Counter Lotus

Chapter 28

"Okay, so because you forgot a condom, he's going to Hell. Makes total fucking sense. So please enlighten me then: what's his punishment for doing nothing wrong?!" I was so unnerved, so fired up, but I needed to chill out. Taking a deep breath, I tried again with less bite in my voice. "When you are damned, do you really just... burn in Hell after you die?"

"It depends. There can be pain and torture. It's more like... service for those that are useful. Jamie would be one of the useful ones. It's hard to describe."

I shook my head. "That's so unfair to be sent there when you don't deserve it."

The same frustration I shared seeped into his voice. Tucking his hands in his pockets, his tattooed arms tightened with tension. "It's very unfair. That's why when she became pregnant, I was determined to do something. I needed to figure out how to save his soul. That is all I wanted, all I could think about, even after he was born. I wanted to take away that burden I placed on our child." He exhaled sharply, voice filling with a venomous note. "Thanks to Famine, my wife took that burden instead."

"What do you mean?"

He spoke slower, stressing these next key words. "Famine is a businessman.... Remember?"

That reminder... it helped connect the disturbing dots. All the loose pieces that were scattered started to sew together. Famine was a businessman involved in deal-making. One who could offer anything to anyone. And with what I learned earlier... about his wife selling her soul to save their sons... well, I hated the picture these dots created. Fuck. Hopefully, Peter will shut down my line of thinking.

I swallowed, speaking cautiously. "Famine... offered to spare Jamie's soul? By convincing her to sell hers?"

His eyes were locked on the ground. "She didn't need convincing."

I couldn't believe it. Couldn't imagine it. Jamie was born with a damned soul, so his mother saved it... by making a deal with Famine. This was more than a heart-breaking story. Knowing this shit was even possible, that a deal like that could be made... scared the shit out of me. It added a whole other layer of devastation in my eyes.

We split from the condo's pathway, walking through the grass to a clearing in the trees. I didn't even realize we strayed from the ritzy landscape until it opened up next door to a wide and hilly golf course. Damn. We really were in a high-end part of this small town. We mindlessly found our way to a cement golf-cart path. It guided us through spacious trees next to the open acres of tamed grass. I was too consumed to care about the beautiful transition. I was just lost in his shocking story.

"I can't imagine that. Her selling her soul to save his. I can't imagine... what that was like for you."

"Imagine finding out that your spouse did that behind your back too."

My eyes widened. "She did?" Yeah, I really could not imagine that.

"She sure did."

Your son is damned, your wife saves him by making a deal that damns her own soul. Oh, and she did it behind Peter's back. Wrapping my head around that was hard. This wasn't just life and death. This was life, death, and eternity after death. And she traded her eternity, her soul, without even discussing it over dinner with her hubby. Like holy lord, what in the fuck kind of world were we living in?!

"She just couldn't take it anymore," he explained. "I reassured her we had time. We had Jamie's whole life to figure out a solution. I tried so hard to convince her we would figure it out... but she knew it wasn't that easy. She knew the ways of my world almost as much as I did."

"So, what happened? She sought him out to make this deal?"

"Yes. Only after Famine visited us on an unrelated issue. He planted the seed first."