Page 141 of Beast: Part Two

“Do you know that when I gave birth to the devil’s son, he ripped my body apart so bad that I bled out on the table,” she goes on to speak, dropping a rag from the tray into the hot water.

“In order to save my life, the doctors had to take my uterus. I believed that it was Satan’s way of ensuring I would never carry another child again. But God whispered to me that night in the hospital, he said be still my good and faithful servant. For I will make a way.”

She turns to me with the freakiest smile I have ever seen. The feeling of familiarity strikes again. I try to rack my brain where I’ve seen her. However, nothing comes to mind. And I’m pretty sure if ever ran into her, I would remember her. She has one of those faces that’s hard to forget, and not in a good way. She gives off Kathy Bates inMiseryvibes.

“God has awarded me a second chance.” She looks up toward the ceiling with a smile, as if she’s seeing God’s face. “This time, the child is pure and untainted by the devil despite his whore mother and demon father.” She says the last part with an evil sneer to me.

It then dawns on me why she sounds and looks so familiar.

I gasp. “Your Gabriel’s mother?”

“Yes,” she chuckles. “He was my curse, but now I have a blessing.”

Pure panic fills me. All the stories Gabriel told me about his mother and the things she did to him flash through my mind. The only thing I can think of is getting to my son.

“You bitch,” I snarl as I charge toward her, hoping my chains allow me to get close enough “If you hurt my son.”

She flips the gun around her shoulders and aims the barrel at me. I stop in my tracks. In my anger, I forgot about the weapon.

“Not so fast, whore,” she taunts. “I have no fear of blowing a hole in your chest. In fact, I want to do it just to punish my son. I want to be the one that takes away his tramp. Don’t make it an easy decision for me.”

I take a step back, not wanting to trigger her anymore. It’s clear that she’s not playing with a full deck of cards. Even through Gabriel’s stories, I knew that his mother was crazy. However, seeing it firsthand is an entirely different thing.

“Now, take off those clothes,” she demands.

Her request has me confused.

“What? Why?”

“I told you, you’re tainted. And this is the house of a servant of the Lord. You need to strip and cleanse yourself,” she says the last part nudging her head toward the boiling water.

“Are you fucking crazy? I’m not cleaning my body with that shit.”

She moved so fast I didn’t see the blow coming. The butt of the gun cracks across my face splitting my lip and knocking me to the ground. I cry out at the impact.

“You will not use that filthy language in my house, whore.”

I would’ve pointed out that her calling me a whore wasn’t actually making her a saint, but the side of my face was too sore to argue.

“Get up and get those clothes off.”

I stumble to my feet and take off my shirt. Tossing it to the floor. I remove my bottoms next. I do it all fighting through the pain in my face.

“Bra and panties,” she growls.

Feeling vulnerable, I slowly take off my bra and panties. When I am wearing nothing but my birthday suit, I stand before her with one hand covering my mound and the other over my breast.

The woman looks at me as if she’s staring at shit. Her nose is turned up and her lips are turned down.

“You’re not much to look at, are you? Too skinny to hold on to. And you have the dullest brown skin I’ve ever seen. If the demon was going to go colored, he could have picked a prettier one.”

I inhale and count to three. I so badly want to go off on this woman, but she has the upper hand. Not only does she have that gun, but she also has my son somewhere in this house. I needed to stay alive to keep an eye on him until I could find a way out of this.

“Go on,” she says, pointing to the table with the hot water.

Slowly, I trek over to the bowl. Sticking my hands in the hot water, I hiss before yanking my hands back out.

“It’s too hot. I can’t touch it.”

---