Every feature of his face was burned into my memory.
He drew back, tapping his fingers together. “If you know the right people, you can get out of life sentences.”
“But they said parole wasn’t possible,” I whispered.
“They were wrong.” He pulled at the neckline of his robe. “You testified very well.” He viciously smiled while giving me fake applause. “The jury believed your every word.”
“Because it was the truth,” I said around a tight throat. I spat,trying to clear the vile taste from my mouth, but also because I wanted to show him how much he repulsed me. “You murdered people.”
He sighed. “When people turn their backs on us, they die.” Another long, dramatic sigh from him. “I thought you knew that.” His gaze lowered to the ropes binding me before returning to my face. “And I think, Blair, you turned your back on us.”
Cold dread seeped into my veins.
“What do you want?” I asked him.
For a second, he didn’t answer and just clicked his tongue to taunt me.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying everything to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks. But I couldn’t. They fell like hot streams.
“Tell me something,” he said.
I bared my teeth at him, curling my fingers around the arm of the chair.
“Do you regret testifying against your father? Your own flesh and blood?”
I pressed my lips together, at first deciding not to answer him.
But then, I changed my mind.
If he was going to kill me, which I knew he was, I’d say all the things I’d wanted to say to him for years.
I’d stand up to him. Speak my mind. Be the strong girl I was when I ran out of the burning chapel.
“No, I don’t regret it.” I raised my chin.
He cocked his head to the side, sneering at me.
“What I do regret is not slitting your throat all those years I witnessed you kill innocent people.” I did my best to bring my face closer to his. “You deserved to rot in prison and then rot in hell, like the piece of shit you are.”
It seemed I was not made for survival of the fittest games.
But I refused to plead for my life because I knew he wouldn’t give it to me. When my father swore he was going to do something, he did it.
“Oh, she’s now got a mouth on her,” he said.
Pain stretched across my cheek and jaw when he slapped me across the face.
“It seemed leaving the commune made you falsely believe you could have a voice.” Spit flew from his mouth as he spoke, hitting my aching cheek.
He sneered again before taking a step back. When he did, another person emerged, stopping at his side.
“Hello, Blair,” she said in that angelic, manipulative voice.
It was the same one she’d used to drag people into my father’s warped cult.
I glared at my mother as she waltzed forward in a long white dress, barefoot, with butterfly clips in her hair.
“It’s time, my love,” another masked figure said, joining them.
