JACOB
For a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity. Proverbs 24:16
Sedra sat in my office silent as a mouse for the remainder of the day. Hours passed as I finished the homily. When done, I turned my attention to other matters that would keep my attention off the woman seated facing me, and the pictures tucked away in my desk that were still very much in mind despite being out of sight.
Every so often, I'd lift my gaze to look at Sedra to find her curled up in a seat, her hands playing over the cross necklace dangling down over the large t-shirt I'd given her to wear. My sweatpants had been too big for her, so I'd given her a pair of my boxers to wear beneath the shirt. It left her legs exposed for my wandering eye, the shirt so thin I could easily see the fullness of her breasts.
I had to rip my eyes away from her each and every time I dared look up. She was so beautiful, so easily available, and so dangerous to me that it was as if the serpent itself sat in front of me, the forbidden fruit held snugly between its jaws.
Just a taste, Jacob.
You own me, Jacob...
I need to confess...
The present was leaking into the past, setting me on a collision course with tragedy, and with the man I'd been before surrendering myself to God.
I knew well how that serpent was laughing. While I was trying to deny the sinner inside me, I'd walked blindly into his trap.
Jericho's game was making sense to me for once because, in the time I'd taken to sit and stare of the photographs on my desk, in the hours I'd spent watching Sedra sit quietly and obediently before me, the pieces fell together to show me a picture that gave me no chance to escape.
I assumed that Jericho knew I'd attempt to give Sedra back. He must have known that I'd try to force temptation away from me in an effort to save my soul. Had he waited and watched, he would have seen me drive off with her, he would have known it would take two hours at least for me to arrive back to the church. And while I'd been gone, he’d most likely staged the death of Mr. Whitaker, must have grinned as they sent someone to fetch me for prayer.
And where was I? Missing from my station, with no verifiable explanation as to where I'd been.
Except for one possibility, one that could be reported by a girl who thought she'd made love to the priest she'd had a crush on since the day she turned sixteen.
I didn't worry that Jericho had injured or killed Annabelle. That would be too convenient. No. I had every expectation that he intended for her to live, for her to walk into my parish and look at me with accusation behind her eyes.
Even though I hadn't been the one to take her virginity, I still carried the blame for what I knew was to come.
If Annabelle's own guilt wore her down enough, she would go to her parents to admit what she'd done. Those parents would come to me, and what alibi did I have to give them? Only a brainwashed woman who would tell them I left her on the side of the road for a few hours, beat down a man who tried to hurt her, only to bring her home and fingerfuck her against a wall.
That crucifix was still lying on my bedroom floor where it fell, and the serpent had wrapped itself languorously around it.
The only question still remaining was why?
For that answer, I needed to speak to my brother.
Outside my window the sun was setting, ribbons of red, orange and gold painting the sky with God's promise to man. I stared at it wishing the promise could have also been made to me.
"It's getting late," I said, my voice gritty from lack of use. "I'm going to make you something to eat and help you get settled into bed."
Sedra startled at the sound of my voice, her neck wrenched to the left for her eyes to find mine. I looked down at the papers on my desk, still too much of a coward to face what was standing right in front of me.
Her voice filtered across the room regardless, a siren's song meant to draw a man in. "If that's what you want."
It wasn't what I wanted.
No. What I wanted was to spread Sedra across my desk, push her legs apart and taste the sweet nectar of her body just so I could feel powerful in the way she writhed beneath me.
Just so I could listen to the sounds that fell from her lips and know that she would never deny me.
But I was a celibate priest. One who was in danger of crashing down to Earth with the rest of the tormented and damned.
"It's what I want," I ground out behind clenched teeth.
The serpent laughed again.
Pushing to my feet, I didn't bother looking at her when I left the room. I knew she would follow behind me, a playful puppy looking for the one person who would pet it just right. She was the obedient woman that would give without expecting anything in return, that would take whatever beating I wanted to give her because even the pain was better than living without my touch.
I made her a quick meal and waited patiently as she cleaned her plate. Still unable to stomach anything more filling than water, I chose to lean up against a wall in order to avoid sitting across from her. The temptation to reach beneath the table and pull her foot into my lap just so I could grind up against that small part of her was too much to take.
What I'd done to her the night before had been the spark to ignite a blazing inferno, a fire so hot that not even all of the heavenly angels' combined tears could douse its flames.
I just wondered how many more days I could take of this before I had to admit to myself that Jericho had succeeded in his games.
Her fork clamored against her plate when she dropped it down, her lips wrapping over the rim of a glass of water, the soft pink of her tongue visible against the glass. Setting it down, she turned to me with expectant eyes.
"You ready for bed now?" I asked, trying with everything inside me not to blame the innocent for the weaknesses of the flesh.
Nodding, she stood from her seat and followed me to my bedroom in the rectory. The bed was still a mess from when I'd woken that morning. I hadn't taken to the time to make it, pick up the crucifix or fall to my knees in prayer. The tidy, safe routine I'd made for myself over the years was falling apart at the tattered seams, revealing to me all the stuffing inside filled with my darkness and deceit.
It had always been so easy to make women believe they were exactly what I wanted. And in the end I'd made myself believe the lies that rolled off the silky tongue of a man who should have known better than to think he could deny himself his deviant violence.
"Go ahead and crawl in bed," I said, grabbing the keys to my truck from my desk wondering if the vehicle would even start.
"Where are you going?"
"I have an errand to run."
I didn't give her a chance to respond, just grabbed my shoes and walked outside, waiting until I was alone in the cab to slip them on. Forcing the key in the ignition, I didn't even bother praying the battery wasn’t dead. There was no point. God wasn't listening.
It turned over without a problem, the engine roaring within the dying sunlight, the door slamming shut, as I threw it into reverse and peeled out of the dirt driveway. The one hour drive to Jericho's compound wasn't near enough time for me to calm myself down, the passing miles and silent minutes only serving to build the tension inside me until it felt like I would burst beneath the pressure.
Three days ago, I'd pulled up in front of the looming iron gates with no clue of who'd I'd find behind them. But now? Now I was marching toward the gates of Hell knowing full well the demon who would be happy to step through. I wasn't even within reach of them before they parted at the center and Jericho walked out, a broad smile stretching his face.
"Jacob," he mocked, the roll of laughter adding levity to that one word. "And here I thought we'd never see each other again. At least, that's what you told me this morning."
"Save it, Jericho. I'm done with your stupid, fucking games."
He cocked his head to the side. "That's funny because I haven't even started playing yet."
Anger beat its steady drum inside me. "Why are you doing this?"
He grinned and slid his hand up to his ear like I'd whispered the words. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you, brother. Why don't you step closer to my web, little fly, and perhaps we can communicate better."
"Tell me why, Jericho!"
I could feel every vein pulsing beneath my skin, could recognize the violence inside me rearing its ugly head to roar out its might. There was a man in there somewhere that I once had been, and this son of a bitch was slowly pulling him out of me. The entire time grinning.
"Why? Why? Why?" He smirked. "Always with the questions. But instead of asking me something you know damn well I won't answer, you should tell me something instead. How does it feel to know you never shed the sins of your past? To realize you'd only hidden them behind the veil of a religious life?"
"My life has nothing to do with you." I stepped toward him, but he lifted a finger, the sound of at least three separate guns being readied above our heads. I looked up to stare down the barrels of the guns pointed in my direction. Three men stood on wooden platforms that rose just above the tops of the wall surrounding the property.
"I wouldn't come any closer if I were you. I'd hate for your handsome face to be no longer."
Breath burst from my lungs, my body frozen within the rising tide of my fury. Turning to look at Jericho, I grinned. "You always were a fucking coward."
He laughed. "No. What I've always been is one step ahead. You just never knew it."
Kicking at a stone by the toe of his boot, he casually tucked his hands into his pockets, his black hair shining beneath the floodlights of the compound. When he glanced up again, I saw the man I used to be, the bastard that wasn't trapped behind the stark white of his clerical collar.
"Ah, now don't be so mad, Jacob. I haven't done anything to you that you wouldn't have done to me before you found God. We always knew when we started playing our games as kids that at some point we'd turn them against each other. It was only natural that siblings would form a rivalry. One that I assume you thought you'd won when you left for college."
He stepped forward, his eyes directed back to his shoes, his feet careful to move with the heel of one boot placed directly in front of the toe of the other.
Stopping just outside of my reach, he was a man with no concerns because of the guns his men had aimed at me.
"So, let me tell you how the rest of this is going to go." His gaze met mine. The silver-blue color a feature we'd used to lure in all the good little girls we'd destroyed in our lives.
"You're going to go back to your parish, and you're going to enjoy the present I gave you for as long as I let you have her. You're going to stop showing up at my compound because the next time you do, I won't come outside to warn you before my men take you down to your knees. And when I decide it's time for the game to end, I'll show up at your parish and I'll let you know."
"I don't understand, Jericho. What have I-"
"It's not for you to understand. That's what you're not getting in all this," he said, cutting me off.
"And maybe that's been your problem all along, Jacob. You always wanted to understand something. You were never the type to blindly believe, and that's exactly why I know that the collar you wear is a disguise. You're not a godly man, you never have been and yet you sit as the shepherd of your flock, the symbol of God and the might of his hand. Your church is so full of bullshit I can smell the stink of it from here."
Fuck the guns. Fuck the threat. Fuck every word that falls from my brother's mouth. I stepped toward him, my hands fisted at my sides, my pulse so wicked and strong that it was thunder inside my head.
"My choices in life are my own. They shouldn't concern you."
"I never said they did," he answered, his expression unchanging, unworried and full off satisfied pride. "But there you go again looking for a reason."
We were two brothers facing each other down beneath the lights of a madhouse. Two twins that had once been united now suffering the fruits of the evil we'd allowed into our lives. And where I was balanced on a precipice between pitch dark and blinding light, my brother had not only accepted the evil that lurked inside him, he'd embraced it.
"I'll explain this to you in a way you might understand given your new profession," he said, his voice low, calculating, and without emotion. "Christ died for our sins, brother. At least that's what's been stuffed down our throats each and every day since we left our mother's womb to come into this shithole we call a world."
He paused, his head tilting left and right to ease the muscles of his shoulders.
"But yet," he continued, his voice softer, a whisper against the cool night wind, "after the third day that son of a bitch rose again to show us all his glory and his might."
A grin tugged at his lips. "It's the third day now, Jacob. And just look at you. Still righteous and pure. Still a man who looks to his God and the Church that serves that God as a means to escape the sinner inside you."
Holding up three fingers, he repeated, "Day three, Jacob. Do you remember what happened after that? I assume you do given you're a priest, so why don't you tell me."
When I didn't answer, he screamed, "Tell me!"
The bastard was right in one thing: I couldn't look at any situation without stumbling over the question of why. Even at that moment I was mentally mapping every word he said, every expression he made, every crime he committed and every life destroyed in the game he was playing. And there was no rhyme or reason to it.
"Christ ascended to Heaven," I finally spit out. "Body and soul."
Jericho laughed, a short burst of sound that carried no humor. "He left us to fend for ourselves against everything wrong in this world, and what happened after that?"
I shook my head in disbelief. My twin brother was stone cold mad. "Are you telling me you're doing this because you're pissed that Christ died? What is wrong with you?"
His eyes clenched tight, his hand reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I'm not telling you a damn thing, Jacob. I'm asking you to answer a simple question."
As if on cue, one of his family standing with gun at the ready shot at the ground behind me, I assumed to prod me along in answering the bullshit he was asking me. My gaze lifted to look at the bastard holding the smoking gun just so I could remember who to kill when I finally lost my damn mind.
Leveling my gaze back on Jericho, I said, "I don't know what part about after you want to hear. It's been two thousand years."
Jerking his hand from his face, he opened his eyes. "Man was left to fall again after Christ left this Earth. He took his toys and he went back to his heavenly playground, and just like how man was ditched after those three days we waited, you'll fall, Jacob. You had your three days and now they're over. And I'll enjoy watching you fall, because you were never a devout man to begin with."
Insane. My brother was certifiably insane.
"Get off my lawn, brother. I'm tired of seeing you around here."
Another gun shot rang out, the dust and stones kicking up around me close enough to hit my legs. Jericho turned without saying another word, slowly strolling to the gate that was opening as he approached.
I couldn't help it when I called out, "Do you want me to quit the priesthood? Is that what this is about?"
He stopped but didn't bother to look back at me. "Again, you're searching for the why. Just enjoy the ride, Jacob, and stop asking useless questions."
He took another step before stopping again, this time glancing over his shoulder toward me.
"Tick tock, brother. Tick. Tock."
He was gone two seconds later, the gates closing to hide him from my sight.
Hidden just behind the bars with white sheets woven through them, his voice rang out. "If you don't want to get shot, Jacob, I suggest you move along pretty quickly. My family will only give you a few seconds head start."
The men made a show of pointing their guns in my direction and I ran back to my truck. By the time I was speeding around a corner to turn onto the main road, I could hear shots hitting the bed of the truck behind me.