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The video continues, a young woman in the center, at the edge of the fire. She has blonde hair, so light the moon makes it look like spun silk. Bowing before Rooney, her head is bent down.
“And my princess is untouchable,” Rooney intones. The men repeat it.
“God blesses us and only us, for we are the chosen,” he announces.
I groan. “Seriously? They’re never original, are they?” I mutter. Gaia said the same crap. How we were chosen by God.
Why does God always seem to choose narcissists to fulfill his prophecies?
“All gods and goddesses now form into two, the male and female,” he continues, the men repeating mindlessly after him, the girl rising.
No. Not girl. This is a woman.
This woman could be Paigelynn.
“How old do you think she is?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice even.
“Late teens? Early twenties? Hard to tell with all the darkness.”
“Right.”
“And our only role is to ensure the meeting of the King and the Queen,” Rooney says in that preacher’s voice, emphasizing syllables, his body starting to shake. As the men repeat, they breathe harder. They’re pumped. An energy begins to fill the air in the recording.
Yet the woman stays in place, head bowed.
“We will die for the prophecy,” he says, and this time, as the men repeat, there’s a woman’s voice in there, too.
“Our Princess?” he says, all eyes turning to her as she slowly stands.
“I will die for the prophecy,” she says, loud and clear, firm and confident.
“Jesus Christ,” Debbie snaps. “They get them to say shit like that knowing full well they’re going to kill her for their own whims. Somehow that makes this all sicker.”
“Is that it?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “just when you think it’s disgusting, it gets worse.”
Rooney turns from the camera, goes to a spot near the fire, and in the next few second his arm appears, wearing a glove. The woman puts her hand at her waist and unzips something, flashing a panel of pale skin.
“No fucking way,” I grunt as the video reveals Rooney is holding an iron brand, his hand encased in a thick glove.
A brand.
A goddamned cattle brand.
“I am the light,” Rooney says to her, his eyes hungry, roaming all over her body.
“I am the light,” she repeats.
“I am the truth,” he says.
“I am the truth,” she repeats.
“I put the prophecy above all else,” he shouts.
All of them, Rooney, the man, and the woman say it, but at the last second, two men grab the woman and Rooney shoves the brand at her, all of it taking place off camera, except for her scream.
That scream will haunt me until the day I die.
