Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Noa ran stealthilythrough the hallway, her feet light as feathers on the plush red carpet as she aimed for the window in the fifth spare room on the second floor. The ice-cold wind drifted in as she turned into the room and climbed out of the open window. Holding the information tightly in her hand, she climbed onto a nearby tree branch and shimmied to the ground. Her long pastel-pink hair was hidden beneath the black hood and attached scarf that covered her head and most of her face. Only her brown eyes could be seen, the leather pants and long-sleeved top making her completely unidentifiable. Not that anyone would see her. Noa was the best at what she did, and she didn’t allow any mistakes.

She ran to the waiting car. She slipped into the driver’s seat and swiftly made her way from the rich suburbs of Boston to her home on the outskirts. Discarding the car in its usual spot in the underbrush, Noa ran to the entrance of her home—the old, discarded secret tunnels the American spies had used in the War of Independence. She climbed down into the hidden entranceway. The minute she was swallowed in darkness, Noa pushed back her hood and scarf, breathing in the dank air that she associated with safety. She walked down the maze of tunnels that led her to where her sisters waited.

Hearing their voices in the main section of the tunnels, she pushed through the old wooden door and blinked in the lights that illuminated the rooms.

“The wanderer returns,” Dinah said, getting up from the table she’d been sitting at, next to where Candace and Jo were working at their computers.

Noa reached into her pocket and tossed the USB stick at Dinah. Dinah’s rich dark skin and ebony eyes shone under the warm electric light they’d built into the tunnel’s ceiling as she caught it and smiled at Noa. “And she delivers again.”

“Was there any doubt?” Noa said, eyebrow raised, and walked to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water.

She took a long drink, soothing her dry throat, and Dinah said, “No. But I still like giving you shit for it anyway.” Noa held up her middle finger at her friend as Dinah passed the USB to Jo.

Jo brought up the many account details Noa had managed to steal. Dinah whistled when the screen filled with a mass of passwords and accounts and the stacks of money that would be in their hands in a matter of hours. “Rich fucking bastard, isn’t he?”

“Not for long.” Noa perched her ass on the table beside Jo.

Jo cracked her fingers then turned to Candace, her girlfriend. “Ready, babe? We’ve got some work to do.”

“Always,” Candace said. Dinah met Noa’s eyes and nudged her head to the side of the room. Noa left Candace and Jo to do their thing and steal an eye-watering amount of money from the piece of filth who pumped his wealth into keeping the Brethren steeped in funds.

As Noa reached a nook in the hollowed-out tunnel, Dinah stopped and said, “We’ve got five targets next. But they’re connected, so we’ll have to do all five in one night, or they’ll just shut down and move somewhere else.”

Noa nodded and glanced down the next tunnel. Naomi was at the bottom, carrying a couple of metal bowls of blood from Bethany’s room. Noa’s chest ached. “How is she?” she asked, reaching for an apple from the fruit bowl beside her.

Dinah sighed, pushing back her long box braids from her face. “Okay. She’s coming to the end of her recent episode.”

Noa dropped her head back against the cold stone of the tunnel. “Which doctor’s next?”

Dinah sat beside Noa on the ledge of rock she was perching on and watched Jo’s and Candace’s hands fly over the keyboards like furied machines made of flesh and bone. “No idea.” Dinah met Noa’s eyes. “How many times can we be told that there’s nothing actually wrong with her before we accept it’s all in her head?”

Noa felt the familiar rise of anger in her gut. She breathed, gritting her teeth to push it back down. It was an exhausting effort, to leash the fury that constantly threatened to spill over the airtight container she’d wrestled it into years ago. It was them. They’d done this. To her. To them all.

The motherfucking Brethren.

“We’ll fix her,” Noa said when she’d calmed down. “Someday, we’ll find a way to fix her.”

“Until then …” Dinah crossed the room to get the ledger they had stolen from the Brethren months ago. She turned to the page they would need. “There’s one or two in each home.”

Noa’s lip curled in disgust. “Let’s get this set up and get in there as quick as we can.” She looked at Candace, all dirty-blond hair and blue eyes, then Jo, with her deep brown skin and hair that spoke of her Indian heritage. They were focused and busy sucking funds from the Brethren benefactor Noa had stolen from that night. But the money she stole never lasted. They always needed more to clear up the shitshow that was the Brethren’s cruelty, more to help all the ever-growing line of Brethren victims. “Is Katie able to take on more?” she asked Dinah.

Dinah exhaled a slow breath. “There’s no more room, but we’ll have to make it work somehow. We can’t leave them with the priests. Anywhere will be better than being kept in their homes and put through fuck knows what.”

Noa closed her eyes, giving herself a few seconds to feel the devastation their work provoked—the anger, the hate, the pure assault of emotions that came with her and her sisters’ lives, that came with walking into the priests’ lairs and always finding more than they’d expected—and she always imagined the worst.

Opening her eyes, she pushed the gutting ache from her soul and shut everything down. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to function. She’d learned long ago to calm the anger within, the darkness that would take control if she didn’t bring it to heel.

“I’m going to shower, then I’ll be ready.” Noa made her way down the tunnel and toward the small caves that made up their bedrooms. Naomi almost ran into her as she came out of her room holding damp washcloths. Her redheaded sister looked exhausted.

“How bad is this one?” Noa asked.

Naomi shook her head and walked into Bethany’s room. It was bad.

Noa followed, her eyes immediately falling on the brunette on the bed. Beth’s flushed olive skin dripped with sweat as she thrashed on the mattress, panicked beyond measure. A tourniquet was tied around each of her upper arms, and blood trickled into the bowls beneath her from the small incisions Naomi had made. Her wide eyes fell on Noa. Noa’s heart was crushed when Beth held her chin high, desperately trying to be strong, to give the appearance that she wasn’t being tortured in body, mind and spirit by the disease she believed existed in her blood.

Noa took a washcloth from Naomi and placed it on Beth’s forehead. Beth’s brown eyes met Noa’s. Noa’s heart clenched when Beth sucked in a sharp breath, trying to show she could be strong. And she could. She was. Noa had never met anyone as tough as Beth.

“It’s nearly over.” Noa mopped the sweat from Beth’s face and neck. Beth’s breathing calmed, and Naomi worked on closing the cuts she had made. The color began trickling back into Beth’s cheeks. Noa held her hand as Beth closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Noa could see that Beth was back.

Beth sat up, looking about the room. Her eyes fell on Naomi carrying the bowls of blood into the hallway. Her cheeks reddened with ire. She clenched her teeth and took deep breaths. When a few minutes of mediation had passed, Beth opened her eyes again. “Did everything go okay?”

Noa nodded, then got to her feet. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Beth’s head. “You ready for some fun tonight?”

Beth’s gaze glittered, and she swung her legs over the bed and planted her feet on the ground. Blood stained her arm from the letting. “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

“You need food and a soda before you even try to get ready,” Noa said. She smiled when Naomi arrived in the doorway, holding a sandwich and a Coke. She also carried gauze and bandages in with her. Naomi placed the food and drink beside Beth. Beth tucked in, and Naomi began cleaning up Beth’s bloodied skin. Noa watched Naomi work in silence. Her redheaded sister lived most of her life in silence, the Brethren’s gift of cutting off half her tongue making her uneasy about speaking aloud. Naomi could speak; years of hard practice had made that possible. But she sounded different, and it reminded her too much of her past.

Noa’s chest relaxed, knowing her two youngest sisters were safe now. But that swirl of lava she always felt in her stomach rolled. Bethany, the youngest of them, crippled by the belief her blood was diseased, and Naomi, silent to anyone outside of her sisters.

She thought of Dinah, Candace and Jo. Then she thought of herself. Of what had been done to them all.

Witches. Heretics. Devil-worshippers.

“Noa? You okay?” She was ripped from her head by Beth.

Noa gave her a tight smile. “I’m going to get ready, then we’ll meet in the living room about tonight.” She walked quickly down the dark tunnel to her room. She opened the door, then stood still in the center. Nights like the one that lay before them always rocked her. They always tested her restraint. They always tested how far she would go to gain revenge on the Brethren.

Noa felt the skin on her torso heat up. She lifted her hand and rubbed across the brand. But it was no use. It ached because, tonight, she would be faced with the Brethren again. Noa moved to the only mirror in her room—a small, cracked little thing. Lifting the hem of her black leather top, she brought it over her head, removed her bra, then stared at the reminder of who she was and what had been done to her.

A pentagram, framed by a circle, the symbol of witches. Then, in the center of the star shape, an upturned cross, and a “B” above it. The symbol of the men who had vowed to extract the evil from her soul—from all her sisters’ souls.

Noa’s eyes lost focus as she was propelled back to the past. To the lair in which they were kept. To the fire licking at her skin. The water filling her lungs. The elements that the Brethren wanted to use against their pagan souls.

The twins. And worst … Father Auguste.

Noa snapped her eyes open and let ice fill her veins. She and her sisters had work to do tonight. She gathered her long pink hair back and fixed it in a French braid. She pulled her leather top back on and fastened her hood and scarf in place, leaving them around her neck until they left the tunnels and her face had to be hidden.

She walked down the tunnel to the main room. When she walked through the door, all her sisters were dressed the same as she was and ready to go. Her gaze fell to Beth and Naomi. Beth stood in all black leather, braid in place, taser and knives in hand as if she hadn’t just been writhing on her bed, convinced her blood was poisoning her internal organs.

Naomi stood beside Beth, hair and clothes the same as everyone else’s.

“Noa,” Dinah said, and Noa took up her place beside her. For the past couple of years, it had been Dinah at the helm, Noa her right hand. They couldn’t have been more different. If Dinah was a calm and steady sea, Noa was the oncoming storm, made of crashing waves and unrelenting tides. Candace and Joanna were the brains, the intelligence, the thinking part of their sisterhood. Beth and Naomi were the hearts. The two that reminded Noa that there was still sweetness and good in the world when all she had tasted was bitterness and sourness.

Dinah leaned on the table they had all gathered around. This was their War Room, Dinah joked, giving a nod to the War of Independence spies that would have gathered hundreds of years ago in this very spot, plotting against the British. But Noa and her sisters’ enemies were a lot less overt than the British Army had been. Their war was being fought in secret, only six of them against what they knew were thousands in a dangerous secret sect. Seven of us, Noa corrected herself. Because there was one more sister that made up the Coven, as Father Auguste and his Witch Finder Generals had nicknamed Noa and her sisters years ago, branding their chests with pentagrams in mocking and ridicule. Seven sisters who had cried and screamed together as they were relentlessly tested and tried.

But where Noa, Dinah, Candace, Jo, Naomi and Beth had found a path that helped them heal somewhat as they tried to bring down the Brethren in a less bloodthirsty way, Priscilla was on her own path, one of destruction and death—revenge served cold and brutal.

Dinah had a map on the table with five locations marked with small rocks. “There are five of them,” Dinah said. “All in close proximity, each holding one or more boys.”

Noa crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at those rocks. Dinah nudged her chin at Noa. Noa stepped up to the table. “We move fast. One after the other.” She looked to Candace. “You’re driving, as always. Jo is on lookout.” Noa nodded at Beth and Naomi. “You two get the victims out.” She glanced at Dinah.

“We’ll take care of the priests,” Dinah said. “Questions?”

“The victims? They’re going to Katie?” Candace asked.

“For now,” Dinah said. “There’s no more room there, and we always knew it was temporary. We need to find a better solution, and fast.” Dinah moved to stand beside Noa. “The funds Noa got us tonight will go a long way toward helping with that.” But Noa knew it wasn’t only money that was a hurdle for them. It was also the people to help them, people who would take care of the kids once they were freed. People who believed them, and who wouldn’t be found by the Brethren, or worse, go to them themselves.

Noa saw the worry on her sisters’ faces—she knew it was probably a reflection of her own. This had become their purpose for living. Noa didn’t know who she was without it. None of them did. If they couldn’t save others from the Brethren, then what was the point?

“Let’s go,” Dinah said, cutting through the concerned tension in the room. Dinah led them down the tunnel and to the entrance. The second they reached the tunnel’s mouth, the sisters put their hoods over their heads, pulling the scarves over their faces so only their eyes could be seen. The frigid chill of the night bit at their leather clothes as they reached the van and climbed inside.

Candace and Jo took up the front seats, Candace driving. Noa and the others sat in the back. The van was silent as they drove the thirty minutes to the first home. When they arrived, the house was in pitch black, secluded and perfect for a retrieval. Dinah met Noa’s eyes and nodded.

They climbed out of the van and rushed through the shadows toward the house. Candace and Jo stayed behind, as was their role, and Noa, Dinah, Naomi and Beth moved to the back door. Dinah checked for alarms—there were none. Noa reached into her pocket and pulled out a needle. In seconds, the lock broke and they all piled in, silent as night itself. Noa and Dinah broke away from Naomi and Beth. The former pair ran upstairs to the priest’s bedroom, the latter to the cellar where the Brethren tended to hold their victims.

As Noa silently entered the bedroom, her lip curled in disgust at seeing the priest on the bed, asleep, his peaceful slumber not disturbed one bit by the fact that he loved to abuse and fuck up kids’ lives.

Noa felt her anger rise. Reining it back in, she took the gag from her back pocket and kneeled on the bed. At the movement of the mattress, the priest’s eyes flew open, then widened when he saw Noa hovering over him.

Before he could even open his mouth to scream, she tied the gag over his mouth, taking sick enjoyment from the terror that took over his expression as he drank in her hood and her half-covered face. But Noa met his eyes straight on—she wanted him to look into the eyes of one of the sisters who knew he existed, who knew who he really was and what fucked-up sect he belonged to.

The priest began to struggle as Dinah tied his ankles together with cable ties. Noa moved to his hands, which reached up to try to remove her face covering. But before he could, Noa whipped the back of her hand across his face, silently screaming glory when blood spilled from his lip and seeped through the gag.

The priest’s eyes turned from fearful to livid in a flash. This was the man Noa was used to seeing on nights like this. The arrogance of the Brethren priests. The belief that they were above anyone else, especially women.

The priest bucked, trying to throw Noa and Dinah from his bed. But Noa reached for the taser on her belt, pressing it against the priest’s throat and sending a mass of volts right into his neck. His eyes rolled and his body went limp underneath her.

Her heart sang.

“Let’s move,” Dinah said, but Noa just stared down at the priest, frozen with rage. “Noa!” Dinah said, harshly enough to rip Noa from her murderous thoughts. Her hands itched to smother his mouth, so he couldn’t hurt anyone else, but the haunting shadow of her past creeped up her spine and dampened that craving. A gentle hand on her shoulder chased the chill of hatred from her bones and soothed it with light. “We have to go,” Dinah said, clearly sensing where Noa’s mind had gone.

Noa inhaled deeply, then dipped her thumb into the priest’s blood and used it to write an “H” on his forehead, an echo of an insult given to her and her sisters for too many years by men just like him. If anyone in the world were heretics, it was the Brethren.

Liars. Murderers. Tormentors, every one of them.

Noa wiped the blood on the priest’s bed linen, then quickly left the room behind Dinah. She went out of the house and into the waiting van. The second the doors were closed, Noa saw the small boy beside Beth, no more than ten, looking half dead with an upturned cross seared into his skeletal bare torso. He wore no shoes, and ragged white pants over his too-thin legs. His hair was shorn, and his skin was pale and marked with too many scars and cuts to count. His lifeless brown eyes stared at nothing, face sunken, lips chapped, and his cheekbones were razor sharp. Noa wasn’t even sure if he realized he had just been freed from the demon who paraded as a priest in the nearby house of horrors.

It wasn’t the first time she had seen a victim this numb, this removed from real life. In fact, it was more normal than not. The haunting shadow from her past wrapped itself around her again—Noa could hear the rabid fury of that little boy, the savage growls that had ripped from his mouth as she had focused on the Brethren priest. Her stomach sank, and she briefly closed her eyes. She couldn’t go back there right now, couldn’t plunge herself into that raging fire of guilt and shame.

She was a different person now. She was on a new path. Although in her gut, in the deepest part of her soul, she knew that no matter how many of these young boys and girls she saved, nothing would erase that night, the young boy’s glazed eyes, or the regret that had since congealed in her heart.

Noa opened her eyes, away from the boy, and refocused on the task at hand. They had other homes to hit tonight and more victims to save. They had to move quickly; she and her sisters knew only too well how cunning the Brethren were, how efficiently their network worked.

So Noa kept her face forward and prepared for the next house attack, letting the Coven’s purpose fill her every cell.