“Don’t cut his dick off, he’ll bleed too fast,” Silas remarks, like he’s giving me advice on what outerwear to pick on a rainy day. “Want to make it last a bit.”
I furrow my brow, looking at the jagged knife Cole placed in my hand, while Ezekiel screams in outrage.
“Fine,” I say over the cultist’s shrieks. “I’ll cut his balls off instead. Can someone hold them for me?”
“Never touching a Prophet’s junk again,” Rowe says from his corner, voice hollow.
“I’ll do it,” Cole says gleefully. “Love a little castration before bedtime.”
“I’ll cauterize the wound,” Logan offers casually. “I want to make him confess to what he did to Zach before he dies.”
“He’s still hard,” Marek says to no one and everyone.
“Not for long,” Elias chuckles. “Not after my Jewel’s done with him.”
“You don’t know that,” Jonah rumbles. “He could be into this shit.”
“She’s too old and the wrong gender for his tastes,” Logan spits.
“You’re all insane!” Ezekiel screams. “You’ll burn in hell for this!”
I lean over his chair, letting him see the knife I’m going to use to give him a higher singing voice.
“You’ll be there first,” I whisper. “Save us a seat.”
24
ELIAS
Ibite my lip, watching Jules cut Moore’s balls off with shaking hands. She doesn’t waver, though, doesn’t second-guess herself.
She’s ours now.
She’smine.
Ezekiel’s screams are music to my ears, and I fight the urge to close my eyes so I can savor them better. I don’t want to miss a single moment of this. I want to see every second as my girl takes up our fight for justice for the first time.
When blood sprays in an arc and Moore passes out, Jules whirls around to throw up, retching over the plastic sheeting.
Well… we all start somewhere.
“Come here, Little Sapphire,” I murmur, helping her step over the puddle of sick. “Let Logan cauterize the wound. We have plans for him.”
I try to guide her to the exit, but she stubbornly shakes her head, refusing to move.
“No,” she says. “I need to see this. What they did was horrible, and the way he admitted it without remorse? I’mnever going to be okay again if I don’t see with my own two eyes that these monsters get what’s coming to them.”
Jesus. I think I’m in love. How bizarre.
“Sit over here, then. We’re going to need some space for what’s coming.”
After sitting down, Jules clasps her bloody hands in her lap and looks at Logan, who’s getting ready to press a red-hot blade to the bleeding stump of Moore’s family jewels.
“Logan? Tell me about Zach?” she prompts carefully.
“Mm,” our brother hums, struggling to look at her. He busies himself with his task as Jonah gags Moore for the screams we’re expecting any second now. This trailer is soundproofed, and there’s always plenty of screaming going on in our carnival when guests are here, but still, shrieks of pain and terror make it hard to hold a conversation.
A sizzle of flesh announces the smell of roasting meat, and Jules turns a shade greener as Moore returns to consciousness with a roar.
