Page 121 of At Her Will

If hope fails, hate can’t be the answer. Not for the last moments of my life.

She hadn’t expected her mind to go there, but Vera had spent almost as much time in her adult life as Rev providing spiritual guidance, which meant she’d had to search her soul endlessly for answers to the worst that life could hand out. Like this.

“You’re lost.” Vera’s voice shook from the cold, the fear. “Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with the God that Rev knows. The God that I know.” Her gaze moved to Witford. “Don’t do this. Don’t stain your soul with this.”

“Take her under.” Tisha crossed her arms over her chest, that defensive move she’d shown in Vera’s office. “We’ll do this until I believe you when you say you’ll stay far away from Rev. Now and forever. Or you die here.”

Tyson shot an alarmed look at Simon. Simon sent him ashut the fuck uplook. Witford stared at his mother, but she was only looking at Vera.

“Rev will look for me. My family.”

“You have no family. They knew what you were and put you behind them. I’ll make sure Rev thinks that you left.”

Simon pulled the lever. With a grinding sound, the wheel began to move, taking Vera down into the water again.

Vera screamed for her life, hoping anyone was close enough to hear. But as the water rose up and the panic closed in, she took a deep breath and began to pray.

Every second was like an hour when a person had no control over what was being done to them. The water was freezing, and the underwater foliage crawled across her body, making her think of the snakes that populated creek waters.

Please…please…

She’d almost blacked out by the time they brought her up, but her lungs knew what to do. As she wheezed and coughed, sucking in oxygen, she tried to appeal to the one person whose amoral practicality could override Tisha’s mania.

“Witford, please…”

“Not there yet,” Tisha snapped. “Take her down again.”

Vera had no breath to scream, only to wail, a plaintive sound, asking for mercy. She reached for her faith, for prayer, for help, but the terror was so large, carving a wound inside her. It wanted her to bleed out and let go, give in to the desolation of abandonment.

Her parents were in her mind, her sisters, but she pushed them away and reached for Rev. Ros, Skye, Cyn and Abby. ForBastion. For all the good souls she’d met, some she’d helped, and many who’d helped her. Mavis, Stefanie. Atalaya.

It might be her time to go. It might be. She didn’t want it to be. But it might be. She just hoped she could find Rev in the next life. He was hers. She was his. They would find one another.

She’d told him they had a connection, that they could reach for that connection. She reached for it, called to him. She knew she’d been doing it subconsciously since she woke up in the shed, an SOS call like her dying phone, hoping the beacon would reach him.

But sometimes things born in faith were wishful thinking, if Fate had a different plan. She just didn’t want to believe that right now. She didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave Rev, or her life. But she supposed no one really did, did they?

When they brought her up the third time, she knew she wouldn’t survive the next dunk. Even above the waterline, she barely had the strength to pull air into her lungs.

“Tisha, she’s had enough.”

“Look at her eyes, Witford. Still defiant. She doesn’t have the repentance of a reformed soul.”

Witford stepped closer to the wheel. “Woman, repent,” he told her. “Tell me that you’ll leave Rev be and this can be over. I will end it.”

His eyes held hers. He wanted her to do it. Knew his ass was on the line here. But his image swam away, their surroundings dissolving. She wasn’t alone anymore. She was floating with a flock of connected souls, all those who’d ever been tormented like this, for not believing as the tormentor did. Not being what they wanted them to be. It happened over and over and over again.

“Please…”

“Do it,” Tisha said, and though Witford’s hand lifted as if he were going to protest, Simon sent her back under. Her last viewwas of Witford’s conflicted, grim expression, his gaze following her down.

This time when the water closed over her head, she thought of her tears, becoming part of the water. Terror and pain slipped away from her, even the cold, which was such a relief. She reached for Rev, for that bond, one last time.

Her body was jerked. The wheel had started, then stopped. Then it did it again. It had gotten stuck, she realized distantly. Just like Tisha had said. But Rev wasn’t here to fix it.

So even if they didn’t mean to kill her, it was going to happen, even so.

The jolt of the wheel had jumpstarted her survival instincts, though. She tried to strain against her bonds, but she was too weak. She was fading, disappearing into the darkness of the water.

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