Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 115933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“NO!” I screamed. “What are you doing with them?” I whispered as I watched Maddie zone out, go numb to her surroundings. She was taking herself to the place that no one could touch her. The place we all had learned to find. Lilah stood quietly obedient, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
“They are to be put away for insurance, just in case you decide you want to try and escape again. You run, they pay the consequence.”
Every fiber of my being tensed and all the fight left my body. I went limp, passive and quiescent.
“Why, Mae, you seem to have found your obedience again,” Gabriel mocked once again. With a wave of his hand, the disciples led my sisters out of the door and out of sight, but not out of mind.
Gabriel spun me around and grasped my face with his hand. “We are to go to the altar now. You are to marry Prophet David, with no trouble. Do you understand?”
I nodded meekly.
“Good. Let’s go,” he said. Gripping my elbow, Gabriel led me from the room.
We traced a familiar trail through the forest to the altar and no words were spoken. I would not put my sisters in harm’s way ever again. My stomach churned as my life’s path became more and more real. I would marry the prophet and that was all there was to it. Styx was a fleeting fantasy, a dream. I was again trapped.
As we rounded into the ceremony space, I beheld hundreds and hundreds of guests. They were dressed in white, sitting cross-legged in rows, facing a large wooden altar… the altar at which Prophet David stood, looking bloated and old. Next to him stood… Cain.
As Gabriel slowed us to a halt at the end of the walkway, I stared at my former friend. He looked thoroughly miserable, standing dutifully next to his uncle. He looked drawn and his head remained bowed. Even now, I found it hard to believe that Rider is Brother Cain. Lord help me, it just all seemed so surreal.
Gabriel signaled for the ceremony to begin. The waiting witnesses silently turned their heads to look my way, as did Cain. I met his brown eyes and a sadness swept across his face.
He looked like he was in agony, suffering; he looked as miserable as I felt.
A hand prodded my back. “Move, girl.” Sister Eve stood behind me. Her crepe-thin skin gray, as she stared me down.
It took all the will I had to lift my foot one step forward. My hands shook as I gripped my small bouquet of wildflowers as if they were a lifeline. The witnesses watched me make my way slowly down the scattered rose petal aisle. Some were happy, some indifferent, others annoyed—they knew I had escaped once, most probably believing I was evil incarnate. I kept my head high and my back straight.
Screw them all!
The guards surrounded the crowd, their guns visible and ready for any problems. The elders flanked the prophet… and, of course, Brother Cain. Bewitched, he could not stop watching me.
As I approached the altar, I braced for the inevitable. But then a cacophony of gunshots rang out in the near distance, deafening, threatening… welcomed. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of men swarmed into the center of the commune. Hundreds of men, all dressed in black leather… My heart sang. It was the Hangmen.
Styx has come for me.
“Mae!” Cain screamed from the altar. Prophet David was dragged away by the elders. I ignored them, my eyes glued on the Hangmen.
The witnesses jumped to their feet and the place instantly became a seething frenzy of terrified people. Women headed for the children, scooping them up, then ran for shelter. The disciples broke from their positions and charged the Hangmen, firing shot after shot at the black leather wall headed directly toward them.
The war had begun.
I stood firm in the aisle as I was buffeted by scattering witnesses fleeing the gunfire. I scanned the Hangmen for Styx, but I could make out very little. Everything was moving too fast.
“Styx?” I screamed. Somehow I hoped he could hear me. The noise of the battle and the sound of panic was deafening. I stood transfixed as men began falling to the ground, writhing in pain from being shot or, worse, dead. The Hangmen were well equipped and stormed forward, taking out disciple after disciple. It was rapidly turning into a massacre. Most of the Hangmen were ex-armed forces; the disciples did not stand a chance.
And I was glad. Lord, forgive me, but I was glad.
“Styx?” I tried to move, this time with some success and I reached the end of the altar when I saw him, Styx. Dressed all in leather, his dark hair messy and his muscled arms held out, two guns in his hands rapidly firing out bullets—bullets that ripped through the flesh of the disciple guards. He did not stop. He kept on coming, taking out disciple after disciple. Bullets shredded through limbs, stomachs, and heads.
But all I could think through the carnage was, He has come back for me…
“STYX!” I screamed as he scoped the area, I hoped, for me. He stilled, obviously hearing my call, then his hazel eyes connected with mine.
Babe, he mouthed as relief spread across his face. Then he stopped dead and his expression hardened with murderous intensity.
Dropping my flowers, I lifted my dress, ready to run to my man but I was suddenly grabbed around the chest and I yelped as I was aggressively dragged away.
“Mae, calm. It’s me, Cain. I’m getting you outta here.”
“No! Let me go!” I struggled to get free. I could see Styx running like a man possessed toward me and I knew he had seen Cain. Styx’s nostrils flared and he picked up speed but Cain was pulling me back too fast and I was unable to get away. Then I watched in horror as Styx was tackled to the ground by a disciple.
With Styx on the floor, fighting, I then spotted Ky, Tank, Bull, Viking, AK and Flame sprinting out from the cover of the forest. Cain stiffened on seeing his former brothers, then two arms hooked under my legs and Cain lifted me clean off the ground. He began to run for the fence, but not before I heard a roar and Styx scream out, “MAE!”