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I find out the next evening what Don meant by going old testament on Dara’s would-be rapist. He has called the congregation together, and when I step into the large vault in the crypt with Dara the following night, it is filled to the brim with people dressed in cloaks. Their heads are bowed, hoods pulled up to hide their faces, and I notice Dara pull up the hood of her cloak.
Since I’m not actually a member of the church, I have no cloak, but since this is part of my life now, and it’s probably an eventuality that I will join the church—not that Don is putting pressure on me or has said anything—Don wanted me to witness this. Whatever this is.
My eyes scan over the crowd, amazed at the number of people here. Sure, it felt like there were a lot that night at the party, but now all crammed into one room, it feels like infinitely more. Way more people than there were at my old church.
All of them stand in silence, waiting for something, so when a low, pained noise breaks echoes across the chamber, I look toward the front of the room. I inhale sharply at the sight before me. Strung up, naked as the day he was born, on a stage at the far end of the room is a man I’ve never met. Even from this far away, I can see his face is bruised and puffy, and his wrists and ankles are red and raw from his bindings.
“That’s the guy,” Dara hisses under her breath, and she doesn’t need to explain further for me to understand he’s the man who tried to rape her. Whatever sympathy I first felt for him dissipates, my eyes narrowing in anger as I watch him struggle against his restraints.
“Come on.” Dara grabs my hand and pulls me through the crowd until we’re standing right at the front of the stage. I glance around for Don, not seeing any sign of him. However, before I can ask Dara where he is, he emerges from the side of the stage wearing the same cloak as everyone else. Unlike the others, though, his hood is not pulled up. Instead, he wears the same white ram skull he had on the night of the party.
Standing in the center of the stage, in front of the strung-up man, he raises his arms above his head. As one, the surrounding congregation lifts their heads and calls out, “terrenam felicitatem et felicitatem.”
Having no idea what they just said, I glance toward Dara. “Earthly success and happiness,” she whispers.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” Don says, his voice flowing effortlessly over the crowd. “I have called us all together to remind us of one of the golden rules at the heart of our church: Do unto others as they do unto you.” He looks out over the crowd. “A wrong was committed against one of our own last night.” Low murmurs arise at his words but quickly quieten when he continues. “As you are all aware, the only way to move forward and focus on the present and future is to acknowledge our grievances. We must cleanse our souls of the wrong committed against them in order to learn acceptance.”
“An eye for an eye,” the congregation says as one.
“An eye for an eye,” Don repeats.
I turn to gape at Dara as realization dawns, but she stares grimly up at her brother, a determined set to her jaw.
“Dara,” Don calls out. “Will you come up here, please?”
Dara steps forward, but I reach out to grab her arm. “You’re going up there?” I ask. “What are you going to do?”
She smiles placatingly. “It’s okay, Kali. Don is right. By confronting what was done to me, I can accept what happened and move on with my life. Otherwise, this act will stay with me. It’ll eat away at my soul and instill fear in my heart. I don’t want that. I don’t want to carry this with me for the rest of my life.”
“But…”
“Don asked if I wanted to be the one to exact this justice,” she assures. “If I’d said no, he would have done it for me. But I want to be the one to do it.”
Having no words for her, she slides out of my grip and moves to join her brother on the stage. I notice that she has pushed her hood back, and I can see her face as she approaches him.
No more words are spoken as Don lifts a large blade from a table and holds it out to Dara. She accepts it with a dark smile reminiscent of her brothers, and before she even inflicts the first slice, I know she’s going to enjoy exacting her justice.
I watch in an entranced sort of horror as Dara tortures the man with swift and precise slashes of her blade. Cutting him open and bleeding him dry. With each cut, the shadows that have been pulled around her since last night diminish, and instead she begins to glow with the power of her confrontation.
The man’s cries echo around the chamber, growing weaker with each slice of Dara’s blade. By the time Dara stops, breathing heavily from the exertion, blood pools beneath him. Despite the fatigue weighing her down, Dara beams, her eyes shining with catharsis. It’s mesmerizing to watch. I never appreciated before how much the events of your past can weigh on your mind and soul—the toll they can take on your body.
If this is the effect it has on Dara, then what would it have on me if I confronted all the demons in my past? I’d be truly enlightened if I did. Perhaps even become the powerful woman Don believes me to be.
Don steps up beside his sister, and I watch as she holds the blade out to him. She says something none of us are privy to, and Don nods before sliding the mask from his face. His lips twist in a malicious grin that definitely shouldn’t make butterflies dance in my belly as he accepts the blade from Dara’s outstretched hand, and I watch as she steps away, leaving her brother to it.
He seems to weigh the blade in his hand for a moment, staring at the blood-glistened steel before lifting his eyes to the man before him. The man’s head hangs between his shoulders, his chest rising rapidly. He no longer fights his restraints, too drained of energy to do anything more than hang there, entirely at Don’s mercy.
Don’s hand tightens around the handle, and he lifts the blade over his head. I learn exactly what was meant by an eye for an eye when he swings it down, lobbing off the man’s flaccid cock.
It drops with a wet thud onto the stage, and the man simply blinks at his groin, as though not quite believing a chunk of him is missing.
With the same finesse, Don flicks his wrist, slicing open the man’s throat, and in the time it takes to blink, life leaves his eyes and his body slackens.
I must fall into a daze, as the next thing I know, I’m standing in the middle of the open woodland space we were in before as a similar party rages, and Don is stalking toward me. Without a word, he slips my hand into his warm one and navigates me away from the chaos.
We slip past the treeline and continue until all sounds of the party fade away. When he stops, he pulls me in against him, and I melt against his hard chest, allowing his warmth to seep into me and bring me back to life.
“I needed to check if you were okay. I know tonight was… a lot.”
