The Church (The Cloister Trilogy 3)
“Wrong.” She steps to me, her face red, the scar at her temple an angry slash. “They’ve killed themselves with their own sins. What I’m doing will free all the women on this compound. Every sex slave—and that’s what we are—will finally be able to choose for themselves. And no more will be brought here to be abused, sold, tortured, murdered.” Her eyes soften the slightest bit. “Don’t you care about what they did to her? To Georgia?”
“My mother will pay for that.”
She nods. “You know, for the longest time I’d thought you’d killed her.”
“I never would have—”
“I know. This conversation alone tells me you don’t have what’s required to commit to taking life.” Her earlier softness disappears. “But I do. For all the lives the Prophet has stolen, there must be an answer. This is it.”
“No, it doesn’t have to be. This isn’t you. You’re kind. I’ve seen it. The way you treat the Maidens, the way you keep your head up no matter what happens.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what they’ve done to me.” Her eyes water, but she bites back her tears. “The time I’ve spent at the Rectory. The things they did to me, to change me. They did them to Jez, too.” Her voice trembles at the mention of Jez’s name. “Over and over. Man after man. We were raped and beaten and raped again. The Prophet said that it would change us, make us women who the Lord would love. Women who would cling to men as our only salvation. And so for days after our first attempt to escape, the men would come. And we were gagged, strapped down, forced to endure their touches, their degradations.” She points her finger in my face. “So don’t you ever think you know me. You don’t know a goddamn thing.”
I take her words in. Sickeningly, they don’t surprise me. “I’m sorry for all of it, for everything that was done to you. But you can’t—”
She barks out a laugh. “Sorry?” Tapping the scar on her forehead, she says, “And this, not done by a man at all. This was Grace, showing me that I was worth less than nothing when I disobeyed her.” She straightens her back. “No one here is holy. No one here deserves to live one more day. The people who go to that church support every act of cruelty that happens here. They turn a blind eye, close their hearts to the truth. I can’t save them when they’ve made no efforts to save themselves.”
She’s too far gone. I see that now. This place has wrecked her. The same way it’s done to Grace, to me, to countless others. I can’t get through, even though I have to give it one last try.
“What about Emily? She’ll be there. She has to be. The other Maidens? They’ll be in the front row like always. How do you plan to save them?”
Her lips compress into a thin line, everything about her stony and harsh.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You don’t intend to save them at all, do you? You’ve condemned them right along with everyone else. You say you want to free them, but if you do this, you’ve signed their death warrants.”
“I don’t want to hurt them, but this is war. And this has to end bloody.” She takes a step back. “Killing them is a mercy, really. Better to be dead than enslaved by the Prophet. It all has to go. It’s the only way to be sure.”
“No matter who gets hurt?”
“It’s war,” she repeats, as if it’s something she tells herself often.
I’ve lost her. I probably never had her. “I can’t let you do this.”
She backs down the hall, her head high. “Do what you have to do, Noah. But I won’t stop. Not until there’s justice.” With a whirl of her skirts, she turns and jogs down the corridor. Her footsteps dissipate and eventually go silent.
I pull a flask from my pocket and take a long drink, the cool liquor doing nothing to calm me. “Well, fuck. That went well.”
Chapter 25
Delilah
Grace is blessedly silent on our short trip to the Prophet’s house. Maybe she spent all her venom earlier, though I doubt it. We enter through the basement, the house quiet as we walk up the stairs and into the grand foyer.
My stomach lurches as we pass my least favorite room in the house, the piano silent in the corner. But she doesn’t guide me there. Instead, we cross the marbled foyer, the wide staircase to our right. The scents of bacon and biscuits waft through the air, and the light clink of silverware on china greets us as we enter an ornate dining room.
Evan sits near the head of the table, smiling and talking to the Prophet as the men eat breakfast. The Prophet’s bodyguard—Castro, Noah calls him—sits in a chair in the corner of the room, his watchful eye on me as I follow Grace.