In my quick exhale I could hear a faint husky whistle, evidence of the toll my beatings were taking on my body. My throat was raw and sore, but what hurt most was the pain in my heart as I heard the nostalgia in Judah’s voice. Because I remembered it. I remembered how, when we were children, he would look at me as we lay on The Pasture’s perfectly manicured lawn under the summer sun. We would talk about how I would one day ascend, with my brother by my side. Always by my side, as God had designed it. I squeezed my eyes shut. We were innocent children then, looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. We had no idea of the path that lay before us, the treacherous roads that we would travel.
It was strange. I could still feel the excitement we both felt back then surging within me. I remembered my fear of my personal path: becoming the prophet.
But I’d always known I could do it, because I had him.
Our unbreakable bond had been shattered mere months after my ascension. Shattered by his greed. Obliterated by his pride . . . destroyed by his need for revenge.
Jaw tightening, muscles growing rigid with hate, Judah continued, “But as we got older, all you did was frustrate me. We both studied the scriptures, yet I grasped the lessons more easily than you. We were brought up in the same way, yet only you were ever punished. You made mistake after mistake, stumbling through sermons and fumbling over our sacred passages like a blind fool.” Judah’s head tipped to the side, and his narrowed eyes ran over my inked sleeves. My Hangmen ink. I knew he hated that I had them. I knew he hated that I had been picked to carry out the task our uncle had deemed so important.
He hated that he wasn’t me.
A strange expression came over his face. For once, I couldn’t guess what he was thinking.
“Then Uncle sent you to infiltrate the devil’s men.” Judah sighed. He ran his hand down his face, just the way I did. He shook his head . . . just like I did. He must have studied my habits and mannerisms.
A question circled in my head: how long had he been planning this takeover? Enough time to have studied my every move. Long before I gave him cause. My blood chilled. My brother, my twin . . . seemingly he had doubted me all along.
“You know, when you were taken from The Pasture and placed with those men, I was relieved,” he said. “My days were spent in isolation. I studied and studied, and every day I became stronger in my faith, more knowledgeable about our movement. I strengthened my ability to lead our people.” Judah got to his feet. I had to tip my head back to look at him as he towered over me. I was on my knees, looking up at Judah above me. In his eyes, I saw the rush of power it brought him. The true prophet kneeling at the feet of the brother cast aside.
He smirked, a smug expression engulfing his face. He crouched down to meet my eyes. “I could never understand why Uncle had sent you, his ‘chosen heir’, into Satan’s grasp.” His hand dropped to trace the tattoo of Hades on my forearm. “But now I know.” Judah nodded, as if he was convincing himself whatever theory he had in his head was true. “He was testing you. He was seeing if you could resist evil’s pull.” Judah dropped my hand and shrugged nonchalantly. “It turns out you could not.”“I did,” I spat back. “I lived among them for five years. I gathered intelligence, I made us strong. Without that information we would have failed in our mission!” I winced as my throat throbbed with pain. Pushing through it, I added, “You would have died in a matter of weeks of being amongst those men. You are too weak. I stayed strong. I did what I had to for our cause.” I gritted my teeth. “I killed for them. I took lives, innocent lives. You would have crumbled!”
Judah’s expression didn’t change, yet I saw by the tightening of his eyes that my words had hit their target.
“You did not stay strong, brother,” he said in a taunting voice, pulling his anger back from the brink. “You fell. You held a Cursed in your grasp and let her go because you believed you loved her.” He tipped his head to one side. “In reality, you were cast under her spell like everyone else. Like all the weak men that had fallen before. Your weakness led those men to our commune and got our savior killed.” Hatred for Judah swirled inside me. He had no idea what the hell he was talking about!
Judah leaned forward. “Then even when I brought all three to you, a gift on a silver platter, you still could not secure them. Instead you let them go. You were blinded by their beauty again, ruled by your lust and sin. That, brother, is not the mark of a prophet.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he interrupted me. “It became clear to me on that journey home why you had been sent to the Hangmen.” He was toying with me, making me wait on my knees for his conclusion. “Because our uncle knew you would fall. He knew you would be swayed by evil.” Judah’s eyes gleamed with righteousness and he nodded his head. “He took you away so I could remain in seclusion. He knew you were a distraction to me.” A slow grin pulled on his lips; my veins turned to ice. “I was the destined prophet after all. This was all meant to be mine. I see that now.”
My hands balled into fists. Losing my already frayed composure, I said, “You preach nothing but hate! I can hear you from my cell. You have announced The Rapture to the flock. You have signaled the end of days. You have sent them into hysteria!”
“Because it is, brother. The time has come,” he replied calmly.
I shook my head in frustration. “That would have been revealed by God. You would have had a direct message from our Lord. You cannot just announce that on your own! You cannot put innocent lives in danger because of your need for Hangmen blood!”
Judah smiled wider, and my heart dropped. “I have,” he said proudly. “The moment you deserted your faith by freeing the Cursed Sisters from that mill, I felt the change in me. I felt the burden of leadership fall on my shoulders, transferring from yours. And I have since received revelation after revelation from the Lord, just as our uncle did for so many years.” Judah nodded slowly. “And I have been told to prepare our people for The Rapture. It is time, brother. The time we have prepared for our entire lives has come.”
My eyes widened in shock, and I studied Judah’s face. I searched for his deception, for evidence that he was lying.
But all I saw was truth and conviction on his face. I shook my head, unable to believe it. He couldn’t be . . . no, it wasn’t possible . . .