The Rebirth of Sin (Wicked Trinity Book 2) (2 page)

He dropped his arm from his face and glowered at me.

“I need you to exercise your skills with acting. I’m going to give you the role of a lifetime.”

“You made a habit of disclosing how horrible of an actor I was.” He reminded me of the ribbing I always gave him during the rare times I was forced to watch him in the pageants. Our community had very little in the way of amusement. Entertainment involved having the kids and adults act out scenes from their fucked up version of the bible on the fourth Sunday of every month. Shiloh was always the star because he was naturally good at acting. I hated to admit it, but given another life and another start, he could’ve actually done something with it. Then again, his weak heart and daft brain would’ve rendered him as road kill in Hollywood.

“Matter-of-fact,” he went on, “you made sure I felt worthless about everything I did whenever you were around—the rare times you were around for more than a week.”

“I was just fucking around with you back then. I tried to make you a stronger man.” I threw the script at him, hitting him in the head with it.

He looked it over, his eyes trailing to the background information for Reven, the perfect setting for a narcissist. None of it was far from the truth. Our parents gave Shiloh the most attention. They loved him and coddled him like he was the second coming of the Savior. I got the shit end. They didn’t care if I came or went, only how it looked to the community. When they got tired of me, they would send me away to make sure I didn’t corrupt their precious fucking son. The school mattered little, I purposely did things to get kicked out and returned back home. They decided they had enough when I was eighteen and sent me packing. I tried to join the armed forces, but my more peculiar demons remained with me, taking me down paths I never thought I’d ever travel.

“The background?” His eyes widened as he glanced up at me, slightly slack-jawed. “Is this what you really think life was like for me?”

“It’s fiction,” I replied with a shrug. Getting into an argument with him about how good he had it wouldn’t have helped in convincing him to do what I needed him to do.

“Parts are very close to my reality. But a good portion of it is completely wrong.” He continued to flip through the pages in silence. “I think this is a very skewed way of telling me what you think life was like for me.”

“Read on,” I said with a sigh.

“The guy? Reven?” He pointed to one line. “Some of this isn’t even a script, but directions to ad-lib: If a parishioner says this, do this?”

“It’s a script,” I reminded him.

“What kind of script is this? Who would speak this way?” He rolled his eyes at me.

“You will. All great leaders have a presence and are gifted in the vocabulary department. You have to be slightly pretentious to make people aspire to be like you, to think you are better than them. Leaders should appear as though they are better than the people they lead.”

“I wish you would speak plainly. What you really want is a reincarnation of Magnus Oliver.”

“Who knows how to be him better than you?” Looking him over, I thought about one more thing that wasn’t in the script—something else he had to change to make the whole thing believable. “You should channel the tone of his voice, too. The natural way you project your voice won’t move anyone to do anything.”

He dropped his chin to his chest and threw the script on the table. “I’d like for you to leave.”

“I’m not taking no for an answer. Let me clear up some things for you: What this whole thing is about, script included, is our roles in changing the world. We are going to change the world, Shiloh.”

“We?”

“You. Me. A couple of people I know. We’re going to take in people who were like our parents—people like Father Corrica. We will teach them a lesson they’ll never forget. They can either redeem themselves, or we can take matters into our own hands. We are going to change the face of sex and violence one fucked-up individual at a time. We are going to make it acceptable in our world.”

“You say our parents are evil, but I see why it was so easy for you to recognize. You’re a replica of who they were.”

“What evil do you recognize, Shiloh? They never showed that side of themselves to you.”

“You can’t be that far in denial. They never treated you—” Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I didn’t come here to have the ‘who Mommy and Daddy loved the best’ argument. We’ve done it enough. I’m giving you a chance to do something other than whatever you are doing here. I’m giving you a chance to actually become someone. I’m giving you the chance to become a
god
.”

He dropped his hands in his lap and looked to the left. “I heard Father Corrica was found dead in an alley the other day,” he said with something that could’ve fooled me into thinking he was actually sympathetic toward my situation. “It was said that his body was mutilated. Did you have something to do with his death?”

The short answer was yes. Father Corrica was my first kill, my first lesson, and the first unofficial member of Rebirth. His murder helped me to work out the kinks in the machine, and I figured out where I was the most skilled—enforcement. 

Rebirth would be mine to run and rule. I needed a face and voice to take over the part that came with the biggest burden and the heaviest punishment if things went south. Eventually, they would. Nothing good lasts forever, and I couldn’t think of a better candidate to take the fall for Rebirth when the time came than Shiloh. I had hoped it wouldn’t happen for many years. 

“Didn’t come here to talk about that. Are you in or out?”

“Out.” He threw the script at me and barely had any velocity. It landed a few feet shy from where I stood. 

“Should’ve known better. Anything that arises and requires effort, you fall back into the weak, powerless pussy. I can’t completely blame you, our parents made you this way.”

“You had a hand in that, too,” he snapped.

“After all these years, you’re still going on about that?”

“You can leave now.” He shoved at the air.

“If you won’t do it for me, or for the justice we can impose, the idealism and the views we can change, do it for the power you’ll have when you’re there. I have to tell you, bro, with all that I have planned, you will have so many women fawning at your feet you’ll be stepping on them.” There was a shift in his eyes. It was enough to let me know I had a way in and what I had to do to make his timid no a firm yes. Shiloh…was still a virgin.
Unbelievable
. “All you have to do is read a script every night and play a part every day. If you can’t remember your lines or what to do, hell, I’ll get you a teleprompter, or an earpiece. It’s a phone-in job.”

“Why me?”

“Because you can act. Because you have the look we need.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“I’m best at playing the background, and you can’t be harsh enough to be the man who gets things done. You can be the guy who motivates others. Come on. What the hell else are you doing?”

He closed his eyes. “I’ll think about it. See yourself out.”

I strode out the door and saw Nadine standing in the hall instead of outside the building like she was told.

“He said no?” Her face screwed up into a scowl. “I thought you said he was a narcissistic asshole and he would jump at saying yes because of his ego?”

“Believe me, he was interested from the moment I told him he could be a god,” I lied to her. “He’s fucking with me, seeing how far I’m willing to go to have him on my side. I need to make him think I’m really desperate.” I gripped her chin, and forced her to look up at me. “You better be worth every dollar of the six hundred bucks you charge.”

“Oh, baby. Trust me, I am.” Popping her gum and winking at me, she walked into my brother’s apartment.

I wound up paying her twelve hundred bucks; she gave me a discount. Nadine, like I knew she would, took it a step further and broke my brother’s virginity. 

It all paid off in the end, because the next morning he gave me a call and told me he was in.

“You aren’t an exception to the rule, Keaton. 

You never will be.”

“No  small act of kindness goes unremembered.”

-THE SECT

“Well?” Noah stared at me from across the table of the coffee shop. His hazel-blue eyes—something he once told me was the result of slight heterochromia—sparkled with optimism.

I gave him a small grin and flipped through the photographs on the tablet while it rested on the table. “It’s nice,” I said in reference to the pictures of the completed renovations for a building on the outskirts of the D.C. metro area.

“It’s a place for you and me, away from everyone.”

“You…and me? We’re moving in…together?”

“Living with your parents is a better option?”

“It’s easier right now because my mother is going to start campaigning and—”

“My mistake, princess, I thought you were a grown woman.”

Feeling mildly dejected, I looked around the small F Street café in Stanton Park. The midday rush crowded into the cafe. The din of the customers, the smell of the coffee, and the clanking of mugs were all positive draws to my senses. Crowds and busy cities were my lifeblood. Since my time with the cult—but not truly a cult—many things had changed and too many things had remained the same. The largest changes were internal, and it was because of the man sitting in front of me.

It had only been a couple of months since he came to find me that we’d been trying to navigate our relationship. We’d only been back in D.C. for a few days. It was difficult, but we were trying to make it work in a world outside of the one he created. 

Things between us had shifted, and I couldn’t point out the specifics of what had changed. The only time we felt connected was during our private moments in hotel rooms while we traveled. Since we returned to my hometown, I’d been living with my parents and Noah had been busy finalizing construction on a place—I didn’t know he’d purchased months previously. 

The worn-down warehouse contained three levels. The top level was considered his space and appeared to be a large sparring room with tools and such for whatever he needed. The level below was a loft living space without walls or separate living quarters. 

“Where’s the bathroom?” I scanned through the pictures on my tablet. “Is it enclosed?”

With a grin he shook his head. “I need to see you at all times, princess.”

I shot him a furtive look and quietly gulped. I scrolled to the first level, decorated much like my room in the house of Rebirth.

“It’s for you when you need away. But I won’t allow you to be alone for long.”

It was a new place, but I couldn’t shake the notion it would be a different location but would still hold the horrors I was forced to endure at Rebirth. The room and the lack of complete privacy solidified the fact I’d moved back home, only to have one of the darkest parts of seven months of my life come back to haunt me. When I scrolled back to the top level, I was presented with many of the torture devices and furniture I’d grown to loathe—and need in the same measure—that had been located in the deprivation and torture rooms in the basement of the house in North Dakota.

I immediately pressed the X button on the screen. 

Noah embodied the unapologetic sadist who reveled in dealing pain. I took on the role of the woman who cared about him and enjoyed the way he loved her. According to Noah, the skillful way he exacted pain on my body showed the extent of his love for me. 

Internally, I had begun to evolve and move away from my prior thoughts. The sight of a place meant for what once served as a source of healing and his indulgences made me feel ill.

“I can imagine the look on my mother’s face when she visits.” I put the tablet down on the small, weathered wood table and sipped my lukewarm coffee.

“That won’t be happening,” he mumbled with his head bowed, occasionally shooting unsettling glances into the crowded cafe.

“Why not?”

“There is no reason for your parents to come to our place.”