The Cult (Cult 1)

“I can barely handle a butter knife at dinnertime.”

“Just aim for the heart.” I could actually give advice on this, because I’d done it. It was all instinct. All survival. All vengeance.

“He’s so big… The guy is like six four.”

I didn’t stand a chance either. Forneus wasn’t lanky and strange like the Malevolent I’d killed. And killing that man didn’t really change anything anyway. But killing Amon could stop Beatrice from being carved again.

“He doesn’t believe I’m an angel…wants me to prove myself.”

Shit.

“I was so high that I didn’t really understand what he was doing at the time, but he was searching for my wings. Apparently, he goes through his angels pretty quickly…”

Then we had to get out of there as soon as possible.

Her arms crossed over her chest, shadows on her face, her eyes down. “I don’t think I can do this.” Tears started to build. “When life gets hard, you take a break. You walk away from that toxic person, get a babysitter if you need to be alone for a while, swallow those pills to make that migraine stop. But this…there are no breaks. There’s no pause button. I wake up every morning in this stupid fucking cabin and walk out the door to see a sea of monsters staring back at me. The drugs, the cuts, they’re terrible. But the mental torture…I think that’s the worst part.”

It was easy to get swept up in her words, because truer words had never been spoken. The exact thoughts had passed through my head before, but I wouldn’t allow myself to say them aloud, to burden someone else with the realization in case they hadn’t already come to the same conclusion.

“I’m gonna be the first one in that graveyard…like all the others.”

12

Constance

With Claire’s hand held in mine, we walked up the hill to our church.

“Just keep your eyes down.”

Claire looked at the ground, ignoring the Malevolent as they stared from their positions around the settlement. The world was so quiet that I could hear the hum of silence. The air was cold and wet, like a fog would thicken over the next few days, so it amplified the sound of nothingness around us. I’d never experienced anything like it, not even the quietest nights in Paris.

It was the sound of true silence.

“Why…why do they stare at us?”

“Because they’re freaks.”

“Are they…animals?”

“No. They’re a bunch of losers who wear costumes on their heads. Nothing to be scared of. Just a bunch of freaks.” I wanted her to understand what they really were, so she’d be less scared.

“They aren’t monsters?”

“No.”

“Because they’re scary like monsters.”

“They aren’t scary.” We stopped halfway up the hill, and I turned to one nearby, standing between two cabins. “Watch.” I dropped her hand.

“Wait, don’t go—”

“Let me show you not to be afraid.” I marched up the Malevolent, his eyes widening in his skull when he realized the speed at which I rushed him. He started to back up, tripping on the grass slightly. “Come here!” I sprinted to him and caught up, giving him a hard shove in the back.

He tripped forward and landed but quickly crawled away until he was back on his feet. He ran faster this time.

I turned back to Claire. “See?”

Her eyes shifted from me to the spot where he’d been a moment before, her face pale like the moon, but then the ease slowly started to seep into her face. There was even a hint of a smile—in her eyes.

I came back to her and grabbed her by the hand. “See? Losers.” We moved farther up the path and approached the church, passing the graveyard along the way. Unmarked headstones were there, the angels underneath forgotten, used and tossed.

These motherfuckers needed to die.

“Is Mommy okay?”

“Yeah, just tired.” I opened the door and let her inside first. Once the door shut, the Malevolent were hidden outside, the windows covered with another layer of pictures so their shadows were barely visible. “You want to color?”

“Yeah.”

I went to the supply closet and pulled everything out, letting her draw on the pages left in the book. There were illustrations of heaven and angels, and in the white space beside them would be a child’s illustration of a flower or a unicorn. “These drawings are really good.”

“Thanks. My dad said I could be an artist someday.”

“That’d be a pretty cool job.”

She flipped through the pictures, showing me the carousel at the Eiffel Tower, a café on a busy street, and a picture of her holding hands with her father.

“Those are really good, Claire.”

“I want to take them home to show Daddy.”

“Good idea.” I had no experience with kids, but she ripped my heart out of my body and stuffed it inside herself, so everywhere she went, she took it with her. I had so much empathy for Beatrice, having to suffer in such a horrific place with her daughter in tow. And I had even more for Benton, who believed they were both gone. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Want to talk to the girls.”