The door slammed open again.
Isaac flinched awake, curling tight. The candlelight spilled across the room. Boots scraped the floor. Metal clanged.
Two of the hooded figures were dragging someone between them—his legs trailing, his head hanging low.
At first Isaac thought it was another stranger, another one of them. But then the light hit the face.
"Paul?"
The word came out like a broken breath.
Paul's face was a mess of blood and dirt. His hands were bound behind him. He looked up just long enough to find Isaac's eyes, and something flickered there—pain, fear, maybe both.
"Isaac…" he rasped. "They—they found me. I tried to find you."
One of the cultists slammed a knee into his back, forcing him to his knees. Another spoke in that calm, sermon voice Isaac is starting to hate.
"Even the betrayer can serve, if his blood still holds guilt."
Isaac's hands tightened on the bars. "Leave him alone! Please!"
The man turned to him, smiling through the hood. "No tears, child. You will understand soon. Trust must be proven twice."
He gestured to the others. "Put him with the boy."
Paul was hauled across the floor and thrown into the empty cage beside Isaac's. The door slammed shut behind him. Chains rattled as they locked it.
Paul coughed hard, leaning against the bars. "Isaac… I'm so sorry. I should have protected you."
Isaac reached through the space between the cages, grabbing his sleeve. "You came. I knew you'd come."
Paul's breath shook, a pained smile pulling at his mouth.
The cultists lingered only long enough to light another candle between the cages. Then they left, the door closing with a deep, final sound.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. The light flickered between them, painting everything gold and red.
Isaac wiped his face with his sleeve. "They said things about blood… and trust… I don't know what they mean."
Paul swallowed hard. "Don't listen to them. They twist everything holy until it rots."
He shifted closer to the bars, lowering his voice. "We'll get out. I don't know how yet, but I'll find a way. You just need to hold on a little longer."
Isaac nodded, tears streaking his cheeks. "I'm scared."
"I know." Paul reached his fingers through the bars. Isaac gripped them tight. "You're stronger than you think."
From the shadows above, the hallucination's voice hissed softly.
"A touching scene. Hand in hand through the slaughterhouse."
Isaac pressed his forehead to Paul's hand. "Stop talking to me," he whispered.
Paul blinked at him, confusion flickering for a second. "Who are you talking to?"
"N-no one."
Paul didn't push. His thumb brushed the back of Isaac's hand once before he withdrew. "Rest if you can."
Isaac tried, curling up again. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw his father's face. He saw Paul on the floor of the woods. He saw the red car, broken in two.
The voice murmured against his ear, "Trust twice, bleed once."
He didn't understand what it meant. He didn't want to.
Across from him, Paul watched until Isaac's breathing steadied. His own face softened, the exhaustion falling away for just a moment. Then he whispered something under his breath—too soft for Isaac to hear.
"Ephesians 5:19—Speak to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…"
He smiled faintly at the verse, eyes half-closed, as if speaking to someone unseen.
Outside the room, faint footsteps echoed. Someone whispered through the door, "At dawn."
Paul nodded to himself. His hands tightened around the chains behind him—not struggling.
Isaac stirred, half-awake.
Through the flicker of the candlelight, he saw Paul still sitting upright, staring quietly at the wall.
"Paul?" he mumbled.
Paul turned his head and smiled, gentle as ever. "I'm here, Isaac. Go back to sleep."
Isaac believed him.
And as his eyes drifted shut again, he never saw Paul's smile fade into something empty—something rehearsed.
---
The chamber above the holding room smelled of wax and iron. Thirteen candles burned in a circle around the stone table, their light trembling over parchment and bloodstained ledgers.
A man in gray robes dipped a quill into ink so dark it almost looked red. His voice rasped as he read from the open record:
"Seventeen children taken in the past month. Twelve still viable. Three were wasted—fear curdled the trust too early."
He wrote the numbers carefully, each stroke precise.
Another cultist—the same thin, hollow-eyed man who had spoken with Paul before—stood near the table, hands clasped behind his back.
"The boy in the lower chamber?" he asked.
"Still faithful," the scribe replied. "Even after the staging. The protector's act has deepened his belief. The blood of trust will flow clean."
The thin man smiled faintly. "Good. The scripture was right again. 'Make the most of every opportunity, for the days are evil.' We waste nothing—not even love."
A younger acolyte hesitated near the doorway, her hands trembling around a copper basin. "What happens after dawn, Brother? Will the others be used too?"
"Of course," the thin man said. "All faith has its price. Each child offers a different note in the hymn. But the boy—" he gestured downward, toward the stone beneath their feet— "his song is the heart. His trust is pure. His grief unbroken. The offering will open the way."
He turned toward the scribe. "Prepare the vessels. The incense, the scripture, and the blade. At first light, the cleansing begins."
The scribe nodded and continued writing, the scratching of his quill the only sound for a while.
When he finished the last line, he whispered it aloud like a prayer:
"Through love we bind, through sorrow we open, through trust we draw the dawn."
Below them, in the cages, Isaac slept fitfully.
Paul—eyes open, face calm, smiled faintly, as if the ritual's first verse had already begun.