Damnable Grace (Hades Hangmen 5)

Because they took her baby boy. They took him for the cause. And they would not let her see him.

My back ached as another agonizing slice of pain ripped through me. I cried out, feeling a dull pressure building at the bottom of my spine. I stumbled on my feet. Martha ran through the door just in time to catch me.

“Come, Phebe.” She led me to the bed. I clutched the bump, screwing my eyes shut as the pressure became unbearable and my entire body was overwhelmed with the need to push. “I think it is coming,” I said, just as my bedroom door opened and Sister Leah entered.

“The baby is coming,” Martha told her.

Sister Leah parted my legs, and I felt her hand inside me. “You have to push,” she ordered.

Martha gripped my hand. “You can do this, Phebe,” she said, tears pouring down her face. I knew she was thinking of her boy. I knew she was in great pain.

With every ounce of strength I could muster, I pushed, feeling as if my body must surely split in two. I breathed as deeply as I could through the agony and exhaustion racking my body. And then, I did not know how long later, a loud cry sailed into my ears. Martha leaned down to view the baby in Sister Leah’s arms. “It is a girl, Phebe,” she said and squeezed my hand tighter.

“A . . . girl?” I said breathlessly and felt something switch inside me. I felt something unknown take root, something I had never felt before . . . a blissful kind of peace. Such peace and love that it robbed me of my breath.

Sister Leah placed the baby on my chest. I blinked, overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment, then I eventually looked down. Two dark-brown eyes stared up at me. To the side of her left eye lay a large, dark freckle. I stared at that freckle, mesmerized at such beauty.

She came from me.

She . . . she was mine . . .

Tears flooded my face as I held her in my shaking arms. “Sapphira.” I heard Martha sniff from beside me. “I will name her Sapphira.”

“It is beautiful, sister.” Martha laid a kiss on my head. Martha was fourteen, two years my senior, but I knew that at that moment she understood me more than anyone ever had.

“Sapphira,” Sister Leah said and leaned over me. Panic filled my lungs when I saw her arms stretched out to take my baby from me.

“No!” I said loudly. Sapphira jumped in my arms and began to scream.

“Give her to me, child. You know she is a David Baby. You know she does not stay with you. You have a greater purpose to serve.” A David Baby. Babies born to Sacred Sisters. Babies that are “owned” by Prophet David and not their mothers. Raised not by their parents, but communally by carers.

A sob ripped from my throat. I tried to turn away, to move off the bed. Sapphira was mine. She was my baby! “No, please . . .” I glanced down at her brown eyes. “She is mine. Please, do not take her from me. I will care for her. I will manage both duties.”

“Phebe!” Sister Leah snapped. “Do as I command, or Brother John will be brought in. You have known since you discovered you were with child that she would not belong to you.”

“No!” I shuffled off the bed. I held Sapphira close to my chest as I struggled to hide myself in the corner of the room. Sister Leah left, and I saw Martha staring at us, crying as she sat on the edge of the bed, lost.

They had done this to Martha too. Took her baby boy away when she had wanted to keep him.

I looked down at Sapphira and shook my head. My face was drenched with tears as I held her to my chest. “You are mine.” I smiled through my tears when Sapphira stopped crying and looked up at me. I kissed her head, feeling the warm skin beneath me. “I love you,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I love you, Sapphira.”

The door flew open and Brother John, followed by Sister Leah, stepped through. I wanted to run, to flee with my daughter, but I was trapped. There was nowhere to go.

Brother John glared at me in disapproval. “Phebe, hand the baby over to Sister Leah. Stop this foolishness.”

“She is mine,” I said under my breath, defiant.

He must have heard me, because he shook his head. “She is a David Baby. She belongs to the faith. You are a Sacred Sister. And you have a different path than being a mother. A much worthier cause.”

He came closer, and closer still until he had his hands on Sapphira. “No!” I cried again as he took her from my hold. “Please . . . I love her!” My chest racked with sobs and my body shook as Brother John gave my baby to Sister Leah and she took her from the room.

I screamed.

I screamed and I screamed until my throat was raw. I did not remember what happened next, everything was a blur, but when I lifted my head, Brother John was gone from the room too. Only Martha and I remained. My eyes were swollen from crying, and my body hurt all over from giving birth. But nothing was greater than the void I felt in my arms. The empty space where Sapphira should have been.

The pain came in crashing waves, over and over again. “Sapphira,” I whispered. “Sapphira . . .” Her name felt like a cruel prayer on my lips.

A hand lay on my back, stroking up and down. “Martha.” I fell into her lap. “What am I to do now?”

I felt Martha’s tears hit my cheek—a shared pain. She stroked my hair. “Brother John told me that we can earn the right, through fishing, to see them on occasion. We are forbidden from saying who we are to them, but we may claim that we are their sisters. They will at least give us that.” Her voice sounded as desperate as I felt.

I blinked quickly, trying to rid the water from my eyes. “They will?” I asked, a glimmer of hope sprouting in my shattered heart.

“Yes,” Martha said. “And that is what I intend to do.” She sniffed. “If we recruit more men than our quota, our reward is time with them. And I must see him, Phebe. I cannot . . . I cannot . . .”

“Breathe,” I finished for her, when she could not express what was in her bruised heart.

“Yes,” she said after several silent moments.

Clutching my hand to my chest, I pictured Sapphira in my head.

My heart never healed after that day, shattered and irreparable. But I believed in our prophet. In the end, I believed he would do what was best for his people—including me.

I just had to obey and have faith . . .

AK’s chest was drenched as I fought to breathe through the memory of that day. His hand was tight in my hair, and I held onto him as though I would fall apart if not for his compass.

“Fuck, Phebe,” he said. “I got no words for that fucked-up shit.” He pulled me even closer to his body. “Did you ever see her again?”

I nodded, recalling those precious days. “It took me two years to see her again. They said I needed time to set her free from my heart. It never worked, of course. I knew that my bond to her would never fade. The day I met her again, she was playing outside with some other children.” I smiled though my tears. “She had the brightest, blondest hair, similar to Lilah’s, but Sapphira’s eyes were so dark, like midnight—I did not know who her father was, he could have been any one of the several men I had served, but he must have had those eyes. And to the side of her left eye lay the large freckle, the memory of which had gotten me through the two years before.” I looked up to see AK watching me. “I sat beside her on the grass. I was so nervous.” I laughed. “Nervous at meeting my own flesh and blood. I was shaking so hard that it took me forever to ask if I could play with her. She was nervous at first too. It transpired that she was a very shy girl. Beautiful, but extremely shy. It took a further two visits for her to speak to me. For her to smile.” My bottom lip quivered. “And her smile lit up my life, AK. There was no sun before that day.”

I screwed my eyes shut for a second, and AK pulled me further up his chest. “What?” he asked, searching my face, tone low.