33. Logan

33

LOGAN

I'm fucked up good.

I'm aware of it before even opening my eyes and fully regaining consciousness. My body's a single burning, throbbing pulse of pain. Up and down my sides. Burrowed deep from the inside of my chest. Even my skull.

My brain's definitely been knocked around. Rattled like a fucking saltshaker.

Probably a concussion.

It's a hard-earned victory just to open my eyes. If possible, my eye sockets hurt too. They ache and pulsate like they're being stretched past their limits.

It's no wonder—everything surrounding me is a blur of indistinguishable shapes and colors. I shift my body from its twisted position only for a fresh jolt of pain to shoot through me. A hoarse groan creaks from my throat as I let the pain do what it's supposed to do.

Fuck me up. Torture me. Make life hell.

The pain percolates through me like a stream down a river. It ebbs and flows at different strengths and speeds. I'm along for the ride .

What else is there to do but welcome it?

I focus on other things. Details about my surroundings like the weak floorboard beneath me and the smell of dust in the air. Light bleeds in through stained glass windows, tints of sapphire blue, golden orange, and emerald green.

Where the fuck would I be with stained glass?

The last thing I remember is being thrown from my Super Glide, colliding with the gravel on the open road.

Silence meets any question turning over inside my head. An eerie silence that feels foreboding and grim. I might as well be in a fucking graveyard.

…I'm in a church… or chapel of some kind…

I flatten my hands on the floorboard and push myself to sit up. My body screams in protest. The palms of my scraped up hands burn. The ribs on my left side creak like they've been snapped in half. I lift myself into a half upright position, using a podium that's behind me as a prop.

Just that little bit of movement has me panting from exertion.

I'm a bloody, mangled mess.

"Excellent. You're awake."

The voice, cool and aloof, slithers out of the silence like an invisible snake. The man it belongs to emerges from the shadows a second after. Abraham is still the same pallid, icy-eyed man with sheets of white-blond hair that lay flat and lifeless.

But instead of the luxury robes he'd once worn, he's in tattered threads. An old set of robes that're torn and mucked up with mud and dirt.

He's not clean and god-like as he'd once presented himself.

That illusion has melted away for a reality that's less flattering .

I might be lying broken and bruised, but one thing I'll never be again is deferential. Not to a piece of fucking shit like Abraham or his Chosen Saints.

"Finally showing your ugly face," I spit out. "You alone or you got minions like the fucking coward you are?"

Abraham starts toward me, a limp in his step. Probably from where I shot him the last time we squared off. His expression's emotionless and calm, a blank slate offering nothing.

Just indifference and loathing.

"Tell me, Believer Logan, how is it possible you're lying on my floor bleeding out, yet still so rebellious? Still so disobedient?"

"Why don't you tell me how you're still a sack of shit first?"

His thin lips stretch into a wry smile. "You really have not learned your lesson. It seems we will have to teach you. Saints, I am in need of your assistance!"

He's calling out to someone unseen. A second drums by before I learn who—two of his guards enter the worship room on cue, clutching rifles, looking as disheveled as Abraham. It's obvious their latest accommodations haven't been as luxurious as the previous compounds were.

The broad-shouldered, twenty-something chickenshit I recognize as Amos. The second guy I recognize too, though he wasn't a saint when I knew him.

" Hershel !?"

He ignores me, too locked into Abraham to pay me any mind.

It seems in the time since the Steel Kings raided the original compound and now, he's been promoted. He's gone from believer to saint.

I'd once thought of Hershel as a grandfatherly figure. That perception disintegrates into nothing. If he wants to side with the tyrannical cult leader, so be it. His blood will be spilled by the end of tonight too.

… assuming I'm able to get the upper hand somehow.

"Yes, Leader?" Amos answers like the obedient fuck he is.

"Pick Believer Logan up and put him on the table. It's time to prepare for our latest ceremony. Sacrifices are to be made. Unfavorable souls must be purged from our midst."

The pair march over to drag me off the floor as instructed. I spit at their feet and curse at them.

"Touch me and be prepared to lose your fucking hands!"

My threats fall on deaf ears.

The pain that'd been agonizing moments ago takes a back burner as my temper snaps. I jerk and twist against their grip, doing what I can to fight them off. A few broken ribs, deep bruising, bleeding cuts and scrapes, and a throbbing skull pose limitations.

I'm in no condition for a physical confrontation. I'm running on fumes after being thrown however many feet off my bike.

Amos and Hershel each take an end and hoist me up on the table. Rope is used to bind me down. The rough texture burns against the many open scrapes I already have. I grunt at the new flavor of pain, refusing to let them know how much it hurts.

Refusing to show any sign of weakness.

"Excellent," Abraham says once they're down. "Have you prepared all the instruments and supplies needed for the dissection?"

"We haven't finished grabbing everything."

His jaw tightens in displeasure. "Then go get it."

The two are like fucking dumb and dumber shuffling off at his command. No sense of individuality. No independent thought or questioning. They're brainwashed like so many others who belong to the Chosen Saints.

Many of them have given their lives for Abraham and his bullshit.

Abraham steps over to the table where I'm strapped down and peers down at me. He might as well be a scientist studying his latest lab experiment. I challenge him with a rage-fueled, hate-filled glare, once again numbed to pain.

Once again more tuned into the temper pulsing in my veins.

He's the man who ruined my life. Made me as good as a slave for years. Took away my freedom and broke me down 'til I almost chose to end it.

He's the reason Teysha wakes up in the middle of the night in a panic if she's alone. He's the reason she'll never get to live the life she was meant to live.

I've never wanted the destruction of something more.

I will destroy him if it's the last thing I do. If it means destroying myself in the process.

"This will be a fitting ending, Believer Logan," he says calmly. "Our beliefs state that the wicked must be purged from our company. You are as wicked as they come. It will be cathartic in a way. Sending you off in excruciating pain as is deserved. You will beg. You will cry. You will die a blubbering, bloodied mess on this table before me.

"And I will celebrate with my saints and believers. We will toast to the evil we have defeated," he rambles on. "Then we will continue rebuilding our family. We will grow larger than ever before. I will ensure Believer Teysha is returned where she rightfully belongs. At my side."

"You mean like how you already tried to buy her back?" I growl, bucking against the rope's binds. "You think I'll ever let you get your hands on her again?"

Abraham smirks. "How will you stop me? You'll be… in the afterlife. Burning in hell."

"Only if I get to take you with me, you pathetic coward!"

"Stop talking! You will talk when you are given permission to do so!"

"What's the matter, Abe?" I taunt, my pulse pounding. I'm still struggling against the rope. Trying to find a subtle way to loosen the knot on my left side. "You mean to tell me it upsets you when I tell you about yourself? You don't want to hear about how much of a fucking loser you are? So damn pale and hideous, you've got to force people to follow you."

"Shut up, Believer Logan!"

"You've got to force women to have sex with you!" I crank out a husky laugh. Colder and crueler than the one he'd released earlier. "It's no wonder with that shrimp dick that could never satisfy a woman. Why do you think Mandy sought me out so often?"

"I said shut up!"

"Why do you think Grace killed herself rather than spend another night in your bed?" I press, reveling in how his pale skin flushes scarlet. "Why do you think you had to force Teysha, tears and all, just to let you lay a finger on her? Do you think she ever wanted you? Do you think for a fucking second she enjoyed even breathing the same air as you? She hates you! They all do! You're nothing without your cult… NOTHING!"

"WHY DO YOU REFUSE TO LISTEN!?" he roars, thrashing his arms. His white-blond hair swings like a curtain. He snatches a knife off the podium that I recognize as my hunting knife and whips around to bring it down on me. Heaving manic breaths, he peers down at me with bulging eyes. The right larger than the left, twitching as if he's on the brink of insanity. "Say another word, Believer Logan, and I will run you straight through with your own knife! I will savor the blood that seeps out of you, and you will stare into my eyes as you die. The last thing you ever see."

"Leader, please, have mercy."

The soft, quiet voice is amplified in the cavernous room of the church. It echoes, sounding five times louder than it is. Enough for both of us to snap our heads toward the side door that's just squeaked open.

Teysha's slipped through, her summer dress wrinkled and hair windswept as if she's spent the afternoon on the go. Her big, brown eyes are as beautiful and expressive as ever.

Abraham forgets all about me. He turns the rest of the way around, his back to me.

"Believer Teysha," he croaks out. "Sweetheart, you have returned."

"Yes," she answers gently, taking a couple steps down the row of pews. Her hands are weaved together in front of her. "I realized this is where you would be."

Abraham smiles proudly. "My most adored believer, I always knew you would come."

"NO!" I yell. "Teysha, get the fuck out of here!"

"I can't," she answers. "I have to stay with him."

"Teysha… run… now!"

My words leave me as a rumble that's straight from the gut. That's deepened by sheer panic at her presence. What the fuck is she thinking!?

"Sweetheart, come here," Abraham commands. "Come to me, and we will be reunited as one. "

She remains where she is. "There's something I must tell you first. But only if you release Believer Logan."

"You are in no position to make such demands. You will do as I tell you?—"

"I'm pregnant," she blurts out. Her hand comes to her stomach, mapping out the smallest bulge hidden by the fabric of her dress. "I'm having your baby, Abraham."