okay again.”

Luke’s body lay limp in Mike’s arms, his struggle clearly visible in the wounds defiling his skin. I knew exactly what the three-inch slits lining his body were. Elijah had bled Luke with no restraint or regard. I had seven wounds on my arms. Three on the right and four on the left. But Luke was covered in them. His arms were a mess of crisscross patterns, his chest marred and soaked in blood. His hair had been cut so short that parts of his scalp were visible. His shoes were gone, his skin red and broken where he’d struggled against his restraints.

I focused on the thin red lines around his wrist, memorized them rather than look at his hands and confirm what I knew to me true. With one deep breath, I looked down and gasped. His middle finger was gone, a clean white bandage covering the wound. His whole hand was clean, not a mark or scrap of dirt on it.

I reached out and unwound that bandage, several inches of gauze falling to the floor. I ran my finger across the palm of his hand. It was exactly like I remembered—soft and calloused at the same time. I let my hand play down each one of his intact fingers before stopping and looking at what was missing.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That son of a bitch had taken off Luke’s finger, then had the insane decency to stitch the wound closed. Why bother? Why the hell would you bother to patch him up if you only intended to let him die?

He was insane. Elijah Hawkins wasn’t a religious zealot; he was completely crazy. And crazy wasn’t something you could reason with.

THIRTY-THREE

The silence was agonizing. Each breath I managed to take ached, burning my lungs as I struggled to process the truth. Nothing, not years of enduring my father’s abuse, not even the vague knowledge that I might be bound to Elijah Hawkins forever, compared to the soul-crushing pain I was feeling.

I tried to stand but dizziness took over, the floor pitching and rocking beneath me. I didn’t reach out to Joseph or Mike to steady myself. With my world crashing down around me, I honestly didn’t care if I fell. I didn’t care if I died. In fact, death would’ve been welcomed.

“This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening,” I said over and over, my own voice sounding hollow and foreign.

Joseph dropped to the floor next to me. His hand shook as it ran over my back, and I shrugged him off. I didn’t want to be touched or moved. I needed to stay right where I was, my hands locked around my knees as I stared into Luke’s dead eyes. If I let go, if I moved even an inch, then I’d lose every part of me.

No, I needed to stay like this, physically—literally—holding myself together.

Mike started crying again, his broken sobs filling the room with a horrible, empty sound. I shuddered and huddled farther into myself as I watched him through the sheen of my own tears, totally unable to say or do anything to make it better.

“We need to go,” Joseph said.

Mike lifted Luke from his lap and eased him against the wall. Even in the dark, I could see the pain in Mike’s eyes, his despair taking hold. He ran the back of his sleeve across his face before bending down and whispering to his brother, “He’ll pay for this. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll make sure he pays.”

“You ready to go?” Joseph asked.

“Go? Go where? Luke is dead!”

“I know, Dee, and I’m sorry. I truly am. I never expected my father to … ” Joseph trailed off as he quickly looked at his watch. “It’s been nearly an hour since my father left us in that room. We have to go. Now.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not without Luke,” I said.

Joseph let out a frustrated sigh and turned to Mike. They could team up on me for all I cared. Dead or not, I wasn’t leaving Luke here alone.

“Listen, Dee,” Mike said, pausing to clear the tears from his throat. “Joseph is right. We gotta go.”

“No.” It was one word, but it held more conviction than anything I’d ever said.

Mike closed the short distance between us and put his hands on either side of my face. Streams of tears ran down his face, and his hands trembled against my cheeks as he took in another ragged breath. Somehow I’d forgotten that Luke wasn’t only my rock; he was Mike’s too.

“We can’t do anything for Luke,” Mike said. “But I can save you. He made me swear to get you out of here. I promised him that if I got the chance, I’d forget about saving him and go find you.”

I didn’t care about Mike’s stupid promise; I wasn’t leaving Luke. “No. I won’t go.”

I looked around the dank room, pausing on the details I hadn’t noticed when we came in. The piles of vomit. The heap of blood-soaked rags lying in the corner. One of Luke’s sneakers, stained red in the shadows. This was how Luke had died—alone and in the basement of a narcissist with nothing but darkness and squalor to keep him company. He didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this.

I’d thought I was helping him. I’d believed that submitting to Elijah’s insanity would protect Luke. What an absolute idiot I’d been.

“You have no idea what that man will do to him,” I said. Elijah would probably find some twisted way to offer Luke’s body up as a sacrifice to God … to himself. “We can’t leave him here, Mike. We can’t.”

The second Mike looked down at Luke, I knew he’d sided with me. “Fine. We’ll take him with us. We’ll bring him home.”

“We won’t get half a mile outside of town carrying him,” Joseph argued.

“Half a mile? You won’t get
five feet
up those steps without him,” Mike replied, his hand sweeping out in my direction. “Trust me. I know Dee better than you ever will, and she’s not leaving without him. And I’m not leaving without her.” He sidestepped around Joseph and held his hand out for me to take. “I’ll carry him home, Dee.”

I took Mike’s hand. The heat of tears warmed my face again and Mike buried me in his chest, hugging me so tight I could feel his heart beating against my cheek. His shoulders shook as the strength he’d tried so hard to gather cracked and fell away.

A shuffling sound from behind me caught my attention, and I glanced up and realized Luke was gone. Joseph had him slung over his shoulder and was making his way toward the stairs.

Mike followed my gaze, his whole body vibrating with anger. “Take your hands off him,” Mike said as he tore Luke from Joseph’s arms. “I don’t need your help carrying him.”

“I never would’ve brought Dee here, any of you here, if I’d known this would happen,” Joseph said.

Tears still rimmed Mike’s eyes and I looked away, desperate to allow him that tiny shred of dignity as he gently settled his only brother over his shoulder. He was taking Luke home; we both needed to take Luke home.

THIRTY-FOUR

I flung open the front door and a momentary sense of peace filled me as I breathed in the night air. Finally, I was able to rid my senses of the horrible stench of the basement.

The streetlights cast a strange, iridescent light over the yard, doing little to keep the darkness at bay. If you’d asked me before, I would’ve told you I was afraid of the dark and embarrassingly pointed to the nightlight Mrs. Hooper kept in the upstairs hall. Not anymore. Now the darkness kept us hidden, gave us a shot at escaping unnoticed.

We decided to let Joseph lead, figuring he would know the quickest route to safety. Our goal wasn’t to make it home in one night, just to get safely out of Elijah’s striking distance.

I felt more than saw Elijah emerge from the shadows, and with one deep breath, I turned around to face him.

“Going somewhere, Rebekah?”

Joseph and Mike slowly turned around at the sound of his voice. Mike’s hand flexed, the rage he’d tamped down flying full throttle to the surface.

I thought about taking off, just running as fast as I could in the opposite direction, and if it hadn’t been for what Elijah was holding in front of him, I probably would’ve. Elijah had James by the throat, kicking at the back of the boy’s feet to make him walk. James was pale and sweating, but he wasn’t lashing out or trying to break free. It wasn’t until I saw the glint of the blade at James’s neck that I figured out why.

James silently begged me to help him, the plea encased in tears that nearly brought me to my knees. I couldn’t help him. I was unarmed, Mike was loaded down with Luke, and Joseph looked as scared his cousin. That crazy old man had us stuck, unsure of what to do or where to run.

“James,” I muttered, hoping he’d hear the apology in my tone.

Elijah wrenched James’s neck back farther, the knife poised at his skin like a promise. “I see you found your brother,” he said to Mike, his gaze skimming over Luke’s body. “I tried, you know. I begged him to give up his contemptuous ways. But unlike you, he wouldn’t acknowledge my divinity. He kept damning me to hell, all in the name of
her
.”

Elijah’s words sunk in, left me standing there with nothing but the horrid truth ringing in my ears. Luke had been fighting for me, had spent his last hours cursing Elijah until it got him killed.

“There is no point in taking him home,” Elijah continued. “Even a Christian burial won’t save his soul.”

Elijah repositioned the knife, twisting it to elicit a gasp from James’s lips. “It’s actually better this way. Somebody as tainted as Luke needed to be released from the confines of this world and returned to his maker.”

I shrieked, a sound so intense and full of anger that I lost the ability to think. I wanted to tear every scrap of skin from Elijah’s body and stand over him as he took his last breath.

“Don’t,” Joseph whispered, anticipating my actions. “You go after him and he’ll kill James. Please, Dee, don’t give him a reason. Father,” he said, turning to Elijah with a plea in his voice, a plea I knew would go unanswered, “let them go. I’ll stay. I’ll submit to whatever you deem necessary, but please, let them go.”

“The thought of you leaving never crossed my mind, son. You were born and raised here, taught in our ways. And here is where you will die.”

Maybe that was Elijah’s endgame. Maybe he truly wanted to see us all dead, including his own son.

“What do you want from us?” Mike’s voice came from behind me. I turned and found myself staring at Luke’s thighs. They were covered in blood and whatever other horrible, sickening liquid had begun to seep from his body.

“That’s the wrong question.” Elijah stepped closer, dragging James with him. “You entrusted me with your soul, boy, agreed to go through the cleansing ritual and join our humble community. I expect you to keep your word.”

“I don’t owe you shit,” Mike fired back. “Like you said, I’m the smart one here. I said everything you wanted to hear, and what do you know? Here I am, alive and well.”

“For now,” Elijah said, smiling. He swung James around to face me, pushing him forward so that our feet touched and our breath mingled. “About your little indiscretion, Rebekah.”

I saw one thing and one thing only … the knife, clean and sharp.

“I believe I made myself quite clear when I left, did I not?” Elijah asked.

I opened my mouth, had to shut it and swallow hard twice before I came out with, “Please.” Not
I’ll do what you want
or
take me instead
. All I could manage was a weak, feeble “please.”