EVE
The four men spoke so quietly that I wasn’t able to overhear them. Well, not the four of them, exactly. The one I assumed was lying on the ground screamed and shouted as he begged for his freedom. While I’d been listening he admitted to the crimes he’d committed against innocent women. It confirmed what I knew that night on the side of the road – the man was a demon and had been after me because, at that time, I was the easiest of victims. It was just one more example of how Elijah was saving me from everything evil that filled this world. Just one more example of his power. Just one more example that proved he was so connected to God that he could face down Satan himself and win.
Holding the door open with the tip of my foot, I was careful to keep my head and face out of view. Every time one of the men scanned their eyes over, I pulled back hoping and praying that none of them saw me. Fifteen minutes had passed already and they were none the wiser that I sat in witness of what they were doing. As long as I stayed quiet as a mouse, Elijah would never know I’d been spying.
My plan would have worked if I’d been stronger, if I’d been more able to view violence without flinching. But it all changed from one moment to the next, and I feared I’d be caught for my stupidity.
Poking my head back out, I watched in fascinated wonder as Elijah and Richard brought down one of the large crosses at the back of the church. I would have sworn that thing was too heavy for two men to handle, but then I remembered the story in the Bible of our Savior’s death. He’d been made to carry it on his own all the way to the hill even with the injuries from his earlier beating. My eyes closed and a tear leaked out at the thought of how cruel men could be to each other. Even when we had God’s son among us, we were too blind to see it. We hurt him and killed him, left him in pain and watched silently while they gave him the wound that ended him. And when all that was said and done, when they’d destroyed someone so beautiful, those people walked back to their normal lives to do their chores, tend to their homes or have dinner. Nothing had changed since we learned the truth of our greatest sin. People were still so horrible and terrifying that I couldn’t even go outside without worry that a man like the one being held on the ground won’t find me and steal my purity.
For that, I didn’t cry to know that they were hurting him and making him suffer, but that still didn’t mean I was brave enough to stand and witness how they’d chosen to destroy his evil.
Once the cross was brought down, they dragged the man over and laid him beside it. Richard wrapped one large hand around the man’s arm, holding it in place as the sheriff took a hammer and nail and banged it through the flesh and bones to attach his wrist to the cross.
I gasped, unable to handle the sight of the blood, unable to hear the piercing scream that echoed off the ceiling and walls of the sanctuary. I was that one tiny sound that drew Elijah’s attention toward the door, that almost gave my position away to the men who hadn’t yet seen me.
Holding out a hand, he told Richard to stop for a moment. Still looking over, he shifted his position to get a better look at the door. I backed away but was too afraid to close the door fully. Even that small movement would alert them to the fact that they weren’t alone in the large sanctuary.
“Did either of you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Richard answered, his voice gruff and breathless.
Elijah didn’t answer immediately, but his approaching footsteps let me know he wasn’t going to drop the matter and get back to what they were doing.
“Stay there for a second. I swore I heard something.”
Left with no choice, I let the door close, the quiet click of the knob setting into place sounding behind me as I ran down the hallway, turned one corner and then another, pushing myself as fast as I possibly could toward the bedroom. I made it inside, shut the door as quietly as I could and jumped in bed. Kicking my shoes off, I let them fall to the floor, not caring where they landed as I pulled the blanket over my head. I was tucked away, warm and secure by the time that door opened again.
The creak of the hinges squealed slowly, the knob hitting the wall with a soft thump. One footstep and then another slowly beating over the floor, approaching me with caution.
“Eve,” Elijah whispered, “Are you awake?”
Clenching my eyes shut, I tightened my fingers into the blanket I held over my head. Still as a statue, I lay on that bed hoping he was just coming to check and hadn’t actually seen me.
“Eve?” he whispered again.
I didn’t answer. There was no way I would respond, no way I would let him know I’d spied on what they were doing.
The footsteps approached again, soft tapping of the soles of his shoes over the floor. He stopped when he reached the side of the bed and I forced my breath to come out slow and even, prayed with everything that I had that he wouldn’t lift the blanket to find that I wasn’t actually sleeping.
His palm rubbed over the blanket, the touch soft and tender. My heart must have stopped beating entirely from the fear that he would yank it from my head, would know that I was lying.
A few tense seconds passed before he pulled his hand away, allowing my heart to continue beating, and within a minute from when he’d first walked in, he was leaving again, the door quietly closing, his footsteps beating heavy down the long hall growing silent as he got far enough away.
I let out a long sigh and then spent the next few minutes saying thank you to God for giving me the speed to run fast enough, and the calm to remain still enough for Elijah not to have caught me.
I must have dozed off after he left, the adrenaline rushing from my body so fast that I slipped into dreamless slumber. Waking up having rolled to the edge of the bed, I noticed the mattress dipped beneath me, the warmth of a thigh against my arm, the soft run of fingers through my hair.
“You’ve been sneaking around, haven’t you?”
Elijah’s voice, deep and hypnotic. I loved it when he used this tone, could listen for hours as he spoke about anything that filled the deafening silence. Even for as much as I enjoyed him when he spoke this way, I couldn’t help the racing of my heart, the sudden shift from sleep to wakefulness that occurred as my mind processed what he’d said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been sleeping.”
He was quiet for a moment, contemplative. “When I married you that night in the cabin, I questioned you about many things. Do you remember?”
Thoughts dancing back to a night that terrified me as much as it filled me with hope, I remembered every detail, every sound, sight and smell. I remembered the way he’d chased me through the woods, the freezing rain that soaked me, the warmth of his chest when he picked me up to carry me in the cabin. Even now I could feel his knuckles brushing my chest as he unbuttoned my dress. I could smell the candles and incense, could see the soft dancing light and shadow from the fire. My skin tingled at my shoulder, at the place where I wore his mark, my mind trying but failing to forget how painful it had been when he put it there. I’d been purified by that mark, had found love beneath the glowing heat of metal, had been catapulted from the ordinary life I’d lived to become the woman who walked beside such a powerful man.
“I remember.”
Why did it feel like ages ago when it had only been months? Why did I feel so much older now even though I hadn’t yet had another birthday? Is this what they mean when they say it’s possible to age years for every day?
His fingertips dragged across my scalp, not painfully, but with just enough pressure that it massaged the skin. “Then you’ll remember how impressed I was with your inability to lie. Every word that leaked out of you was truth down to the bottom of your soul.”
Swallowing hard, I dragged a breath in and released it slowly. “I know.”
His fingers fisted my hair, the scalp burning suddenly, threatening to release every follicle from the strength he used to pull. My face jerked up so that I was looking directly at him, I had no choice but to give in to his violence as he brought his nose down to touch mine. “Why, now, do you think you can lie to me and get away with it?”
He’d spoken the words so softly that they were barely a whisper, and I realized that it was in the moments that Elijah was quiet that you had to fear him. When he was loud, his skin was hot and his soul was on fire. But when he was cold, a sheen of ice cracked across the air, splintering and crawling until my body shook beneath its frigid temperature.
Another lie worked its way up my throat to settle on my tongue. Snapping my teeth shut, I fought to keep from voicing it. He would know. He always knows. I had no choice but to swallow the lie back down and endure whatever punishment I deserved for spying.
When I was silent, he released the pressure on my hair, my scalp still pulsing with an ache I knew wouldn’t go away for several minutes. “Did you enjoy sneaking around and watching me without my knowledge? Did it make you feel accomplished or strong? Lying to your husband like I didn’t deserve better from you?”
Tears welled in my eyes, the lids blinking rapidly to force them out and down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I was just curious –“
He released me altogether and stood to pace the floor by the bed. “Did you miss him? Is that it? Are your fantasies about him so thorough that you were excited to see him again? That demon from the side of the road. The one who almost stole you from me, who wanted to take every part of you that belongs to me alone?” Stopping suddenly, he pivoted on his heel to glare at me. “Would you like to see him again?”
My head shook before I could utter the word “No.”
Elijah’s lips twisted into a wicked smile, his eyes blazing with the need to punish, to teach a lesson, to dominate. I’ve seen that fire behind his stare so many times, and each time only led to a lesson more horrifying than the last. Instinctively, I moved to avoid him when he lunged toward me, but the haze of sleep slowed me down, the weakness in my body from having been sick for what felt like weeks. Wrapping a strong hand over my wrist, he pulled me from the mattress, ignoring the cry of pain that shot from my lips when my hip impacted the floor.
“Get up,” he demanded, the frigid temperature of those words freezing me in place.
Shaking my head again, I did so with the knowledge that my refusal would only anger him more. There was no denying Elijah – especially when he was like this. I was going wherever he wanted me to go and seeing whatever he wanted me to see. Refusing only made the journey more painful. But yet, there I was, crying and shaking my head, silently begging him to let me go. Why couldn’t I just get up and do as I was told? What remnant still existed of the girl I once had been before he transformed me that night in the cabin? I wanted to find that piece inside me and shake it free. Wanted to become the wife he needed, the one he promised me I could be.
Jerked from the floor, I was planted on my feet, turned toward the door and shoved forward. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where he was leading me. Quickly he led me down the same halls and around the same turns toward the sanctuary that I had traveled earlier. Without speaking a word, he stopped me before the large double doors that led inside the room where I’d earlier watched Elijah and two other men punish the man who had attacked me on the side of the road so many months ago. Hadn’t the beating he’d endured that night been enough? Why did Elijah feel the need to hunt him down, drag him to the compound and punish him all over again?
Was it because for the original sin the man had committed against me? Or was it because I’d taken what happened that night and held on to it as a sinful fantasy?
I wasn’t sure that killing the man would free me of the memory, would vanquish the lustful thoughts I had about another man forcing himself inside me. Even now, I shivered at the memory, both the fear that I’d felt and the heat of his skin pressed against my body.
“Are you ready to face your demon again, beautiful girl? Are you ready to vanquish him from your body entirely? To chase the fantasy until it dissipates into the ether, disappearing into Hell where it belongs?” Elijah’s chest pressed to my back, his hand reaching around to splay over my stomach. “Are you excited to know that I’ll give you this one final moment with him so that you can finally say goodbye?”
I shook against him, both mortified and anxious, trembling with my own dark needs and anticipation for a release. It had been so long, so lonely with him gone, and despite knowing what horror awaited me in the room beyond those large double doors, I found myself enjoying his closeness, his touch, the whispered threat against my ear. I loved this man, fiercely and without question, and I’d come to understand that if I couldn’t have his tenderness in return, I was willing to enjoy the abuse he offered.
It didn’t matter to me either way, just as long as it was his hands against my body, his breath brushing my ear, his power pumping between my legs each time he reminded me what it meant to be his wife.
Reaching around me, Elijah’s breath was hot against the side of my face, his heart a thumping drum against my back. Slowly he turned the knob and pushed the door open, the sanctuary coming into view with low lighting and the flicker of a thousand candles. Only once had I seen it so beautiful, so mesmerizing that it trapped the breath in my lungs making it impossible for me to breath in the scent of incense that was a haze of swirling smoke through the room.
The stygian silence reached out to embrace me, drawing me into the room as Elijah led me from behind. They worked in tandem, the two threats, the anticipation and fear, the cavernous space and the cold man standing at my back. Before I could look over to where I knew the two crosses stood, Elijah’s hand came up to cover my eyes.
“No peeking,” he whispered, “I want this to be a surprise.”
Walking me farther into the room, he led me around the benches, chairs and pews, guiding me without so much as letting my knee bump against any of the furniture. It was just like Elijah, so angry that he felt compelled to punish me, yet still watching out not to damage me by mistake. Every bruise, every lash, every mark he left on me was with intention, it was an art to a man like him, the type of branding that screamed to any person who saw it that I was owned by a powerful being, that he had left his calling card as a means to keep the demons at bay.
Except for one man, that was, the one I knew he was leading me to see. He hadn’t noticed the mark of God left on my skin, he hadn’t cared that I was an angel born on this Earth to chase the darkness away and help lead humanity to the light. He’d been blinded by what he thought was my innocent faith without realizing that the power I carried inside me came from the right hand of the Almighty – the new chosen one – the new savior – Elijah.
We stopped finally, Elijah once against pressing his body to mine. Without removing his right hand from my eyes, he used his left to tilt my chin, position my face where I would see the sight he’d created for me, where I would flutter open my eyes to be embraced by the truth of his ultimate power.
His breath a beat against my ear, he didn’t speak or make any other type of sound, but I noticed the slight increase in his heartbeat, the way his lungs drew breath harder, letting it out with only a hiss of soft sound. Finally, my head was positioned where he wanted it, the room still silent, the nightmare ready to be revealed.
The heat of his hand pulled away, the cold air in the room coming in to crash against the skin of my face, and when I knew he was ready for me to see what he’d done to a demon who dared to touch what belonged to him, I opened my eyes…and screamed.