I couldn't bring myself to look up for more than a single second. What I saw terrified me.
There was a huge, powerful, soaking wet man glaring down at me, his arms folded across a neat leather jacket. I hung my head, seriously wondering if he'd kill me next.
Sure, the outside world couldn't be all be evil and corrupted like the Prophet says, but watching this man kill my monstrous father gave me some serious doubts.
Oh, God. He really did kill him, didn't he? He's really...dead?
Dead, dead, dead!
The body next to me didn't look like it would ever get up. My father's eyes were vacant. They'd never demand anything again.
I whimpered when he reached for my wrist, pulling me up with a power greater than my father's, except he wasn't trying to hurt me.
What did I see? After the last ten minutes, my brain struggled to make sense of anything coming in through my eyes.
The giant was smiling, firm lips set in a strong, square jaw, but those eyes did all the talking. They pierced right through me, bright and brown and blinding, the eyes the Prophet should've had if he weren't just a doped up figurehead.
He looked a lot like the way I imagined the warriors in scripture. Warriors, or else the soldiers I'd heard about. What little slipped through to Beacon Grove about the outside world said the great beyond was filled with trained killers, men who slaughtered other sinners to prop up their own impure society.
Was this man a soldier? A policeman? Where was his badge?
“Let's go. You're fucking perfect.”
Strange words to say to a woman you've just rescued. I didn't think about them as he led me toward his sleek black car, wrapping me in a blanket he pulled from the trunk.
Guiding me into the backseat, he laid me down, making sure the blanket was wrapped tight to help stem the rain and blood dribbling down my shoulders.
I had no clue where I was heading or who I was with. Just then, I didn't give a damn. I couldn't care. My father had beaten it out of me, and this man had beaten him in turn, destroying my whole dark world.
A current pulsed through my brain the instant I laid down, and it flickered out just as fast. The Prophet was right about one thing: the darkness was hungry, and I fell straight into it.
Get Merciless Love!