Becki kneeling in the cemetery, praying to something older than God.Her long dark hair whipping wild around her face.Her voice echoing across the graves like a prophecy.
“You were born for fire.”
The ground splits beneath us.
I wake with my fists clenched and her name in my mouth like a damn curse I never learned how to break.
Chapter 27
Sophie
The back room of Pearly Gates smells like old paper and secrets curdled in the dark.Mold.Dust.Something sour underneath that reminds me of meat left out too long.I breathe through my mouth and try not to imagine how many girls stood in this room before they vanished off the face of the earth.
Crowley doesn’t know I’m in here.
Yet.
I thumb through the Reverend’s filing cabinet, labels that look innocent on the outside, hiding rot underneath.The first folder I open hits me like a punch.Donor lists mixed with coded initials.Ledger entries that don’t match the church’s books.Cash amounts next to aliases.Ages next to locations.
At first, I think I’m reading them wrong.
Then I see it.Hidden in Crowley’s neat, looping handwriting.
LOST.
I freeze.
My hand goes numb around the page.
Some of these names… I know them.Girls who left Pearly Gates in a flurry of whispered prayers.Girls Crowley claimed went off to “mission work.”Girls who walked into Sunday service and were never seen again.
One name makes my stomach flip.
Delilah.
Pretty little Delilah who used to sling bourbon in leather shorts at the Fire Pit.Soft-spoken, with bruises she hid under too much makeup.She “found God” too fast.Crowley’s God.She disappeared three weeks later.
But folks said she moved to Florida to live with her sister.
Crowley marked her file with one word.
Handled.
My knees weaken.I slam the drawer shut because if I don’t, I’ll tear every file apart and burn this church down plank by plank.
Footsteps.
Shit.
I step back from the cabinet just as the doorknob rattles.
“Sophie?”
I swallow hard, smooth my hair back, and open the door before he can try again.
The Reverend fills the doorway, tall and serene in that way only the wicked ever manage.His eyes flicker past me toward the filing cabinet, but when he looks back at me, he’s already wearing the mask he’s perfected.
“Looking for something, child?”
