Page 38 of Hunted By the Headless Horseman
Saul. The quiet one. And the most dangerous. Not afraid to get his hands bloody.
Levi, the gunslinger, another dangerous one.
And Jeremiah, the goddamn mouthpiece for Thaddeus. Always licking his boots. Fucking coward who’d probably still nurse from his mommy’s tit if she were alive. He smells like onions.
Five men all for little ol’ me. How special I feel.
Jeremiah grips my curls, yanking on them so hard, my scalp howls. The tip of the knife nicks my throat, and I wince.
“Foul little witch,” he snarls a familiar insult. “You won’t get off that easy this time.”
He thinks it waseasyfor me to escape? Mimi put her life in danger to get me out. And I had to…acid scalds my throat at the memory of what I had to do.
Jack is coming. Just bide your time. He’s coming for you.
“Nine years,” I hiss at them, flicking my eyes to the men of my past. Men who were once boys pulling my hair or copping a feel of my butt or boobs whenever they could. “You left me be for nine goddamn years. I’m too “tainted”, remember? A witch. Why now?”
Jeremiah curls his sinister, disgusting breath in my ear, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. “Elder Thaddeus knows your dirty littlesecret, Belladonna.”
My skin crawls. Elder. The name is like a sharp, lone claw carving through my chest. He was just a Brother last time I saw him.
Wait, my secret. No! Terror spears me, ices my blood. Oh God, no! Goddess, please! How could he know? No one knew, except for Mimi, and she took it to her grave.
My lungs collapse. My heart screams. I can’t…can’t breathe. No wonder they’ve come for me. I wasn’t the first hechose. The others, the other girls, “failed” because men are never at fault in the Covenant. Because the last hundred years of scientific progression bow to the Covenant’s code: men are mighty, women are weak.
“You may have poisoned yourself, little witch, but you know how good Thaddeus is at purging the poison from the blood. He will cleanse you. You have something he wants…” He cackles, giving my earlobe a nip while rubbing my belly suggestively.
He’s been dragging me more into the woods, but the second I hear the telltale thud of boots, I know he’s here. I crane my neck to see him advancing through the trees, pumpkin head still attached.
Noohnohno! It’s four against one. Worse than terror, all I feel is horror. Because Jack can’t see.
And I can’t lose him!
“Jack!” I cry out, clenching my eyes as Jeremiah digs the knife in harder. The others have stopped, and they’re sizing up the stranger dressed like a gothic nightmare with the cane in his powerful grip. “He’s got a knife on me.” I hint to him.
“You’ll turn right around and go back to where you came from if you know what’s good for you, sullied freak,” barks Jeremiah.
Strange phrase, Jack muses inside our bond as he turns his pumpkin head from side to side as if sensing the positions of the others.What is good for me is not to my back. She is before me. And in my blood.
Up till now, I’ve spoken out loud to him. Limited access. Now, I pray and pray that it will be complete and unfiltered access.
“You deaf?” Lucas asks in his scratchy voice. “He said to git. This be Covenant business.”
Please, Goddess, let him hear me!Levi is on your left flank, Jack! He has the gun. Three of them herding you, Jack. One in the middle. The others are on your sides. Don’t underestimate them. They all know how to fight.
All Brothers know how to fight. Elders are masters at it.
Levi hasn’t drawn his gun yet, a small blessing.
“You’d better unhand me right now,” I warn Jeremiah, swallowing hard against that blade, but his grip has loosened slightly. No, Thaddeus won’t let him harm me beyond repair—not when I have what the bastard devil wants most.
Jeremiah cackles in my ear. “Why? You gonna spit in my face like you did for your redeemer the day you decided to run away like a child and leave everything behind?”
“I left nothing behind. And no, I’m not going to spit in your face.” I turn my chin to catch his eye, baiting him, diverting him. “Unlike you, I’m not a child anymore, Jeremiah. I’m a grown woman. And grown women don’t spit.” Just a little closer. I slowly tip my chin down.
“Oh, what do they do?”
“They bite.”
