Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Abaddon.
Abaddon.
Abaddon.
He’d been sent here on a mission to punish six sinners and save a boy. This boy he’d learned to love and desire more than anything.
“I’m not lying to you, lamb! I would never hurt you,” Abaddon whispered, stepping forward.
Gabriel gasped for air and backed away so fast, he hit the bookshelf behind him. His eyes shone with held-in tears, breaking Abaddon’s heart. “That’s what Rogers said in his pseudo-therapy! I stopped believing in God a long time ago, but then you showed up, said you were there to save me, and I was so desperate for it to be true! I’m so, so dumb. You’re Benson’s son, back with a grudge against all these people we’ve been killing, and you hide so I take the blame for it all. And what? You decided to fuck me along the way?”
Abaddon’s chest throbbed as if his heart was about to crumble. “No! I love you. Don’t you believe me?” he asked, hitting his chest with a fist.
“I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what’s real and what’s imagined anymore… What if this is some elaborate nightmare?” Gabriel muttered, leaning against the bookshelf and grabbing his head. The wood creaked, and they both froze when the wooden unit… dipped into the wall?
Gabriel stepped back in panic, but he must have realized what was going on and pushed the bookshelf farther in, opening up a passage to a secret room, one Abaddon had been unaware of despite his knowledge of the hidden corridors running everywhere in the orphanage. Lights came on automatically, freezing Abaddon to the floor.
“What the hell…”
But Gabriel must have lost all will of self-preservation because he entered first, a dark silhouette against the background of lamps flickering to imitate candlelight.
“You…” Gabriel muttered from inside, and despite his whole body screaming against it, Abaddon had to approach, fearing the boy might faint again. “You were there…”
When Abaddon stepped in and looked above Gabriel’s head, his blood froze, then turned into boiling tar ready to burn him alive.
In the middle of a small cylindrical interior was a column where among candles and fresh flowers stood a photo of the boy from the wanted poster—him—seated on the throne from the pyramid. A dark robe was draped over him to disguise the shape of his body, but his face remained uncovered under a headdress of impala horns. In his lap lay a dagger, the same that now rested on the small altar, made of bone and embedded in a silver handle marked with the symbol Abaddon had tattooed on the wrist.
Breathless, he shook his head and backed into the wall, threatened by facts that he couldn’t recall. “This can’t be.”
Gabriel turned to him like a fury about to descend on its victim. “You knew. That’s how you knew everything! There were no ‘visions from God’, you were there! You’re one of them!” In the tight space, Gabriel shoved Abaddon’s chest, but he trembled like a leaf in the wind.
Abaddon squeezed his own throat in an attempt to loosen the tension there, but it was for nothing. His mind was in a state of chaos, and he struggled to keep his head above the surface. “I don’t remember any of it,” he choked out.
“You fucking psycho! I can’t believe I let you touch me!” Gabriel’s fists rained down on Abaddon’s chest, not causing much damage, but the rage behind them was real.
All the while, Abaddon’s mind spiraled. Had he been lying? He now remembered some of the visions not making sense, his love of peanut butter, or his anticipation of the romantic movie at the cinema. Those hadn’t been angel thoughts. They had been weird and out of place, yet he chose not to explore that and just assume whatever knowledge he had had come from the Lord.
But he also didn’t recognize himself in the person sitting on the throne, even though they shared the same face.
What the hell was happening here?
He grabbed the cross hanging on his neck and held on to it, but no answers came. “Lamb… I would do anything for you. I really don’t know the first thing about this.”
Gabriel took a deep breath, backing away to the office, but the tears streaking down his face were unmistakable. He grabbed the dagger and held it in front of him, as if Abaddon were someone he ought to fear. “I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you. I don’t know what to think anymore, but the facts are here.” He shook the page in his hand at Abaddon. “You’re Adam Benson, even if you don’t want to tell me why you’re here and why you chose me to participate in your fucked up scheme.”
Abaddon’s eyes stung. He hadn’t wanted any of this. He wanted to make his boy happy, to free him from the chains the cult had put on him, but as badly as he wished to reject the evidence found here, it was irrefutable.