Page 9 of Be My Sacrifice

“Stay down, young buck. We wouldn’t want you to die in the crossfire by accident,” a jumbled, rough voice yells behind me. “Get him out of here, now!”

Two large arms wrap around either side of my body and drag me to my feet. My knees refuse to hold my weight, and my vision swims black before my eyes. “Motherfucker is heavy,” one of them mumbles as he adjusts his hold against my body.

“No… Dinah… Zeke… Sammy… must… save,” I stumble, the words all tangling on my tongue.

“Worry about yourself, big fella. Our orders are to make sure you get out of here in one fucking piece.” They keep moving forward, despite my attempts to protest and push them off me. Just as we are almost to the room’s entrance, Zeke’s pained voice blares above all the fighting, causing the hair on my arms and neck to stand, with the sound of his anguish.

“ABE! Abe, fuck please fight. ABE!”

My eyes meet his, momentarily clearing enough for me to see him covered in blood, amber clashing with emerald. In their deep depths, I witness nothing but the devastation of his soul, the agony filling his body at the choices he has made. I stop fighting altogether, allowing my body to be carried forward. I have nothing left to fight for. My head spins, and my vision clouds again until darkness takes me in its warm embrace. I give in to it, hoping and praying that I never wake up again, so I don’t have to face a world without my Atasi in it.

A groan leaves my sore lips; my mouth tastes like ash, and is as dry as the Sahara desert. I try to force my eyes open, but they struggle to lift with the heavy weight of exhaustion, and various aches and pains ricochet across my body, making me unable to determine which part of me hurts the most.Fuck, it feels like every part of me is broken and damaged.

When I finally manage to crack one of my eyes open, dim light greets me and has another moan escaping my mouth, fuck, even the muted light is too bright.Concussion, my mind supplies.Fuck, that’s not good.

Various images of what befell us in that bathroom and bedroom at the house race through my mind, like a race car on an endless speedway of destruction. The horror on Zeke’s face as he plunged the blade into my Atasi. The look of abhorrence on her face as she realized that he had betrayed us, and the screams from Sammy’s mouth, all replay inside of my mind on a continuous loop, causing my heart rate to increase, and a cold sweat to break along the surface of my skin.

She can’t be gone. I refuse to believe that there is a world where I’m still alive, and she’s not.

I struggle to force my body into a sitting position, needing to take an assessment of where I am, and how much damage my body has sustained. Whoever took me, also took my Atasi. Did they get Sammy and Zeke as well? Is Zeke lying dead somewhere at rebel hands? A sharp pain fills my chest at the thought of him lying dead on that bedroom floor alone, but then I remember how he didn’t deny betraying Gabriel to the Order, how he did nothing to stop his father from stabbing Atasi. How he barely hesitated in stabbing her himself.

Fuck him, I hope he’s dead.Even as the words cross my mind, I don’t honestly believe them to be true. Even with his breach of trust, and disloyalty to the man and woman we both loved, I can’t wish or accept his death at the hands of someone other than me. Ezekiel Rothesay won’t get off that easily; his death belongs to me, his former lover, friend, and lifelong companion. His misdeeds ripped out my heart, and I plan to return the favor.

My eyes search the contents of the space I’m in. It’s a small bedroom sparsely furnished, with walls and furniture that are all mismatched, aged, and have seen better days. I take inventory of myself and notice that I am not in any way restrained. A thin, dark navy blanket covers my legs, and slides down my bruised and bandaged abdomen with my movements. Inhaling deeply causes an acute ache in my chest and side, probably a broken rib or a few.Fuck.Who the hell has me? Could it actually have been rebels that stormed the house? Why would they come to save us?

I lift and drag my swollen hands down my face, trying to force myself into a more alert state. I need to figure out where I am. The rebels, if that’s who they are, have taken me, for what purpose I don’t know, but they also carried Atasi away like thieves in the night. That can’t be a coincidence, but why steal a dead girl that the Brotherhood murdered in cold blood?

Perhaps they mean to make her a martyr to their cause, using her powerful name as the last remaining Camrose, to stir sympathies amongst the populace and cause an uprising against the Brotherhood. Fuck, I hope they do. I will gladly fucking join in their endeavors; tearing the Order down will bring me nothing but pleasure. My vengeance demands I destroy the ones responsible for taking everything I love from me. The whole world will burn for her death, and if Ezekiel Rothesay isn’t dead, he won’t have long to live when I come for him.

A noise has me tensing as the only door to the room cracks open hesitantly. My eyes dart around, looking for anything that I can use as a weapon against my captors, but there’s nothing in fucking sight but a wooden chair, and even if I could manage to get to it across the room before I am overtaken, it’s not going to do much damage.

They won’t kill you; they had that opportunity and didn’t. You’re alive, asshole, and someone has tended to your wounds,my mind reminds me as adrenaline shoots through my system.

A small foot and hand appear in the crack, and for an irrational moment, I believe it’s Dinah. My mouth hangs open, and my breath hitches with the possibility that she’s still alive, but as more of the body makes its way into the room, that hope is dashed, but a new emotion replaces it:shock.Complete shock slams into me, as I see the figure of my mother standing in the partially open doorway, dressed in the dark clothing that the rebels wore.What the hell is going on here?

“Mother?” I question my sanity, making me believe that I am seeing apparitions. It can’t be? I must have brain damage, because it can’t be my mother here. What would she be doing with the rebels?

“It’s good to see you awake, son. You had us worried,” she smiles, her beautiful face lighting up as she stares at me. Sarah Mercier can’t be standing before me, can she?

I try to stumble to my feet, confusion taking over my mind, and before I can even lift off the bed, the pain that soars through my body has me falling right back down.Fuck, I’m weak like a kitten.“Stay down, Abraham! You’re not done healing!” My mother rushes to my side, laying her soft hand on my shoulder and urging me back on the firm mattress.

“How? What… what is going on here?” I ask as I look into her golden eyes, which are identical to the ones I possess. Eyes I have always trusted, and never been given a reason not to.

“I will explain everything, son, but please, I need you to remain calm and stay in bed. It’s only been two days since we brought you here, and you have two fractured ribs, and a multitude of injuries that your body is trying to recover from.”

“Two days? I’ve been out for two days?” I question with panic. Two days, what the fuck has happened in the time I’ve been laying in this fucking bed like a sack of shit? “Dinah… Sammy… Zeke? Are they alive?”

Pity slides across my mother’s face, and with it, I feel my throat closing up.No, they can’t all be gone.That can’t be what she is about to tell me. I can’t be the only one left alive. God, or whoever the fucking benevolent creature up there looking down on us is, wouldn’t be that cruel. It wouldn’t force me to live in a world without all of them. I won’t, I fucking refuse to be parted from all of them.

My mother’s eyes meet mine, turmoil deep in their depths, the little lines around her face seeming more profound somehow, as if she has aged since the last time I saw her mere days ago. “Zeke is still with the Brotherhood, and we couldn’t get Sammy out. There were too many of them, and we had to get out of there before reinforcements arrived.” I wait with bated breath for her next words to crush what is left of my heart, even though I can feel it splintering with the words she’s already uttered. They still have Zeke and Sammy. They are still trapped with Noah.

“Dinah is alive, son. She’s in a coma, barely hanging on, but for now, she’s alive.”

Chapter six

The Forsaker

Zeke

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