Page 145 of Decimation

“By the grace of God.”

He steps between us, blocking my father’s view of me, and I am so desperately grateful because my legs are shaking. All these colours are screaming, and I can feel the ghost of unwanted hands on my body, the phantom pain of being forced to do things, forced to comply with situations I wanted no part of.

My father bows his head. I’ve seen him do this before, to Chapter Lords, to Guardians, to anyone with more power than him. The gesture is smooth, practiced, and yet utterly hollow all the same.

“Grand Master, I am loyal to the Brethren. I have always been loyal. Whatever my daughter has told you…”

Lazarus laughs. It’s not a pleasant sound, it’s the sound of a man who has seen the worst the world has to offer and found it wanting. It’s the sound of a man who has been betrayed by everyone he ever loved and survived anyway. It’s a sound that matches to the beat of my soul.

“Loyal?” He circles my father slowly, and I watch the way my father’s body tenses, the way the chains rattle with his trembling. “You are no such thing. You are a traitor to the Brethren, a traitor to your blood, a traitor to God himself.”

“I have never…”

“You sold your daughter.” Lazarus’s voice drops to something barely above a whisper, and somehow that’s worse than if he’d screamed. “You treated her like a whore to bargain with. You gave her to men who cut her soul open and tried turn her flesh into a hell of their own purposes. You drowned her in sin and called it righteousness.”

My father’s mouth opens and closes. No sound comes out.

“But today,” Lazarus says, reaching into his jacket, “today you will meet your justice.”

The knife appears in his hand like an extension of his will. It’s not ornate, no jewelled hilt, no ceremonial engravings. It’s a simple blade, sharp and practical and gleaming in the lowlight.

Lazarus holds it out to me. “Leandra.”

I stare at the knife as though fascinated by it.

“You wanted vengeance.” His voice is gentle now, the way it is when he holds me in the dark, when he whispers that he loves me, when he promises that no one will ever hurt me again. “You can have it now, but vengeance comes with blood.”

My hand reaches out before my mind catches up.

The hilt is warm from his body heat. The weight of it is perfect, balanced, made for this exact purpose. I wonder how long he’s been planning this. I wonder if he chose this knife specifically, if he imagined this moment the way I’ve imagined it a thousand times.

My father’s eyes are fixed on the blade.

“Leandra.” His voice cracks. “Leandra, I am your father. I did what I had to do. Ezekiel, the Esau, they would have killed us all if I hadn’t…”

“You did what you had to do?” The words come out strange, distant, like someone else is speaking them. “You had to sell me? You had to let them cut me open and hurt me in the worst ways imaginable? You had to give Cass too…”

I stop. Oh god, Cass. My sister’s name hangs in the air like a bell that’s just stopped ringing. My father flinches and something inside me doesn’t just break, it doesn’t shatter, it explodes. All that rage, all that anger that has been festering away in me for so fucking long suddenly erupts.

The knife moves before I consciously decide to move it. I watch it happen from somewhere outside my body; the arc of the blade, the resistance of flesh, the hot spray of blood across my face. My father screams in such a satisfying way it terrifies me.

“Leandra, please…”

I cut him again.

“I am loyal,” he gasps, blood running down his chest in rivulets. “I am loyal to the Brethren. I know I did wrong. I know I…”

“What about Cass?” The words tear out of me. Raw, ragged, and nothing like my voice at all. “What about my sister? Your daughter, your flesh and blood.”

My father’s face goes grey. “Cassandra was…she was…”

“She was innocent.”

I’m screaming now. I can feel the rage rising up from somewhere deep, dark and endless, a well of fury I’ve been filling my entire life.

“She was innocent, you gave her to them and they murdered her. She died screaming and alone, and you didn’t even, you never even…”

The knife moves again.