Page 59 of Decimation

I close my eyes for a moment, letting the name settle into the hollow spaces inside me. It fills something I didn’t know was empty. It answers a question I didn’t know I was asking.

“Leandra,” I murmur, and it is a prayer now, a litany, a devotion. “Leandra. Leandra. Leandra.”

When I open my eyes, Magdalena is staring at me with naked horror. Oh, she sees it now; the depth of my obsession, the totality of my possession. She understands that her daughter is already lost, already claimed, already mine in ways that transcend the physical.

“Thank you,” I say, and my voice is calm again, controlled. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I return to my chair and sit down, crossing my legs once more. The posture is relaxed, almost conversational.

“Now. Tell me everything else.”

It takes hours. The words spill out of her like blood from a wound and I collect each one, cataloguing it, storing it away in the vault of my mind.

Leandra’s favourite colour was purple. Not the deep purple of royalty, but the soft lavender of the flowers that grew in the garden. She loved strawberries, would eat them until her fingernails were stained red and her stomach ached. She was afraid of thunderstorms; Leandra would crawl into her sister’s bed when she was little during the worst of them and hide her face against her shoulder.

Leandra had a doll named Celeste that she carried everywhere until she was seven years old. She lost it on a trip to the market and refused to eat for two days. Her sister Cass found a replacement, identical in every way, but she knew it wasn’t the same and threw it in the fire.

She sang in the bath, and danced when she thought no one was watching. She had a temper that flared hot and fast and then disappeared just as quickly, leaving her apologetic and tearful.

She was given to Ezekiel Sewell when she was eighteen years old.

I stop her there.

“Given to him,” I repeat. “Explain.”

Magdalena’s face crumples. The tears that fall now are different from the ones before; these are old tears; tears she’s shed a thousand times in the years since.

“Her father,” she whispers. “My husband. He was Esau, like all of us, like my whole family. We are born into it, raised in it, married into it. There was never any escape. When Ezekiel rose to power, he demanded tribute from the families. Money, resources, loyalty. And daughters.”

“Daughters.”

“Young girls. Virgins. He said he was building an army, that he needed vessels for the new world he was creating, that he is a prophet. He said God spoke through him.” She spits the words like poison. “He was a monster, but my husband believes. They all believe. When Ezekiel asked for Cass, my husband gave her to him. And when Cass died, Ezekiel demanded Leandra to replace her.”

I feel something cold settle in my chest. I’ve known Ezekiel by reputation for years; he’s a fanatic, a zealot, a man who took the Esau’s extremism and turned it into something far more dangerous.

Despite all my dealings with the Esau, I’ve never had direct contact with him. It was always too risky. He’s a wild card, unpredictable in ways that make him impossible to control. No, I’ve always gone through intermediaries. People I trust implicitly. People I can control.

“…he trained her,” Magdalena continues, her voice hollow. “Him and Isaac. They trained her to be a weapon, a sex slave. They starved her, beat her, and told her it was love; told her it was her divine purpose.”

I narrow my eyes as a vision flashes before me, as I see her, my Leandra, broken and used exactly the way I have been.

“Ezekiel wanted her because she looks like Ines. He wanted her first, but she wasn’t old enough. That’s why my husband gave them Cass.”

“What?” I snarl. What the fuck does Ines have to do with Ezekiel?

She flinches in a jerky motion that makes the chains rattle. “Ines was supposed to be their way in. She was supposed to seduce the Grand Master, to bear his children, to bring the Brethren down from the inside. But she fell in love with the power instead. She abandoned them. Ezekiel never forgave her for that.”

I lean back in my chair, processing this. The pieces are falling into place now, a puzzle I’ve been trying to solve for years. Ezekiel’s plan, Ines’s betrayal, it all connects, a web of manipulation and ambition that stretches back decades.

“How did you escape?”

“Leandra’s brother.” Magdalena’s voice cracks on the word. “My son. He was loyal to the Esau, but he loved his sister more. He helped us get out. We ran to Europe, changed our names, moved from city to city. We’ve been hiding for years. Years. And then…”

“And then someone found you.”

“They took us to a breeding house, and Antonio was waiting.”

Antonio. Fucking Antonio. I should have known he would be caught up in this mess, but this also means he knows about Leandra. He knows of her existence. This changes things. This changes everything.