Cult of the Hexad (Afterlife saga Book 6)

  I narrowed my eyes and saw a little tick in his cheek that I had grown to recognise as him being slightly amused. She must have said something that made him have to fight the urge to smile. Those were my favourite times when looking at him. There was nothing more beautiful in this hidden world than that smile. If I hadn’t seen what he had done to her in the past, the brutal and raw ways he had taken her body, then I could have believed he too was my Angel.

  But the creature he transformed into when angry or lustful couldn’t be ignored. It was beauty captured by the beast alright and I too was right there in that locked cell of my own mind to witness it all. Because when I turned away from the church window and looked around the dark room all I saw was an iron chamber with a door that led straight back to my Inferno. One that would only open when my time here was done and it would force me through the gates of what I loathed to call home.

  The secret part of me wished I could just step into their world, free the girl and take her place. At least then I would discover what it felt like to be touched that way by a man, no matter how terrifying the thought was. Sometimes I would see the way he looked at her and there I would witness the proof of his love and devotion, one buried there so deep I knew nothing could uproot it. But then why did he keep her locked there?

  I had never seen her anywhere but this room and every single time she had been trying to tell me something. She would even try and get to me when he wasn’t around, so what else could it mean other than her trying to escape and needing my help to do so?

  I had replayed so many dreams over and over in my mind and the only conclusion was that he was obsessed with her and used his powers over her. That was the only way to make sense of why she would willingly go to him and make love to such a man who upset her so much. I mean good Lord, she let him feed from her for Christ sake! And speaking of which he was just loosening his black tie from his crisp white shirt when he started to approach the bed.

  He ran a single finger across her bare shoulder where her loose t shirt had slipped to one side. I shuddered for her, almost feeling the same touch for myself. This often happened and was shamefully how I nearly experienced my first orgasm.

  I remembered it like one would with an early childhood memory. It was weird the way it felt like the first one I ever truly believed in, as if all the rest had been the dream and this one was the only one that had really happened. It was like a switch had been flipped eight months ago and the hate I and Ari both had for the Colony had multiplied to new levels, until leaving was all we could think about.

  I remembered waking up and crying out at just the exact moment my other self did in the dream as we neared our release together. But for me it never came and it only left me feeling empty and cold.

  She looked up at him and I saw him shaking his head softly at her as he wiped away a stray tear. It looked so caring that you could almost believe they were just two people in love and I was the intruder. But then she ripped her face from his and stood up to walk away from him in anger. He let his hand fall and turn into a fist, one that thankfully I had never seen him unleash on her yet. She came to stand opposite me with only this thin pane of glass between us but it could have been a vaulted door for the strength it held.

  We both raised our hands together and placed them over each other. I looked up into her eyes and saw my own staring back at me. Our tears fell in sync and we both lowered our heads at the same time as the pain became too much to bear. Then one word escaped my lips that I had no control over…

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What did you say?!” My head snapped up the moment I heard my own voice but knew it hadn’t come from me. My other self was staring at me like she couldn’t believe what was happening. Had she just heard me? Had I just heard her?

  “You…you can hear me?” I asked tentatively and her mouth dropped open.

  “Yes! Yes I can!” She shouted and I saw the man shift across the room at an impossible speed. I took a tentative step back in fear of him being this close. She saw my reaction to him and shouted,

  “No! Don’t go!” I stopped in my tracks as she ordered. Then I saw his lips moving but couldn’t hear him and she turned her head to speak back to him,

  “Why can’t you hear her and I can?” She asked him and he nodded towards the cracks that had appeared around the edges of the glass. In our last dream before this the whole of the glass had shattered just as it finished. Did this mean something was coming? Did this mean we were meant to break the glass completely in order to speak to one another?

  “I need your help Keira! Please…free me…free…LOOK OUT, BEHIND YOU!”

  “AHHH!” I screamed as hands suddenly grabbed me from behind and painfully dragged me backwards through the door that was my life.

  “NOOO!” I shouted kicking out and wrestling with the hands that held me down.

  “Wake up you stupid child!” My mother’s voice pierced through me and my last and fading vision I took with me was my other self trying in vain to break free from the arms that held her from behind. Arms that stopped her from breaking free and trying to get to me. As the door slammed shut on that image I thought I heard the sound of a small amount of glass cracking even more and could only pray to the Gods I would find it to be true.

  “Mother?” I said after being shaken awake.

  “Get up! You will be late for your chores if you do not hurry.” I closed my eyes against the wave of emotions that dream had flooded me with and I let my head fall back against my pillow.

  “Did you not hear me?!” My mother yelled and for just a few more precious seconds I blocked it all out.

  “I did, but I don’t think they did in Kentucky…was that what you were aiming for?” I said and then gasped right along with my mother. I couldn’t believe I had said that and I covered my mouth as if it would help.

  “What did you just say to me?” She hissed and I knew I was in big trouble now. Okay so I could either say sorry and grovel or just roll with it and accept my punishment with dignity. I took a deep breath and in my mind said, oh bugger it!

  “I am sick of you speaking to me like I am a child and just walking in here thinking you own me!” I said whipping the covers back and getting up to face her. The shock on her face was almost laughable and I might have done so if my heart hadn’t been racing.

  “You little Bitch!” She screamed and then before I could dodge her she was at me. She lashed out at my head and clocked me right on the side with her fist. The blow knocked my head to one side and before I could recover from the ringing she had grabbed my ear, like so many other times before. She used it to get me to walk with her and I squealed in pain.

  “Well upon my word, you have gone and done it this time Missy!” My crazed mother shouted walking me to the basement.

  “NO! Not down there! Anything else! Not down there!” I screamed in vain and twisted only to find another blow to my face. I slumped to the ground and gave my mother the time to find the right key. I tried to crawl away from her not caring about the pain but only about the horror that awaited me down there.

  “The Elders will hear about this Katie.” She said before she kicked me in the abdomen, putting too much pressure on my solar plexus for me to be able to breathe properly. My diaphragm was still working through its painful spasm when she dragged me up and pushed me down the stairs. I felt each bang down and only managed to stop myself from rolling further when I was already half way down. I was lucky I didn’t feel anything break other than receiving a nasty bump to the head that I could feel bleeding from my temple.

  “You will pay for this…one day soon… You. Will. Pay!” I spat out the threat back up at her from the staircase now smeared with my blood. The shock was written across her face and as plain to see like our lying Bible. Suddenly the thought of hitting her with it came to mind and I couldn’t help it when I started laughing like I had lost my mind. I don’t know what had gotten into me but it was like I had brought some of my dream self back with me.
br />   She frowned down at me like she knew the reasons for this outburst but instead of saying more she simply crossed herself like this was what she was programmed to do, not what she wanted to do. Was it all a religious act with my mother? Why had I never noticed this before? But more importantly…

  Why had I never thought to ask myself this before?

  She slammed the door and left me in the darkness, with only a current of strange thoughts to keep me company. I winced as I lifted my bruised body from the staircase and felt around in the dark so I could find my footing when I stood. There was no banister and the last and only time I had been punished down here, I had fallen off the edge and cracked a rib on my way down. Well at least that hadn’t happened this time, although my head certainly pounded enough to remind me of what pain felt like.

  I don’t know what it was about being locked in a basement but I was terrified of it. And the sickest thing about this punishment was they knew it. I was the only one I had heard about that received such a punishment and as far as I knew it hadn’t even been used as a threat to the others. I had no idea how they knew I had been as terrified as I was considering I had never said a word. Not even to Ari, so how did they know it was my ultimate fear?

  It wasn’t as if anything had happened to me in the past for me to be so scared but even now it was hard to get past the fear long enough to make my body work. The last time I had spent my time sat on the top step with my hand on the door. I remember when they finally opened the door seeing the light for the first time in two days. The first thing I saw was the bloody smears on the wood and when I looked down at my hand I saw my red raw bleeding knuckles where I had tried to punch my way out. Needless to say the wood won the fight.

  That day they had broken me and I vowed I would never do anything that would land me back in this nightmare. Well little good that did me I thought with a groan.

  I closed my eyes and focused on the pain in both my stomach and my head so I wouldn’t panic. The last time I had hyperventilated until I passed out, only to wake to the sound of Ari’s voice bringing me back. I remembered her outrage and arguing with our mother on the other side of the door but it was all in vain as she had received ten lashes for the offence. So she had found another way to help me through and that’s where I needed to get to now.

  There was a window down there, I remembered that much.

  “Come on Kay, pull your shit together.” I said out loud, which actually helped calm my shattered nerves. Getting up took longer than it should have but with the added fear of falling off the edge I finally started to make progress. It was only when my foot touched the ground and came off the last step that I allowed myself a sigh of relief. I don’t know why or what had changed since last time but it felt like I had been through so much worse than this that it gave me a strength I didn’t understand.

  The window was covered with an aged piece of cloth that allowed in the tiniest amount of light through the threadbare holes. It was enough to feel my way there and after tripping only once, I finally reached it. I yanked the material from the dirty glass, ripping it from the rusty nails and felt better as soon as the looming darkness was taken away. The light danced on the particles of dust that floated in the air and I reached up on tip toes to see through the window. It was too high for me to see much so I looked around for something to stand on, which was when I saw it.

  “What on earth is this?” I muttered when coming across what looked like a primitive prison cell without the bars. There was an inflated bed which was covered in a thick layer of dust that had obvious not seen a warm body in a while. An empty child’s plate and a plastic spoon were left on top of it with an old spider’s web waving at me in the air like a draft was coming from somewhere.

  It was an eerie scene alright but one made even creepier by the broken music box that lay on its side. I swallowed hard and let my dangerous curiosity pull me closer to the broken shards that lay scattered around the tiny ballerina, one that had stopped dancing long ago. As I stepped closer I felt my hands start to shake as something was sickeningly wrong about all of this.

  I stood over the box and looked down without moving as I tried to make sense of it all and the nauseating feeling looking at the broken glass brought me. Part of me didn’t want to move or was too scared to do so, but it was as if I needed to know what was going on and something in this scene would show me. So I bent on one knee, feeling as though I was disturbing history by touching the box.

  I noticed the ballerina’s arms were broken off and as soon as I set it back down the broken sound of the Nutcracker’s Sugarplum Fairy started to play. That tiny tinkling sound hit me like a bulldozer and all I could smell was blood. That stomach-turning scent of copper wafted up my nose as if the room was flooding with it.

  I looked around but saw nothing that would produce that smell but then I remembered my head and touched the sticky patch that must have explained it. I shook my head as if this would help me wash away the feeling that I had seen this all before but that was impossible. The last time I was forced down here I had stayed in the darkness and saw nothing of the room. I only knew there was a window because Ari had spoken to me through it, trying to coax me towards it. Needless to say my fear had won that day.

  A bright light flashed on the floor and I looked down to see that the biggest piece of the broken mirror had caught the light from the window. I frowned down at it and was about to turn my attention back to the window when something stopped me. It was as though I had no mind over my actions as I bent and grabbed it. I held it up to look at myself and instantly screamed.

  “NOOO!” I shouted at the image of my other self looking back at me but it wasn’t seeing her that made me react this way. No, it was the shadowed figure reflecting back at me, one that stood at the top of the staircase with nothing but the light behind him framing the horror.

  I looked back at the fear and tears in the girl’s eyes… my eyes. It was then that I knew this was her nightmare I was witnessing and just when I thought I couldn’t take much more I noticed the blood. At first a single droplet emerged on the glass and trickled across the reflection of our eyes. But soon I had no other choice but to view our faces through a red veil of crimson. I screamed again and threw the mirror shard down, letting it smash in the corner of the room.

  I jumped and looked down at my shaking hands only to see our joint nightmare wasn’t over. My hands were covered in blood and as I lifted my hands up, I noticed the deep slashes cut into the flesh on my forearms.

  I could hear my screaming and feel my head violently shaking back and forth, but the other side of me could hear nothing this world had to offer and my body was frozen in time. I just looked down at the horror of my mutilated arms and I knew.

  I knew what she had done to try and get away from the Demon.

  I knew what she had done to us…

  She had tried to kill us.

  Chapter 3

  Can Your Dreams Kill You?

  “Kay…Kay?” As soon as I heard my sister’s voice the vision of blood disappeared. It was just like someone up there had snapped their fingers or flipped a switch ending the gruesome sight.

  “Kay, come on!” My sister hissed in panic. Hearing this was enough to get me moving. I looked around getting back to my original plan and trying to find something to stand on. I almost wept with joy when I saw a step ladder. I grabbed it and rushed to window knowing that Ari could get into trouble if she was seen. I pushed it up against the wall and after taking that first big step to avoid the broken slat, I was there. I pushed the window and muttered a ‘thank you God’ when it opened with only a little elbow grease.

  “Ari!” I said to her feet that were level with my head.

  “Come on, I’m getting you out of here.” I smiled at her determination and said the only thing that needed to be said.

  “Oh, Hell yes.” I then put both my arms through the small space and dragged my body the rest of the way gripping onto the grass. Ari helped me up and after
giving me the once over she gritted her teeth against the anger she no doubt felt at seeing what our mother had done to me.

  “Let’s go.” I nodded and after making sure the coast was clear we ran for the barn. The Colony was a pretty remote place, one that was flat, full of fields and therefore easy to spot runaways. However if you could make it past the vast open space then you could easily get lost in the surrounding woodland that framed the Colony.

  I was about to ask about being caught when one look at my twin and I knew I just needed to trust her. So when she took my hand in hers I just let my worries go and let my feet carry me away. We ran towards one of the older barns, that these days held nothing but old rusty farm equipment and surplus hay. I wanted to ask why no one was around but thought it best not to stop mid getaway for a chat.

  Thankfully the doors weren’t locked and were only held together with a heavy chain wrapped around the handles. We crept inside making sure not to let the large doors give us away as it creaked on its aging hinges. Once we were inside we both leant our backs to the door and took a moment to catch our breaths.

  “I hate to be the killjoy in this great escape but what now?” I asked after leaning forward to make it easier to breathe.

  “I overheard our Bitch of a mother telling Uncle that you would be locked down there until tomorrow night. As soon as I heard that’s what she had planned I knew I couldn’t let it happen again.” I gave my sister a sad smile before concern outweighed my relief.

  “But you could have been caught!”