Cold horror dripped down my spine and I felt the words like a body blow. Your baby was taken from her . . . My baby? Taken? My brain reeled, trying to grasp the meaning of the words in front of me. I gripped my hair on the side of my head and attempted to calm my racing heart. Eden was carrying my baby? She had seemed just slightly . . . fuller, rounder in the last month. I just didn't think . . . I didn't think . . . My chest tightened and the strange choking sound was coming from me. Oh no, I'd tried to be so careful. No! I fell to my knees and let out a loud wail, lifting my head to the ceiling and shouting out my rage, my pain, and my unrelenting guilt. What pain had she endured because of me? My beautiful morning glory.
Suddenly there were keys in the door. As it was opening, I jumped back and then rushed forward as it sprang open. I pulled up short when I saw Clive Richter standing there with a gun on me. Could I survive a gunshot? Could I rush him before he got a shot off? I had no idea how guns worked. I had no idea what to do when faced with one. Adrenaline surged through me, but I'd be no good to Eden if I were dead.
I backed up slightly, raising my hands to let him know I wouldn't fight—not yet, anyway. He sneered at me. "Turn around and put your hands behind your back."
I turned slowly, doing as he said. My mind was working a million miles a minute. I just needed to get out of here, get out in a place where I could get to Eden. I could fight, as long as it was fair. I could even fight as long as it wasn't fair, assuming the men I was fighting didn't have the same stakes against them. But, of course, the men here were fighting to be gods. What bigger stake was there than that?
I walked out of the small cell with Clive leading me. When we climbed the stairs and walked outside, I expected the sun to blind me for a minute, but the world was dark. I looked up and immediately saw why. My blood pumped furiously through my veins and I fisted my hands in the cuffs, testing their resistance. The sun was moving in front of the moon. It was an eclipse. Holy gods, it was an eclipse.
I didn't know what to think, what to feel, what to do.
The two council members, Garrett Shipley and Ken Wahl, who had held me back during Xander's whipping, joined us, walking beside Clive and me. Garrett's nose had a small splint on it and both eyes were a greenish yellow where his bruises were fading. They both glanced at me nervously. They should be nervous. If I had the chance, I'd kill them with my bare hands. I'd relish it.
They looked up at the sky as it dimmed further. "Hector says he was off on the foretelling. The gods didn't say two months, six days. They said two days, six hours. One of those unfortunate misunderstandings." And then they started laughing like hyenas about a joke I wasn't sure I understood.
As we walked past the end of my irrigation system, I glanced backward, toward the river and squinted. Someone, probably one of the workers, had fixed the areas that Hector had kicked over.
The sight of that irrigation system suddenly filled me with boiling hot rage. It coursed through my body, making me feel crazed, animalistic. I kicked out with my leg and brought a section of it down, yelling out with everything in me. That system was the symbol of all my stupid, ridiculous, naïve hopes and dreams. That system had been built when there was still a fire in my heart for what life could be for me. I wanted to fall on my knees and weep for that idiotic kid who knew nothing, realized nothing, and was blind. I wanted to knock him senseless, beat him, kill him, and render him unrecognizable. I hated everything about him. And I missed him with my whole damn heart.
When I came back to myself, I had destroyed a huge section of it and Clive, Garrett, and Ken were standing back, laughing at me. I stood there, breathing hard, every part of my body hurting, from my face to my feet.
"Come on," Clive said. "Hector's going to let you go."
I stopped walking, narrowing my eyes at him. "He's letting me leave?" I asked, my heart lurching in my chest. "Why?"
"I don't give a f**k why," he said.
"Why am I handcuffed then?"
"Because you're acting like the f**king animal you are, that's why."
"I won't. I won't, I promise," I begged. "Just let me go and I'll go get Eden and leave."
Clive smirked. "You don't get Eden, you fool. Eden belongs to Hector. You get nothing except your freedom. And you're damn lucky for that."
If I could at least get that, I could come back for Eden. I could come up with a plan. I could get help . . . something. If I was free, there was hope. "Let me go, then. I'll walk out of here."
Clive laughed. "Hector wants to say goodbye to you first," he sneered. We came to one of the large, wooden poles that held a speaker at the top. Clive instructed Garrett to unlock my cuffs and put them back on once my back was against the pole and my arms were wrapped around it backwards. Panic surged through me. Oh no. I wasn't going to be restrained to a pole. No. Something bad was happening. I didn't know what, but it wasn't going to be good. I brought my head forward and slammed it into Garrett's face, his nose crunching again and blood spurting out as he screamed a high-pitched, shrill sound of agony. I brought my knee up and caught him square in the groin. He made another sound that resembled a squealing pig and doubled over.
I heard a gunshot ring out somewhere, but I had no idea where.
And suddenly it seemed like thirty more men were on me and just like earlier that day when I'd tried to get to Eden, there were just too many of them. I fought off as many as I could, but finally, one held my arm and twisted it, and I yelled as he freed it quickly and then brought it around the pole. Someone else was punching my face again and again as I slid down to the dirt and my other arm was brought behind me. I heard the click of the handcuffs again and it hit me in the gut harder than any of the punches that had so far connected with my body. I roared in rage and agony, my body broken, my spirit destroyed. Blood was dripping into one eye, the other already swollen shut. It felt like my arm might be broken, sharp, stabbing pain radiated up to my shoulder. I slumped on the ground, my legs spread out in front of me, my head hanging. Beaten. Broken. I'm sorry, Eden.
"Did you think you were stronger than me, Satan?" Hector's voice came to me from very close by. "Did you think you could worm your way into my community with your beauty? You tricked me once, long ago, but not again. NEVER AGAIN!"
I felt something hitting my foot, but didn't look up. Hector's voice walked around me and then stopped in front. I squinted up at him. He was a massive, black shadow against the dim sky.
"I tried to help you, I tried so hard to wash you clean, but I underestimated your power. I underestimated your evil ways, your ability to charm my blessed one right out from under me. And I invited you here. That was my greatest mistake. I brought you to Acadia. I let you in—Satan's spawn himself. But good will always prevail. Good will always win. And evil will always lose." He came close to my face. "You burn for her, don't you, Satan? Hmm? You burn for MY property, for the property of the gods? You burn for her? Oh you will burn for her. You will. And your evil will finally be destroyed." He laughed, a shrill, crazed bark. And then I looked down and realized what he was doing. He was building a fire. He was going to burn me.
My feet scrabbled in the dirt and I pulled myself up the pole, standing now and breathing harshly, terror slamming into me as Hector added to the piles of sticks he'd laid around the pole, just out of the reach of my feet.
"Father, no. Please, no," I begged. "Please, I'll walk out of here. I won't come back," I lied. "You'll never see me again. Please don't do this. It's murder, Father. It's a sin. You taught me that. You taught me that taking a life is a sin against the gods."
He barked out more laughter, looking like a demon himself.
"What the f**k, Hector?" Ken Wahl asked, standing a little ways back. "You're gonna burn him to death?" He put his hands up, backing away. "I won't be part of this. This is not what I signed up for." But he didn't leave.
"Help me, please," I called, looking at him through my one good eye, my voice so hoarse I could hardly get my words out.
Clive was a way behind Ken and he looked confused, but excited. His shiny eyes darted back and forth between me and Hector.
"Clive . . . please," I said, but then let my words die. If he was going to help me at any point, he already would have.
"Anyone," I called to the people who were standing in a huddle in the main lodge's courtyard just a hundred feet away. "Help me. He's gone mad. If we all band together, we—" And that's when I saw her being led toward me by Mother Miriam. Her face was white and blank, her skirt covered in blood. The blood from our baby. Eden. I lurched toward her, but the cuffs caught me, and pain ripped down my arm. I yelled out and kicked at the pole with all my strength, hoping to get it out of the ground. But I knew it was to no avail. I'd watched the holes being dug for these poles, the cement being poured in. I roared in hopelessness and heartbreak.
When I looked up again, Eden was trying to run to me, but being held back by Mother Miriam who wore a grim look on her plain face. Eden looked too weak to put up much of a fight. She fell against Mother Miriam and sobbed. Eden, Eden, oh Eden, my love, my morning glory.
"Light the fire, Abe," Hector called. My head swiveled. Panic and bile rose up my throat as my dad walked slowly toward me, a box of matches in his hand. Tears were running down his face and his hands were shaking.
"Dad. Oh no, Dad," I said, the last word breaking, the final piece of my heart shattering. My dad wouldn't look at me, his hands shaking as silent sobs wracked his body. He was praying under his breath. "Mom," I yelled. "Mom!"
A loud wail rose from the crowd and I saw my mom fall to her knees, but she didn't move to help me.
"The greatest sacrifices hurt the most, Abe," Hector said to my father. "Your rewards will be great. You will be a god among gods. All the suffering you've endured in this life will be worth it."
All the people had joined hands and were reciting Hector's admonition of Satan, some calm, eyes closed, some crying.
I heard Eden wail again and focused my blurry eye on her. "Eden," I called out, attempting to make my voice as strong as possible. "Eden!"
"Calder," she sobbed. "Oh God, Calder!" She tried to fight her way toward me, but two of the men who had fought me, held her back. She stopped fighting. She looked too weak, and they were too strong. She threw her head back at the sky and screamed.
I glanced at my dad and his shaking was so bad he dropped the first match, unlit, on the ground and bent to retrieve it.
"Eden. Stop. Just listen. Please." The tears came, ran down my cheeks. "When they light the fire, look away. Don't watch this. Please, don't watch."
She shook her head violently back and forth. "No! I won't leave you! Not even with my eyes. I won't leave you alone. I'm with you. I'm here!"
The second match lit and my dad cried out as he dropped it on the pile of kindling next to my feet. A small fire caught. I looked back to Eden.
"Please, Morning Glory. Please, I can't bear it if I know you're left with this vision. I'll inhale the smoke. I won't feel the flames. But I have to know you've looked away. Please."
The fire grew, leaping to another pile of sticks. I felt the heat of it on my lower body.
Eden looked up at the sky again, her chest rising and falling in heavy sobs. She looked back at me and screamed again, struggled to get loose. The men held onto her more tightly, each one holding one arm, turned away from her just enough that she couldn't kick at anything vital. It wouldn't matter anyway. She didn't have the key to the handcuffs that kept me bound.
Eden looked back at me and nodded, horror and heartbreaking despair evident in every part of her: her expression, her posture, her sobs. And I could do nothing.
"I don't know what's going to happen after this, Eden, but whatever it is, be brave, Morning Glory. And know there's a spring somewhere in Elysium. And I'll be waiting for you, Eden. I'll be lying on a rock right by the water. Picture me there, under the sunshine. And when it's time, come find me. I'll be waiting. I hope I'll be waiting a long time, Eden, but know I'll be there. I'll be waiting, Morning Glory."
Eden threw her head back. It looked as though she had no voice left to scream with. Her face—her beautiful face. Seeing her desperate agony ripped me apart. I felt helpless as I watched her torment and suffering. All. My. Fault. As the flames jumped, she sobbed silently and turned her head away. The smoke started to rise and I prepared to inhale huge gulps of it. Fear and horror and rage, and yes, love—every single part of who I was in that moment—swirled like a hurricane inside of me, moving faster, gaining speed, gaining some kind of power.
And as I tilted my head toward the heavens . . . it began to rain.
Not a light rain that started slowly, but a sudden, drenching rain that immediately came down in sheets. The fire went out.
Hector stepped forward and made a disgusted sound of anger. He grabbed the box of matches from my father, who had turned away, his shoulders shaking in sobs. Hector attempted to light another match. But after several tries, he threw the box down and screamed, "GET IN THE CELLAR! EVERYONE! THE GREAT FLOOD IS UPON US! GET IN THE CELLAR AND BRING MY BLESSED ONE."
Hector turned to Clive, who had been standing behind him. "Unlock him and throw him back in the cell."
"Aw, Jesus Christ," Clive yelled. "This is it. This is the last thing I do here."
Eden was being dragged into the cellar. My heart pounded in my chest as Clive unlocked my handcuffs and pushed me roughly away from the pole. I stumbled, my right leg buckling from under me. I fell down on my knees in the kindling that had been spread around me and saw the hole in my thigh, blood trickling out slowly. I was shot? "Get up," Clive said coldly.