“You’re fucking crazy,” I whispered as I watched him bask in his glory, his slain victims just a step away from our feet.
Judah opened his eyes and looked directly at me. “No, brother. I have always been strong in my faith. It was always you who could not control your sinful actions and thoughts. It was you who could not just adhere to the teachings and follow the scriptures and creeds. You had it all, salvation at your fingertips, yet you threw it all away.”
“They were false. Everything is false,” I said through gritted teeth. I pointed to the tiny foot of a child directly to my left. “You took lives for fucking lies! You could have saved them! You could have let them go!”
“No,” he shook his head. “They had to die. They had to sacrifice their lives for the good of their souls.” And that was the moment I knew for sure . . . I had to kill him myself.
He had to be taken by my hands. Like a rabid dog, he had to be put down.
Without taking my eyes off my brother, I threw the gun and knife to the ground. Judah’s eyes narrowed on mine, then I walked toward him. I knew he saw the intent in my gaze when he lifted up his hands and backed away. “Brother,” he said cautiously as I approached. “You cannot do this. You have tried in the past and you could not go through with it, remember? I am your twin. I am your only blood . . . you will not take my life . . . we need each other. We always have.”
I let his words wash over me and drift away into the silent sky. I balled my hand into a fist and swung. As my hand connected with his face, I made myself feel nothing. Judah, unused to any form of violence, immediately fell to the floor. I jumped down on top of him and sent fist after fist into his face, letting his warm blood spatter on my skin.
I hit him and hit him until his face looked nothing like my own—bloodied, nose broken, lips split. I hit him until I gasped for breath, my body aching with exertion.
I sat back and ran my bloodied hand through my hair. But when I looked down, Judah’s eyes were still on me, blinking as he struggled to see through the blood. I bent down to place my mouth at his ear. “You need to die, brother.” As I spoke those words, feeling Judah’s breath pass by my cheek and his pounding heart echo against my chest, the numbness that I had embraced fell away, exposing me to nothing but raw pain.
All the fucking excruciating pain of this fucked-up moment.
He was alive. Judah still had life . . . we had come into this world together. We had been through everything together. He had been my only source of comfort. My only family . . . yet I knew he had to die, right here, right now . . . but I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t . . .
The feel of Judah’s hand on the back of my head was almost my undoing. Because it wasn’t hard or rough. It was gentle and soft . . . it was the touch of my twin who loved me.
Judah sucked in a long breath, his chest rattling from the beating I had given him. I held still. Judah’s head turned, and his mouth landed at my ear. “Cain . . . ” he rasped out, breaking my heart in two at the affection in his tone. “I . . . I love you . . . ” I squeezed my eyes shut and choked on a strangled cry. “My . . . brother . . . my heart . . . ” His fingers tightened in my hair.
Boiling tears sailed down my cheeks, but I let them fall. I let my chest be torn apart by the immeasurable amount of grief in my soul. I kept my head down, unable to, but knowing that I had to, do this . . . no one would be safe if he was left alive . . .
Just as I began to draw back my head, Judah said, “Evil begets evil, Cain. Whatever sin blackens my soul lives in you too. We are the same. Made the same . . . born the same . . . ”
I froze. My lips parted as I struggled to draw in air. Evil begets evil . . . Evil begets evil . . . I couldn’t stop Judah’s words from circling my head. Each replay hitting me like a spray of bullets.
Because he was right, but . . .
“I would never have done something like this,” I whispered. I lifted my head, looking him dead in the eyes. “I would never have done something like this . . . something this fucked up . . . you murdered them . . . all of them . . . ”
Judah smiled. “You would . . . you have . . . ” Judah replied and my face drained of blood. “This . . . ” he croaked, “was all done in your name.”
Judah smiled wider, and I saw that look of triumph flare in his bloodshot eyes. “They died with your name on their lips . . . Prophet Cain.”
I shook my head, over and over again. “No,” I growled. “NO!” I roared as Judah smiled a bloody smile.
“We did this . . . we did it all . . . together.”
As his gruff voice sailed into my ears, I embraced the darkness that was hovering on the edge of my heart. And I let it consume me. I let the black tar of rage swallow any light left in my soul.
With a deafening roar, I lunged forward and wrapped my hands around Judah’s throat. Judah’s eyes widened in shock, and then I saw it . . . I saw the doubt in his gaze that I would see this through. I could almost hear his voice in my head as I tightened my grip. “You’ve tried this before, brother. You could not do it then, and you will not do it now. You will not be able to look into my eyes and watch the life drain from their depths . . . I am your brother . . . I am your twin . . . ”
“No!” I screamed, answering the imaginary voice in my head. “I have to!” I spat to Judah’s reddening face. “I have to . . . you have to pay . . . you have to atone . . . ”
Judah began to struggle as my fingers got tighter and tighter around his throat, cutting off his breath. His panicked legs thrashed beneath me, his desperate fingers clawed at my arms . . . but all the time I kept my eyes locked on his. I never moved them once as his skin began to mottle and the capillaries in his eyes began to burst.
I squeezed harder, until my fingers ached with the effort. Judah’s legs began to slow. His hands fell away from my arms. Tears built in my twin’s eyes and fell down his cheeks. Mine did the same, twin tears pooling together on the desecrated plain.
Then, just as his body drained of its fight, Judah opened his lips and mouthed, “Cain . . . Cain . . . ” My teeth gritted together as my name left his lips—my true name, the name I heard him speak so many times with love and affection. The name I had heard him utter in the throes of childhood laughter . . . in the hard times and the good.
Then he stopped moving at all. And I watched. I stared into his eyes as the life drained from his body, his brown gaze frosting over with the fresh veil of death . . .