Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 146722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 734(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 734(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
“No,” Noa rasped, and her hushed protest stopped Priscilla from striking her blade straight into Diel’s heart. “No!” Noa said again. Diel froze at Noa’s anguish … as did Priscilla.
Noa crawled closer to Diel, gritting her teeth at the pain such minute movements caused. She wrapped her shaking hand in his. His eyes softened at the gesture. But he was confused; she could tell that by his furrowed brow. But Noa was focused on their entwined hands. She never thought she’d feel this again. She never thought she would see him again. Noa’s chest flooded with heat.
“This is him?” Priscilla nudged her head at Diel.
Noa squeezed Diel’s hand as tightly as she could. She wasn’t sure she could ever let go again. “Yes,” she whispered. “This is Diel.” Noa had told Priscilla all about the Fallen and Diel in her voicemails. About their cause … about how she had fallen so completely in love with this man and his monster.
Priscilla pushed her knife harder against Diel’s throat. Diel turned his head to look at Noa’s wayward sister without a hint of fear in his stare. A sliver of blood burst from the thin cut Priscilla’s knife had made. Noa’s heart kicked into a sprint. She loved her sister, but Priscilla was disturbed. She was unpredictable and would kill without feeling or remorse.
“You fuck with her or let her down,” Priscilla said tightly to Diel, pressing her blade down even harder on his scarred skin, “and I’ll gut you, slowly, then wear your skin as a fucking dress.” Priscilla smiled and laughed her demented laugh, then rolled off Diel in the direction of Noa. Priscilla wrapped her hand around the back of Noa’s head and kissed her forehead.
Then she jumped to her feet and went to run in the direction Auguste had gone, chasing his shadow downstream. “Wait!” Noa managed to say. She rubbed her throat. Priscilla stopped and turned. “Stay,” Noa begged. Diel moved closer to Noa and wrapped her tightly in his arms, as if reassuring himself that she was really alive.
Priscilla studied them with her head tilted to the side, as though she couldn’t understand why anyone would do that, why anyone would show affection to another … why anyone would fall in love. “We’ve found family,” Noa said. “People like us … like you.” She coughed at the strain of talking. “We are going to take the Brethren down. Come back to us. Your family … Join us. We can all do this together.”
Priscilla was quiet, eyes narrowed, then she said, “You take them out from the outside.” Noa could see Priscilla’s cold smile underneath her face covering by the crinkling at the sides of her eyes. “I’ll see these fuckers implode from the inside.” Priscilla nodded to the door. “I’ve left you a gift. In memory of your grandmother.”
Noa opened her mouth to speak again, to ask her what she meant, to fucking beg Priscilla to stay, but Priscilla was gone before she could, chasing Auguste’s tracks down the mouth of the cave. Noa’s heart was a heavily beating drum as Priscilla disappeared like the wraith she had become, off on her own journey.
Diel got to his feet and moved to the door to assess whatever “gift” Priscilla had left. He held his knife high and wrenched it open. Noa waited, trying to see what was on the other side. Diel bent down and dragged the twin priests inside.
Noa’s pulse thrummed in excitement. The twins were incapacitated, their Achilles’ heels and hamstrings severed. They couldn’t walk, so Diel dragged them, bleeding and screaming, closer to Noa.
He dropped them at Noa’s feet like a sacrificial offering, their heads slamming to the hard rock beneath them. And as though her exhaustion had never existed, Noa took the knife Diel held out for her and pulled herself to her knees. She swayed, but she held on to the hatred she felt toward these two to fuel her every move.
Making sure she held the gaze of both of them, Noa held Diel’s knife high. Her grandmother’s face smiled in approval in her mind. In two quick strikes, Noa slammed the knife down, a single deep stab in each of the priests’ Brethren-sullied hearts. Retribution for taking her grandmother from her. For raping her and her sisters as kids. For everything they stood for. And for assisting Auguste in his vicious witch trials on innocent children.
As the knife sank into their flesh, Noa felt reborn, as if the metal of her blade was absorbing their lifeblood. She felt a cavernous part of her soul patch over, a pit in her heart fill with justice and revenge. Noa watched silently as the twins fought for breath, mouths moving silently as they tried to cling to life, as blood clawed up their throats and ran down their chins.