Page 41 of Cast Stones
“Luca…” Madi’s voice sounds shattered. I wish I could kiss her tears away, but all I can do is ensure that she lives to cry more.
“Be strong and courageous,” I gurgle through blood-stained lips, hoping she remembers the verse I spoke to her earlier. “Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
I’ll find you someday, Madi. Whether in this life or the next.
“It’s too late for scripture, boy.”
My pulse is slowing… I can hear it in my ears. It drowns out my own breathing as well as the sound of Hal picking up my weapon, raising his hand, and aiming both toward my chest.
“The wages of sin is death, boy.” His muscled arm swings downward, plunging the knife between my ribs.
The last thing I remember is the flutter of Madi’s white gown as she slips out the door and into the arms of freedom.
* * *
Present Day
“So now you know almost everything,” I tell her.
Giving a voice to the past doesn’t faze her anymore. The shock has melted away, leaving only a bitter trail of tears behind. “Almost?” Madi narrows a calculated stare at me. Deep down, she knows the final blade has yet to fall. “What else is there to know? Twelve Disciples, twelve murders. I killed eleven, you claimed the twelfth.”
I don’t bother trying to hide the smirk as I tuck a piece of her short brunette hair behind her ears. “Twelve Disciples, but not twelve murders,cara mia. I believe a coworker unexpectedly moved across the state?”
Her eyebrows shoot toward her hairline. “Jackson?” When I nod, so does she. “A couple of weeks ago…” Madi’s voice trails off as the pieces of her own jagged puzzle snap into place. “The same time your father was murdered. Luca…what do you know about him?”
“No more secrets,cara mia. As I told you that last night at our cabin, do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. God may have forsaken you, Madi, but I haven’t. And I never will.”
For the first time since embracing her true self, her face blanches, but it’s not out of disgust of her own bloodthirst. It’s out of shame. “You know that…” She looks away. “That he…”
“That he raped you?” I grip the thin blanket, fighting to keep my temper in check. “Yes.”
She snaps that sharp gaze back on my face. “But how?”
“Oh, my beautiful, wilted rose. You talk in your sleep. You have since you were sixteen years old.”
She rears back, an impending storm brewing in her eyes. “You were in my room?”
Doesn’t she know?I sat by her bedside watching her in restless slumber. I listened to her scream out that motherfucker, Jackson King’s name as her body reenacted his vile act. I wiped away her tears as she sobbed afterward, calling my name and begging for death.
Luckily, we’re one and the same.
“Did you really think I’d walk away from you, Madi?” I ask, pulling her shaking body against me with a firm hand. “That after ten years of searching and biding my time, I’d sacrifice our love for my freedom? No,cara mia. I never left Ft. Lauderdale. I never leftyou.”
I can see the wheels turning in her head. The pieces are falling faster than she can catch them and there’s a small part of her that Madigan still clings to; a part I have to sever however painful it may be.
“Ask me, Madi. Ask me the question you already know the answer to.”
The frantic shaking stops as she looks dead into my eyes. “Did you kill Jackson King?”
“Not exactly,” I tell her. “He fell to his death, so to speak.” My blood thrums with visions of what awaits her. Climbing off the bed, I stand and hold out my hand for her. “Come, I’ll show you.”
Chapter Sixteen
Ten Years Ago
I runas though God himself is chasing me.
Not the God my parents worship, but the one whose teachings were warped to allow sick men to do sick things to girls like me.
