Hold Fast (24 page)

“I don’t get it,” I say, but I have a sick feeling growing in my own stomach. “So what’d Nathan do?” Courtney shakes her head and shrugs, while Heather cackles madly, still holding my mother’s hair taut.

“He preached, Pearse. My little brother found his
voice
, and he
preached
.” Glee and pride are mixed with anger and sadness on Jeremiah’s face. “The Lord inspired him, and I helped him with the words, and we listened to the whole thing. It was glorious.” A rapturous ecstasy tinged with envy pushes all the other emotions aside. “We
all
listened, didn’t we,
sinner?
” he hisses into Bill’s ear. “Tell my wife and this other sinner what happened.”

“You people have some odd ideas about marriage,” I say. I know I should keep my mouth shut and not antagonize them, but I can’t help myself. “Your wedding got cancelled, Jeremiah. Rescheduled, at least. I think you’re going to have to find a new location for it.” He doesn’t rise to the bait, and again orders Bill to speak.

“They got the call on a cell phone,” Bill says, his eyes closed. “They put it on speaker and that little boy… My Lord, Sean, he sounded about eight years old, maybe nine. These two coached him on what to say, and he told the people that without their link to God, to The Lord, they’d be lost. They’d all be lost forever, and they could never stand behind God’s throne at the judgement, but would instead
be
judged. That there was only one way to keep their connection to God.” Bill draws a deep ragged breath before continuing.

“They followed him into the church, and he asked the last person in to close the door behind them. We heard it, all of it. On the speakerphone. Until the phone stopped working. They- they
screamed
.”

“You see, Pearse? My little brother was a great prophet. He led the flock to follow our father in the path of righteousness!”

No, you stupid fuck. A bunch of other stupid fucks let a brainwashed nine-year-old talk them into a mass grave! That’s not prophesy, that’s fucking gullibility!

Heather yanks at my mother’s head again, leaning down to whisper more insane bullshit in her ear, but my mother drives her skull backwards, catching her tormentor square in the middle of the forehead. Courtney’s mother stumbles for a brief instant, flailing to regain her footing. A wet, slippery floor and broken glass don’t make it any easier for her.

Like a tree falling in slow motion, Heather wavers first one way and then the other as each foot slips in turn. Her head strikes the edge of the counter top with a sickening thud. For a long, shocked moment nobody reacts, and Heather lies on the floor, blood from her scalp mixing with the other liquid on the floor.

“Sister Heather!”
Jeremiah panics. I never believed he was the brains of this operation, and he’s proving it. He’s distracted, lunging toward Courtney’s mother, and as soon as his pistol is clear of Bill’s body, my right hand flies under my tee shirt while the left pulls the hem up to clear the pistol.

I’m fast, but weasels have good reflexes too, and Jeremiah jerks back to Bill, roughly slamming the muzzle of his own gun against the back of the bound man’s neck. His eyes flicker back and forth between my gun and the woman lying motionless on the floor.

“Sister Heather!”

Heather’s shoulder twitches first, then an eyelid. She’s no danger, not right now at least, so I keep the Beretta centered squarely on Jeremiah’s upper chest. He keeps repeating her name, plaintive and forlorn, while I edge away from Courtney.

Separate the targets. He wants us all dead, but I’m the dangerous one. Our parents are lowest priority; they can’t go anywhere. He’ll go for me first, then he’ll chase down…
no
. I will
not
think about that. I will
not
allow that.

I make it a little less than half the distance to the straight razor lying next to Heather’s hand when one eye flicks wide open, followed more slowly by the other. Jeremiah’s eyes light up in hope.

“Oh, Sister Heather! The Lord has restored you to us!”

Heather gingerly pushes herself onto her elbows, to her knees, twisting and rolling with effort to place her back against the cabinets under the sink. She blinks several times, rapidly, and I notice that her eyelids are out of sync: the left eye lags noticeably behind the right, and neither seems focused.

“Sister Heather, are you all right?”

“I… think so,” Heather answers.

She’s slurring her words.

It’s barely noticeable, but it’s there.

Left eye isn’t quite tracking with the right, and what about—yes, the left corner of her mouth is drooping.

Heather’s eyes scan the room, pausing on each person in turn. The fires are out. The fey light in Nice-Heather’s eyes, the manic rage in Beast-Heather’s eyes; both are gone. They’re sad now, dull. Old eyes.

“Bill,” she says, looking at her ex-husband, taped to a chair, his prosthetic leg missing, lying smashed in the corner. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s regret on her face. “Courtney.” And in her voice too, or is it just the slurring getting worse?
“Melissa?” Heather’s eyes travel over my mother’s face, over her hair, mangled and patchy from Heather’s razor.

Every SEAL is trained in battlefield medicine, and I’ve seen a lot of wounds. Injury: blunt force trauma to the head. Symptoms: Slurred voice. Poor coordination and lag from one side of the body to the other. Diagnosis: Heather’s bleeding into her brain.

“Sean,” she says, and her eyes travel from my face down my arms to the Beretta, and back to my eyes. “Brother… Jeremiah.”

I pay much closer attention to her nuances now.

Details are important.

She looked at everyone but him. She looked at me when she said his name. At my gun. The turned down corner of her mouth. That was the right side, not the left. Was that scorn? For whom?

“Yes, Sister?” He’s eager, wants to please her. He has no idea what to do. Jeremiah was born to a position, raised to be the next prophet, but he’s never actually been in charge of something on his own. He’s looking for leadership. She’s an authority figure, and he’s just a piece of shit. Loyalty to his father has been transferred.

“There’s not much time left,” she says, her gaze steady on me. Her voice is getting worse, but that’s definitely a sneer. Why? And her eyes… “Very, very little, in fact. We must—we must follow. Soon.” Heather’s breathing is labored, and she struggles a little in pulling herself to her feet.

“Yes. The way hath been prepared for us.” Jeremiah glances at Heather, but his eyes never completely leave me, and certainly not for long enough to matter. “And my bride will be coming with us."

Is Heather wincing in pain, or at what grease-weasel just said?

“What therefore,” Heather says softly, “God hath joined together…” Her breathing is rapid, thready, and her gaze flicks back and forth from Courtney to me. She’s… no way. No fucking way.

“Let no man put asunder,” Jeremiah finishes.

“Yes,” Heather says, her eyes fixed on mine.

This isn’t Nice-Heather, and it’s not Beast-Heather. It’s just… Heather.

I cock my head, raising questioning brows.

“Yes,” she says again, and all the sadness in all the world is wrapped up in that one word.

Heather only needs to cover a few feet to reach Jeremiah, and she makes it one labored step at a time. Her coordination is definitely getting worse, and her left foot drags uselessly behind, echoing her daughter’s limp. She drops to her knees beside Jeremiah, still holding his gun pressed against Bill’s neck.

“It’s time,” she says, looking at Courtney, then at my pistol, and finally at my face. “It’s time for the sinners to face their judgement.”

Jeremiah’s eyes light with anticipation—that crazy bastard believes he’d actually survive judgement!—and he points both his malevolent stare and his father’s revolver at my Courtney, Heather’s hands at his wrist ostensibly helping to steady his aim, but actually keeping the barrel pointed anywhere
but
at her daughter.

Even as weak as she is, Heather acts before I can pull the Beretta’s heavy trigger, tugging his hand into her own belly, and Jeremiah’s bullet finds its new home not in Courtney, but in her mother instead. Jeremiah’s weasel face registers shock and horror, but only for the barest fraction of an instant before I fire.

I shoot him four more times before his body hits the floor, and each bullet adds to the ruin of his head.

Courtney rushes to her mother, skidding to a halt on her knees, but I hold her back until I can kick Jeremiah’s gun away from the dead fanatic’s hand. Away from Heather’s hand, too. Whatever happened there at the end, I don’t trust that Beast-Heather won’t come back. My pocketknife makes quick work of the tape on one of Bill’s hands. Once that’s free, he can handle the rest of it, and I use Heather’s dropped straight razor to cut my mother free. She’s stunned by the noise of the gunshots in the small kitchen, and I scoop her up in my arms while circulation comes back to her after the long, terrifying night taped in the chair.

The danger has passed.

Heather’s eyes are closed, her head pillowed on Courtney’s lap. Bill sits awkwardly behind his daughter, arms wrapped around her. His own eyes are tightly closed, his mouth and forehead crinkled with the effort of holding back his own feelings while giving his daughter all the comfort and caring he can.

“Courtney,” Heather whispers. “My baby.”

“I’m here, Mom. I’m here,” Courtney whispers back, pushing blood-matted hair away from her mother’s face. “Hold tight, Mom. We’ll get help. We’ll get you in an ambulance, get you to the hospital.”

Heather shakes her head weakly.

“No, honey. It’s too late for me. It’s always been too late for me.” The sadness in her tone is heartbreaking. “But I don’t hear
him
anymore.
I just want you to do one thing for me.”

“Anything, Mom.” Courtney’s blanket promise makes me tense up.

“Be happy, my darling,” her mother says, her speech growing more indistinct with each word. Every syllable comes at a terrible price in effort and pain, but Heather’s face is at peace. “Be… happy…”

Heather’s lips continue to move, but her words are lost in the sound of her final shallow breaths. When her eyes close for the last time, the corner of her mouth curves in the barest hint of a lopsided smile.

“Put me down, Sean,” Mom murmurs in my ear. “I’m okay. They need us now.”

Bill keeps it together, but only until I’m able to gently lift his ex-wife’s head from Courtney’s lap and help my love to her feet. He’s only just gotten her back, and now he has to let go of her all over again. Courtney buries her face into my chest, tears soaking through my shirt, and I make sure that she’s not facing the bodies.

“What happened?” I ask. “When did they get here? Why?”

“They were here already when I got back from the camp yesterday,” Bill says after clearing his throat. “From when I took you and the wheels up there. Waiting, inside the house. I wasn’t expecting it, and…” He shrugged. Sirens wail in the distance, and Bill looks toward the front door. “Someone took care of that detail for us, I guess.”

“Bill was down and out when I came home from work.” Mom picks up the story while helping her husband into a chair. “They were looking for you, of course. Wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything to disrupt the wedding tomorrow. They figured that old bastard, he made a mistake letting you live, so they were going to correct the mistake. Didn’t believe you could be trusted to leave well enough alone.”

“Yeah,” I say. “In hindsight, it’s hard to argue the point.” On the floor, Heather’s face is relaxed now.

At peace, for the first time in my lifetime, and probably in hers. Jeremiah, on the other hand…

My mother’s gaze follows mine, and she blanches at the sight of the dead man. Bill, on the other hand, smiles grimly at Jeremiah’s corpse, though I notice his eyes slide away from the body of his ex-wife. Not enough time to process that one yet, I guess.

“Good job, son,” he tells me, and I nod a silent acknowledgement as the sirens draw closer.

“Courtney?” I say, gently lifting her chin. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am,” she says, and the tiniest beginning of a wan smile peeks through the tears. “For the first time, I think I am. It’s over, and I’m safe. And I have you. No matter what else, I have you.”

“For better or worse, yeah. I think you do have me,” I say, and look up as the sirens stop outside the house. “For as long as you want me, I’m yours.”

“Forever,” Courtney says, and her smile is finally full. She looks over her shoulder at her mother. “I didn’t understand it, not at first. What she was saying at the end. What she
meant
.”

“Me neither.” Cradling her cheek, I scrub away a tear with the tip of my thumb. “And even when I did, I didn’t believe it right away. But she understood, and she was right.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if it was God that joined us together or not. I mean, I’d like to think that you and I made up our own minds. Made our own luck. But I’m sure as hell not letting anyone split us apart. Not ever. I love you.”

Courtney doesn’t respond with words, but her smile tells me everything I could ever hope to hear.