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“You and your partner spoke to Lily about the phone data. What it couldn’t tell you was what he was saying, what he was whispering in her ear day after day. Your cousin was already on his way to becoming abusive and controlling and I couldn’t have that for my daughter. It was him or Lily, and I chose Lily.”
She wanted to scream back that she would have chosen Alex. That she would have gone to war over her flesh and blood too if given the chance. Nora’s words echoed in her mind as she tried to breathe over the pain. I chose Lily. I chose Lily.
“You chose your daughter and killed my cousin, my family, to do so.” She could see why Nora did it after suffering for so long. Fear made a mockery of the most logical of humans in their worst moments. But that didn’t stop the gut-wrenching pain from ripping her apart for the cost. It cost her, Ximena, and their family, and they would pay that loss for the rest of their lives.
“I’m sorry it had to come to that but you can see why—now with our history laid before you—it had to be that way. What man can be trusted when control and fear are the tools he uses against the ones he claims to love? Tell me.”
Vera tasted blood as she bit into her lip. She’d seen what men and their greed could do. She watched countless criminals walk away from the consequences of their crimes. Seen them get a slap on the wrist or probation when they deserved so much more. She watched them laugh in the face of suffering, rape in the name of power, beat in the name of entertainment.
Vera bit down harder at the duality of the truth, a violent war between her head and heart.
“My cousin wasn’t like these men. He wasn’t your husband or your father. He was just a kid. You decided he couldn’t change, that at his core, he was who he'd been on his worst day. Who are you to decide that?!” She screamed and the flames whooshed, engulfing them in a fresh wave of heat.
“Your cousin was a catalyst,” Nora said. “We’ve been trying to find a way out for years. Plotting, planning, trying to find a way to break free until a plan formed. Loosely, but a plan, nonetheless. And then like a miracle, there was Alex. Foolish, young Alex came to Sylen trying to get to Lily. He tried to take her from us, and I did what any mother would do. Initially, we removed his fingertips in case his body was found but then he became so much more than just the first.”
Vera shook her head, wanted her to stop, wanted to cover her ears.
“Didn’t you wonder why he was missing for so long before Deputy Butler submitted the missing person’s report? He spent months in my husband’s deep freezer until we were ready.”
The words devoured her like quicksand, stealing her ability to move or speak.
“He died that night he came here. He was too dangerous to let go and so we set our plans into motion. Every piece of them that was cut away, every vital part of their bodies was just a taste of what we suffered. The way we’d been silenced and blinded by them. Taking their penises, well, I’m sure you can imagine why they couldn’t be allowed to hold onto those, not with what they’d stolen with them. It was exactly what they all deserved. Alex was just the first step along a long overdue path. Practice, if you will.” Each woman nodded in agreement. “But then we realized that the land deserved to be repaid too. She had suffered too.”
“Do you remember what I told you back at Alice’s house, Vera?” Lizbeth asked. Her head cocked and her hair moved like liquid silver. “Our land is its own God. It gives and we give in return. That’s who we are as women of Sylen. And that God slept, like us, for too many years. Buried under rule and order and subjugation, we let her fall away, forgotten and forsaken. But not anymore. Never again will we deny her or ourselves.”
Vera’s head spun. Anger and pain sliced at her like a thousand cuts as she panted. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Elaine’s laugh was a bird’s song in the bowels of hell. “She’s talking about the thing that’s been following you since you got here. The gentle whisper at your neck. The heavy eyes upon your back along the edge of the forest. Why do you think our land is black, why it looks so different?” Vera lifted her chin, trying to hold back the fear that trailed its cold fingers up her spine. They’d known all along. “Who do you think led you into the forest that night at the motel? She coaxed you into the forest because she wanted you. But when Deputy Gunson followed, she saved you instead. You were lucky all you suffered were a few scrapes. She looked inside you and found a piece of herself. She chose to let you live so that you could see.” Her lips curled into a knowing smile. “You see, don’t you?”
Vera’s tears were cool against her overheated face. She wasn't surprised it was Deputy Gunson who assaulted her. It was the deviant truth that she’d been lured out into the dark by something stronger than her. Something that wanted her and she’d felt that want all along.
Lizbeth knelt before her, voice soft as silk. “Have you ever suffered at the hands of someone who thought they had the right to yield their power over you or over someone who couldn’t defend themselves? What wouldn’t you give to make them feel what you felt for just a moment, just a second? To see them suffer as you’ve suffered. Wouldn’t you do it? Wouldn’t you take that power?” Lizbeth’s voice encompassed her, wrapping itself around her like a siren song. Shaking her head, she tried to pull at the ropes, desperate for escape.
“There’s nothing shameful about wanting power, Vera. You just have to stop fearing it enough to realize that it was within you all along.” Elaine said.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she ground out between her teeth. Her clothes were soaked through with sweat as she tried to move. To find some air, to escape their words like hands grasping her limbs and skin and soul.
It wasn’t the same. She wasn’t the same as them, she told herself over and over as the circle of women watched her, the shadows carving their faces into anomalous shapes. It wasn’t the same as wanting criminals to be punished for their crimes. It wasn’t the same with every interaction between her and Sheriff Malis when she wanted to lash out at him for his sexist comments and flagrant disregard for human life. It wasn’t the same, what she’d done while undercover, what she’d been forced to do. She wasn’t the same as these women, as these murderers. No matter what she did when no one was looking.
“I’m not you. There’s a justice system for a reason and you’re all going to answer to it, whether you believe in it or not. That is the way the world works. Not this.” She lifted her chin at the rock stained in layers of stolen blood. “You will answer for what you’ve done, regardless of whether or not they deserved it.”
Elaine smiled. “That remains to be seen but until then, we’re not done here.” The circle parted like a curtain as Isaac stepped forth.
He had a body slung over his shoulder.
Chapter 38
Vera
Isaac dropped the body on the rock, the sick slap of bare flesh hitting the surface making her flinch. Goosebumps broke out across her body regardless of the feverish temperature.
Moving as one entity, the women seized forward. Surrounding it they began to loop white rope around the person’s extremities, hog-tying them face-up, hands and feet drawn back and down so the rope was pulled tight around the base of the rock. They moved the loose limbs without speaking, pushing, and pulling their perfected performance. The sound of the rope cinching into a final knot rang across the space. Vera’s stomach hollowed out.
Stepping back, they revealed his face.
Sheriff Malis. Naked, bound, and bloodied as his massive body failed to mold easily around the hard edges of the stone. It was an unnatural position for the joints of the body. The backward arc of his arms made blood dribble where his skin met the cutting edge.
She may have hated him for his role in attempting to cover up Alex's death and that of the other men but she knew how capable the women were. He would not go gently by their hands.
