JACOB
(Six months later)
There's nothing quite like the wind blowing against your face. A blanket of tranquility, it wraps over every dip and angle, settles into the hollows of your cheeks, leaves a gentle kiss on the forehead and chin just like my mom used to do when I was young.
She always kissed my brother and I after our father was done forcing our repentance. Never stepping in because the man was in charge of the castle, she’d sat back and watched him purge us of sin.
The memories had come back to me slowly, a small piece of the puzzle that explained Eve and what Jericho had made of her.
But I knew there had to be more, only because I hadn’t become the same kind of monster.
Sitting twenty-two stories high, on a ledge overlooking the frenetic rush of life beneath my feet, I watched the city where I grew up. Obscured by shadow, I doubted anybody could see where I sat. Had I been a kid, I would have felt like a super hero standing guard against evil. But I was an adult, and in the years I'd lived, I realized the evil I should be worried about was me.
Two lives. Two beautiful souls that were bright stars among a constellation of the mean-spirited and ordinary, they were a rarity. In my life before this hell, I would have called them a blessing.
Two streets south of me, and three buildings to the left stood the cathedral I'd attended my entire life. With a peaked roof and large, ornate stairways leading directly from the street to God's door, it was a bastion of light, a spectacle that must have cost the Diocese a fortune. Its bells played short hymns every hour, its bevy of large wooden front doors a welcome mat for the weak and weary.
In the years that Jericho and I had attended it, the parish managed to become our Hell.
I'd watched it all day from so high up the parishioners resembled ants.
After spending nine months at Alan's place, I'd run through as many women as it took to get past Eve's death. And although I was no longer reliving it every time I closed my eyes, a slow montage of destruction that chased me from my bed, I was just barely balanced.
Any strong gust could come along and blow me right over, any sweet sprinkle of rain could wash me down into whatever churning river would ferry me straight to Satan’s gates.
There was no place for me to run this time, no escape that could protect me from the world, or protect the world from me. God himself couldn't save me now. He'd tried. He'd failed. And all because of one person.
Sex could no longer appease me. Ravaging some woman as she screamed and moaned could no longer let me pretend that everything would be okay. Vengeance was the steady pulse inside my heart, the black shadow over my eyes and the caustic veil that smothered me day in and day out until I promised myself to take it.
But first, I needed to understand why.
Yes, Jericho had laughed at the repeated question. He'd mocked me and scorned me, told me to enjoy the ride I never wanted. But for as much hatred as I held for him, for as much I wanted to throw my hands up and sink into oblivion without ever thinking of that small, rural town again, why was the question ceaselessly whispering in my head.
What had I done to make my twin brother want to destroy me so thoroughly? Why had it brought him so much pleasure to sacrifice Eve’s life to me?
The only trail I had to follow was our past, the only breadcrumbs left behind were those rooted in the city where we had parted ways as brothers, only to come back together in life as enemies.
The first question I needed answered wasn't why my brother had set out to hurt me, it was why had he gone mad?
The answers wouldn't be found in the small town where he was known as Elijah, they would be found in a large, turbulent city where he was raised as Jericho Hayle, a devout Catholic boy who, for reasons I didn't yet know, had been scorned by the faith he'd once held so dearly.
I would have those answers, but first I had to gather the courage to walk in through the parish's doors, to humble the beast inside me just long enough to pretend like I had any faith left at all.
A large cross lifted into the sky above a building designed to express the glory of the Almighty, and behind it shone the lights of a city in which Jericho and I had once thrived.
Would the good little girls recognize me now that they were mothers and wives?
Would I be able to control the violence inside me just long enough to get what I needed before heading back to that small town in the heart of the Appalachians?
I wasn't sure of any of those answers. The only thing I knew was I had to try.
Hopping off the ledge – toward the roof and not the streets below – I angled my head into the breeze that was blowing and tried to steady the beat of my heart for where I knew I had to go.
Back to the city. Back to parish that I’d once run from screaming. And back to a family home that now stood bleak and empty after my parents both died without either of their children giving enough of a damn to return in time to say goodbye.