Page 136

And then Clyde speaks again.

“Kill her.”

The words crack like a whip, slicing the air, hollow and absolute.

The hope inside me shatters.

“No.” The whisper rips from my throat, barely audible.

The girl’s scream tears through the air. A raw, piercing sound that’s cut brutally short by the snap of bone.

A dull, wet thud follows.

Then silence.

A silence so deep, it swallows everything.

“No!” I scream, the sound exploding out of me, jagged and feral, scraping raw from somewhere primal. My voice rakes the air, but it can’t reach her. It’s too late.

The room fractures.

Some of the men cheer. Their wild, feral grins stretched across their faces. Their eyes gleaming with savage light. Others stand frozen, pale and trembling, their certainty splintering under what they’ve witnessed.

“What are we doing?” Jonah whispers, his voice trembling, brittle. “This… this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Clyde turns slowly, his gaze landing on him like a hammer. His expression darkens, shadows pooling beneath his eyes, his lips curling back in something between a sneer and a snarl.

“This is exactly what was supposed to happen,” he hisses, his voice sharp as broken glass. “The wages of sin is death.” His voice rises, cracking with a terrible fervor. “Romans 6:23.”

He takes a step forward. Another. His shadow swallowing the doubter whole.

“Do you question God’s plan?”

Jonah falters beneath that gaze, his defiance crumbling. He lowers his head, shame and fear dragging him down.

The air feels heavier. Charged. Like the room itself is holding its breath.

My body trembles, with rage, with agony, with something wilder and sharper than either. The fire inside me flares. She’s gone. But I’m not. Not yet. And somebody has to keep fighting for her. A blaze roaring against the suffocating dark. I twist violently against the chain, the metal biting deep, unforgiving, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop.

I drag my knees beneath me, raw skin scraping against concrete, a fresh sting layered over old wounds. My arms scream inside their bindings, tendons straining, muscles burning, every inch of me aching, but still, I force myself upright.

And then I see it.

A glint. A shard of broken glass, jagged and wicked, lying just beyond the altar’s shadow.

Hope slams through me like a jolt of electricity.

I shift my weight. Lunge. The chain snaps taut, choking me, iron biting cruelly into the raw skin of my throat. Stars burst behind my eyes. But my fingers brush the shard. Cold. Slick. Dangerous. Mine.

I stretch again, desperation flooding every nerve, until my hand closes around it. The glass slices into my palm, a warm bloom of blood dripping onto the floor. I bite down on a cry, twisting my wrist, maneuvering the shard toward the ropes binding me.

“Stop her!” Clyde’s voice cracks like a whip.

The room explodes into chaos.

Boots pound the floor. Shouts ripple outward like thunder.

I hack furiously at the rope with the shard, fibers fraying, the knot weakening.