Page 42 of The Preachers' Promise
With those words, Roman turns and walks toward the kitchen, leaving me and Cain alone in the brightly lit hallway.
21
OPHELIA
I’m elated.I’m horrified. I’m sad, and I’m scared.
I’m so grateful to them for coming for me, but what Roman did has made me look at him in a very different light. I always knew these men were dangerous, and a part of the world my father lives in, but until I saw Roman do that, I didn’t realize just how barbaric they could be.
I don’t feel any pity for Carter. None at all. He deserved it. God knows how many vulnerable girls he’s raped or assaulted. Well, he won’t be doing that again. But what Roman did was so messed up. I keep replaying the image of him shoving that lump of flesh in Carter’s mouth and slamming it down his windpipe.
I haven’t even looked around the house, just took myself upstairs so I could have a moment, a bit of space.
I wander from room to room, opening doors until I find a bathroom. I ache all over from the fight with Carter and being so tense. My head is still a little fuzzy, but I think most of the drugs are probably out of my system now. I’d be having my second dose about now, if I hadn’t been saved. God, I feel like such a bitch just walking away from the men after they came for me, but I need a moment to myself. To come to terms with it all.
Tease… They came for you and you’re hiding away. It’s probably for the best, though. They only want your cunt, and you won’t even give them that.
“Shut up,” I shout before I can stop myself. “That’s not true,” I add in a whisper.
I doubted them, and I shouldn’t have. They came for me when I thought they might not. I saw them with their metaphorical masks off. They showed me itall, the worry, and the fear, etched on their faces. That incandescent rage on Roman’s when he dealt with Carter.
I’ve never seen a human being look that way. It almost transformed him into something demonic. It scared me, but it also excited me, and I hate that about myself. It’s one of the reasons I’m hiding away up here.
Not because I fear Roman, or notonlybecause I fear Roman, but because I fear my own sanity. If part of me liked it, isn’t that totally messed up? Seeing him that way made me realize something. Roman would kill and maim everyone in his path before he let anyone hurt me.
I think he might genuinely be a monster, in a way neither Cain nor Malachi are. But if he’s a demon, and I’m the thing the demon loves, then doesn’t that make me powerful? Protected? Sinful, too, though.
What if, one day, he turns on me? He’s an attack dog, and he’ll guard me with his teeth bared and a growl rumbling in his throat, but sometimes guard dogs maim those they love.
What if, one day, I did something to make him so angry he lost it with me?
We’re all dealing with trauma, and that makes this dynamic very unpredictable.
I understand why I’m spiraling. The Prophet used to lose his cool the way Roman did. Well… not quitethatway—I’ve never seen anyone lose their cool that spectacularly. He would becomeviolent, though, and hurt people. Roman’s my guardian demon … for now, but what if one day he turned on me?
My heart tells me he never would, but my mind—my traumatized, sick mind—tells me I’m annoying enough to drive the angels themselves to violence.
You are, bitch. You’re so annoying that God himself would lose his last nerve with you. When I get you back, you’ll learn to obey and to do what you’re told. When I get you back, I’ll make you mine.
I clutch my hands to my ears. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”
The knock at the door makes me jump. It opens a crack, and Roman pokes his head around. My heart slams in both excitement and anxiety.
“Can I talk to you for a moment?”
I nod, and he shuffles into the room. He’s still wearing the same blood-stained clothes. I recall again the way the blood spurted like a fountain from the hole in Carter’s groin. There was so much. How could there be so much?
“Ophelia, I’m sorry if I scared you.” Roman sits heavily on the side of the bath, near me. “I saw him leaning over you, and the world turned blood red.”
“I know.” My voice is barely a whisper. “I understand. You didn’t like seeing him hurt me.”
I feel powerful knowing as much, but even though I hate Carter and think the world is better without him, there’s an element of guilt knowing he’s dead because of me.
“No, I didn’t like that, but … when I lost it, that wasn’t all on you, okay?” He looks at me and reaches forward as if to touch my arm or leg but snatches his hand back at the last minute. “I saw him, exposed, and I grabbed him to hurt him, and the moment I did, well, it took me back. I took me back tothingsthat happened to me when I was younger. Do you understand? WhatI did was extreme, but I’ve been hurt the way he wanted to hurt you, and it flipped something in me. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
I let my gaze roam over him. I’m seeing him as if for the first time. Tall and so very strong. But underneath that there’s pain, and fear, and a little boy who didn’t have any control over what happened to him. I remember him telling me the things that happened to him were worse than the beatings Mal and Cain received. Roman felt he had no safety in his younger years. I know what that feels like.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Honestly, it really is.”
