Page 73 of Avenging Angel

“Who are you?” I eventually ask, even as it burns and stings my vocal cords to do so.

“A savior. A rescuer. A giver of life,” he says.

“You are not God.”

He laughs. “No, I’m not. I am just a man who will change your life, and for the better. You know, even from where I’m sitting, I can tell that you have a warrior spirit. That’s good, Sadie. You’re already strong, so when you’re broken down into the tiniest bits of yourself, you can be remade into something unbreakable. You can help shape the world into something good. Something perfect.”

“I’ve already been made into something unbreakable.”

“Your tears say otherwise,” he says as he comes over and squats down next to me.

I flinch when he touches the mustard-seed pendant around my neck. “You remind me so much of my sister, Emily. She had faith and believed in a higher power, but God didn’t save her just like He won’t save you. It will be interesting to see what you will become when you understand that your power doesn’t come from some divine mystical being, but from within.”

My voice betrays me as I barely manage to utter the words, “I’m already saved.” I’d always thought I’d stand tall and proud in my convictions, but when faced with evil, I find myself cowering under the looming shadow of malicious intent.

I’m certainly no David facing this Goliath in front of me.

Then a voice whispers in my ear, “You are not alone. For the Lord God is with you always. Today is not the day you will fight the battle, but it will soon be upon you.”

I’m not sure what the voice is trying to tell me, or if I’m making it up in my mind, but the moment I hear it, fear and dread leave my body. In their place, there is hope.

My eyes harden with resolve as I gaze into the dark depths of the man in front of me. “One day, justice will be served. I pray that I’m the one who gets to deliver it.”

The man cackles, and his image warbles as the memory shifts into something more like a dream. He holds up the lantern, which suddenly gets brighter, illuminating the entire cavern I’m in. My restraints suddenly disappear, and I’m no longer the teenager who had the tiniest spark of faith.

“Look around you, Sadie. Look at all the faces of the girls you couldn’t save.”

I scan the faces of the young women who came both before and after me, each one peering at me with a vacant and lifeless expression.

Maniacal laughter echoes off the stone walls, filling the space with an ominous sense of doom. “Each of them died, Sadie. Not physically, mind you, but the essence of who they once were and who they aspired to be. Now, they’ve been molded, shaped, and turned into something magnificent, don’t you think?”

“You took away their choice by feeding them lies.”

“Because their minds were weak,” he says. “Eventually, you would have broken, too. You would have become the greatest of them all.”

Movement to my left captures my attention as Eva stands up and walks over to me. As she comes closer, the soft ember of life that had been snuffed out begins to burn brightly. Her image morphs from the teenage girl to the woman she has become.

“We are not lost, nor are we dead. Each of us lives to serve a greater purpose than ourselves. We have chosen that course, but it was the wrong one. My eyes have been opened so that I can see that we are not serving the right master, but the rest still believe the lies. You need to show them the truth. It is not too late for them to be saved.”

Eva’s image disappears, leaving the rest of the girls leaning lifelessly against the wall. I notice there’s one missing.

“Where is Genevieve?” I ask.

“Genevieve isn’t the prize. You are, Sadie. When Emily died, I died right along with her. I was a shell of the man I once was, and the only way to continue living was to become someone else. I became a person filled with vengeance.”

“That vengeance destroyed your soul. Not the loss of Emily.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Though he’s still hiding behind the mask, I can hear the pain in his voice when he says, “Then you came along. I told you that you were just a payday to me, but that too was a lie. You were meant to one day work by my side, just like Emily promised me she would. I had such noble plans for you.”

I gesture to the girls. “This isn’t noble.”

“You would have eventually thought that it was. But then you had to escape, and once again, the loss upended my life. I was forced to change the one thing that could identify me just in case you hadn’t truly died in those mountains.”

“Your voice.”

Suddenly, his voice changes from the one in my memories to the one he uses today. His mask fades away, and it all becomes clear. He extends his hand. “Join me, and I’ll spare Genevieve.”

When Uri appears beside me, the man who uses vengeance disguised as noble intent disappears, as do the girls one by one until it’s just the two of us left alone in my mind.