Page 17 of Be My Sacrifice

“What the fuck is happening? Is she going to be alright?” My panicked voice yells out, as I allow myself to be moved out of the way, so they can work on Dinah. My questions are ignored, as two women and a man simultaneously move around Dinah, whose body is now jerking on the bed and looking like a rag doll as it shakes. The alarms keep blaring, causing my heart to feel like it’s trying its best to escape my chest.No, this can’t happen. I can’t lose her!

“Dinah, don’t leave me, baby!” I shout through my tear-clogged throat, as her petite body keeps jostling on the bed.Please, if there is a God up there, save her. I will do whatever you want, be your faithful servant, murder all your enemies, if you just save her.

“Cardiac arrest! She’s in cardiac arrest!” More people rush into the room, and I’m shoved further away, until I can feel the wall behind me holding me up. My body begins to tremble with fear. My legs threaten to buckle underneath me as I dig my hands into my hair, yanking on the strands as tears slide down my face.I can’t lose her. I won’t survive without her. Please don’t leave me!

“Clear!” The male yells as he places two paddles on her chest, and they shock her. “Again, fuck!” I watch in horror as they administer another round to her small, unconscious body, trying to stop her from dying. It lifts and bows her body on the bed, forcing it to contort with the impact of the electrical charge.

“FIGHT, ATASI! DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME!” I shout, my voice clogged with the tears and sobs that are pouring out of me, as her body continues to struggle to keep her alive before my eyes.

It feels like hours as they work to stabilize her, and finally, whatever they manage to do causes her to stop shaking, and the machine’s beeping goes back to more of a neutral rhythm. I sit on the floor, my legs having given out on me, with my knees propped up and my arms wrapped tightly around them, doing the one thing I haven’t done since I was a little boy.I pray.

I pray to a God who has never answered any of my prayers in the past, and I beg him to take me instead of her. To let her wake up and make her safe. I bargain with him, offering him everything I have, and vowing to commit countless crimes in his name, against those who use him to enslave his people. I offer God my unrelenting vengeance, and a promise to cleanse this world of the Brotherhood, if he will but allow my Atasi to live. She has to live, he can take me in her stead.

“Abraham, Abe?” A female voice calls to me and pulls me out of my prayers, and I stare at her with wide eyes. “She’s stable now. She suffered ventricular fibrillation, and a heart attack. Her blood pressure rose very quickly, and her heart rate skyrocketed.”

“What… what could have caused it? Will she be alright? She’s still going to be able to wake up, right?” I scramble to my feet and rush to Dinah’s side. She lies so still, almost as if she’s already gone. The oxygen in my chest feels like daggers slicing me open with every pained inhale.

“We don’t know what made her blood pressure spike like that. She seemed to be on the path of recovery… but… now.” She doesn’t finish her sentence, and my eyes close tightly with the words she doesn’t say.

“Say it,” I whisper, a sob trapped in my throat.

“I’m sorry, Abraham. We… we don’t think she will ever wake up.”

Chapter twelve

The Forsaker

Zeke

“Iamsosorryfor your loss, Ezekiel. I will devote my prayers to our beloved Lord so that he may give you peace. It is truly a horror to lose one’s new Sacred Wife in this manner, especially before she was able to give you an heir.” The balding man in front of me pats my shoulder with his meaty hand, offering me sympathy for a loss he can’t even comprehend.

No one here, with their false condolences, truly understands the loss that I have suffered. The sins that I have committed against the people that I loved the most in my life. They don’t comprehend that I am the perpetrator of the crime that took my wife,my beautiful Snow. My despicable hand wielded the blade that ensured she wouldn’t survive to see any heirs born. My fingers are stained with the crimson of her blood, and it never washes away, no matter how much I scrub.

I swallow down the bitter taste of regret and self-loathing as I play my part—the part demanded by my father to ensure that Sammy continues to breathe. Sammy, whom Dinah loved more than anyone, is self-destructing before my Judas eyes, and no longer cares whether he lives or dies now that she is gone.I should have let them kill me. I should have died with her.“Thank you, Brother Simon. Your prayers for my family are appreciated. The Lord, in his wisdom, will see justice served.”

If there is any justice, someone will shove a blade into my heart and end my life, but not before I free Sammy. I have two tasks that I must complete before I can serve my penance. I have to save the man she loved, and I have to save my lover’s son.

I feel my father’s cold, calculating, and malicious gaze on me, watching and waiting to see if I will break our bargain. He would love nothing more than any excuse to kill Sammy, and end my life right along with him. I have no fucking intentions of giving him the pleasure. I need to save Abe from the rebels, and Sammy from my father, and nothing will stop me.

How unfortunate for him, that he still requires my assistance to get what he wants. It seems the Holy Father was devastated at the news that his precious niece was murdered, when she was barely out of her honeymoon period. So devastated, in fact, that he has issued a mandatory investigation into her death. One led by his inner circle, of which my father is not a party to, and suspended any transfer of Camrose assets pending that investigation’s findings.Checkmate, bitch.

A smirk tips the corner of my lips at the memory of my father’s rage at receiving the notice from the Holy Father, delivered personally to his hand and not mine.

“That motherfucker is trying to steal everything from us for himself, the greedy bastard! He’s trying to prevent us from getting what is ours now, by right! You are her husband; it all belongs to the Rothesays now. He won’t get away with this. He may be the Holy fucking Father, but I am Noah Rothesay, the most powerful man in this Order!”

Apparently, he’s not the most powerful man in the Order, at least not yet. There are some things even the cunning Noah Rothesay can’t control, it seems. In his fit of rage, he then proceeded to trash his formal living room in agitation, until my mother screamed and cried in a corner at his actions. The hypocrisy of his words was obviously lost on him. After all, he killed Gabriel and Dinah in order to get his hands on their Camrose wealth and power. Karma will have her pound of flesh, and he will pay for both of their lost lives. I’ll make sure of it.

“Brother Ezekiel, has there been any word on Brother Abraham? His parents must be devastated and filled with worry, at their son being in the hands of the traitorous rebels.” Brother Matthew leans forward, his thin, rat-like face coming closer to my ear. “That is, if he’s even still alive.”

My immediate reaction is to wrap my hand around his neck, and squeeze the fucking life out of him for saying that Abe no longer lives, but I restrain myself. Taking a deep breath to calm the rage within my soul, I stare coldly back at the man and picture in my head, ripping his eyes from his face and forcing him to swallow them. I can’t behave like a psychopath here; too many eyes are watching, including those of the Holy Father’s entourage. They are all just waiting for me to slip up, and then my father will take it out on Sammy.

He’s still alive, and he still breathes. I refuse to believe otherwise. Abe will come back to me. He has to.

“Yes, devastating. My heart goes out to the Merciers. This is truly a horrifying situation, but our Lord will see them through this troubling and distressing time, and bring their son home to them.” I grit my teeth as I force my words out. The only one heartbroken, other than myself, about Abraham’s capture, is his mother, who has fallen apart and had to be sedated in her home in order to cope. His dear, distraught father was participating in an orgy in my father’s den just last night.

The heavy weight of the mourning robes my Father insists that I wear, feels like they are suffocating me, drowning me, and trying to pull me down to hell, where I know I should reside. Dinah’s name, printed vibrantly on the white ribbon across my chest, makes a mockery of her memory. I, her murderer, have to stand here before others and express my grief. Grief that they don’t honestly believe I possess, because a Sacred Wife is just a vessel, a tool to get what we leaders of the Brotherhood want. Something to be used and put aside when not needed.

She was so much more to me, she was everything, and now she’s gone. The permanent stain of her blood will forever reside on my hands, and a mammoth-sized hole now lives where my heart should be inside my chest.

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