The rest of the room fell away, and there was only Isaac and Ramie and the quiet vow he read in her eyes as he tentatively held out the sweater Jenna had been wearing earlier that day. Ramie sucked in a deep breath, staring down at it for a moment before finally taking it and wrapping her hands in the material.
Isaac immediately moved back to give her space while Caleb closed in, hovering anxiously over his wife. Ramie’s eyes glowed brightly for a moment before she closed them and slumped forward, Caleb catching her and easing her to the floor, where she lay in a fetal position.
Isaac stared, unable to look away, studying every nuance of Ramie’s demeanor, seeking some sign she’d connected to Jenna. Then Ramie hunched inward, grunting in pain, her arms instantly surrounding her stomach. Tears burned Isaac’s eyes as helpless fury began to eat away at his very soul.
“You think you can so easily make a fool of me in front of my men and all those people you claim are so precious to you.”
It was a gruff voice that sounded eerily just like Jaysus. Coming from Ramie’s mouth, it was even stranger that it held nothing of her soft, feminine tone. It was as if she was channeling the very devil himself in that moment.
Then her head snapped back and a bruising handprint appeared on her face.
“What the fuck?” Isaac yelled.
He tried to lunge for Ramie, attempting in some way to protect both her and Jenna, who was miles away from the abuse being heaped upon them both. It took the combined strength of Dane, Sterling and Gavin to wrestle him away and pin him down, but he never moved his gaze from the horror that stared back at him from the floor.
“You’re a fool to even think I’d keep my promise, especially if you don’t do exactly as I tell you at all times,” Jaysus continued, taunting Jenna through the medium of Ramie.
“You’re the idiot,” Jenna gritted out, pain evident in her voice.
Oh God. Isaac choked, unable to form the words he wanted to scream. Don’t anger him. Give him no reason to continue hurting you, baby. I’m coming for you. I swear to God, I’ll never give up until I have you back. Please stay alive and safe for me.
“Do you honestly believe in your overinflated arrogance that you could ever just waltz back in and kill all those people?” Jenna said in a flat tone, devoid of emotion. “You got lucky and managed to manipulate a woman who already despised me into doing your dirty work for you. You would have never gotten within a mile of me otherwise. You’ll never be able to get to them, much less kill a single one of them. So maybe you should consider whether I’ll keep my promises, you bastard, because pissing me off isn’t the way to go about doing it.”
“That a girl,” Dane whispered.
Eliza’s expression was fierce with pride over Jenna’s statement, and it was echoed by her husband as well as Gavin Rochester.
“You have yourself one hell of a woman,” Gavin whispered to Isaac while still maintaining his tight hold on him to keep him from completely losing his shit.
Isaac just closed his eyes as tears leaked from the corners.
“Do what you want if it makes you feel more like a man,” Jenna said in a weary, pain-filled voice. “But remember this when someone shoots your ass off and you come wag it at me to heal it. I might decide to say ‘fuck you’ and let you die a long, slow, painful death.”
Isaac’s eyes shot open and went wide in shock. He’d never heard Jenna speak that way, but then he’d never really seen her angry, certainly not as furious as she appeared to be right now. He’d seen her confused by the world around her and desperately trying to take it all in. Maybe he’d even viewed her as weak and in need of constant protection, but in this moment, he was seeing a side of Jenna that made him so fucking proud that she was his yet at the same time worried out of his mind that she’d pay for every single one of her taunts.
Ramie was actually knocked from Caleb’s grasp and went sprawling on the floor several feet away, and Isaac growled, his fists swinging as he tried to hit something, anything.
“You won’t kill me, Jesus. You’re too chickenshit,” she taunted again, in a much weaker voice that scared the hell out of Isaac. How much more could she endure? “You need me, because the one thing you fear above all else is death. Your death. It’s why you went on this crazy pursuit for immortality and when you realized you were indeed as batshit crazy as everyone labeled you, then you settled for the next best thing. Some poor, na?ve, easily manipulated girl who’d been abducted by a cult when she was four and spent the last twenty years as their prisoner. A woman who happened to possess the ability to heal. Did you think I would be grateful to you for taking me away from the cult?” she egged him on. “Did you imagine me falling at your feet, thanking you over and over and vowing to do your bidding forever in my gratitude? It seems to me you got one crappy bargain.”
“Shut up!” Jaysus screamed, his high-pitched voice sending chills up the spine of every person assembled. “I may not kill you, but by God, you’ll wish I had when I’m done with you.”
“For God’s sake, Caleb,” Isaac pleaded. “Do we have their location? Can we put an end to this?”
Caleb was faring no better and he shook his head. “God damn it, Ramie hasn’t said anything that identifies their location. We’ve gotten nothing from her at all! Only what she relays from Jenna and that goddamn son of a bitch who is abusing them both.”
Ramie flinched, but it didn’t appear that she, or rather Jenna, had been struck again. Instead, Ramie was suddenly dragged along the floor by invisible hands and made to sit upright against the wall.
“Why did you shoot him?” Jenna asked hysterically. “Are you insane? Why would you shoot one of your own men? Do you think the others are going to continue to give you such blind loyalty when they see that this is their reward? For God’s sake, let me heal him before it’s too late.”
“You aren’t to touch him,” Jesus said coldly. “You did this to him. You killed him, you stupid bitch. And now you get to sit there and watch him die when you could have saved him.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Jenna said, raising her voice, anger vibrating from Ramie’s entire body. “I didn’t kill this man. You shot him. And by not allowing me to do what you seemed so desperate to abduct me and have me do, his blood is on your hands. Not mine,” she spat. “Or do you only intend to keep my healing ability for yourself? I think you’ve sold your men a line of crap by making them feel invincible by telling them you have a miracle worker, that no matter what happens to them, I can fix them, but in reality, you don’t give a shit about them or if they die. You merely want the unwavering, unquestioning loyalty and the attitude of invincibility so they’ll carry out your commands, no matter that they’re as insane as you are.”