The tiny gesture shouldn’t affect me. It does.
My heart flutters hard enough I feel it in my throat.
“This isn’t an exorcism,” I murmur, “It’s a cleansing. Do you know of Psalm 23?” Trey shakes his head.
“Not much of a bible-er.” His honesty catches me off guard, and I nearly laugh.
“So, you’ve never read it?” I ask.
“If I say no, will you forgive me?” Then he pauses. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to joke.”
“What part?” I ask, curious.
“Oh, you know. The whole Christian thing…What are you going to do—forgive me?”
This time a smile curls my lips. I move in front of him and press my oil-dipped thumb to his forehead.
“Maybe some,” I whisper. “Anyway, this is holy oil. Consecrated. Think of it as a way to push out anything that might’ve tried to stay with you. Anything dark. Anything broken.”
“Too late,” he murmurs. “It’s already in me.”
“No,” I whisper. “Not all of it. Not yet.”
He looks up at me, and for a moment, there’s nothing between us but silence, smoke and the ache of thing’s I’ll never say out loud. I raise my free hand and make the sign of the cross above his bowed head. I want to offer a prayer… but honestly, if father knew I used his oil on a stranger—meeting with a man in the middle of the night—the thrashing I’d receive. The words won’t come. Not Psalm 23. Not Psalm 91. Not Ephesians 6:10–18. I can’t ask for protection when I’ve seen how mercy gets twisted in the hands of those meant to deliver it.
“So…I’m good now, right? No demon possession?” Trey sniffs, poking at his forehead, then sniffs his fingers.
“It that olive oil?”
“Consecrated oil.” I say.
“So… If I had a salad with it, would that be blasphemy?”
I try not to laugh. I really do. But it bubbles out—soft at first, then louder, until I'm shaking. Stomach clenching. Shoulders trembling. When I realize the noise, I stop cold. I strain to listen—nothing from upstairs. No creak of the floorboards. No slam of a door. I exhale, slow and careful, then lower to my knees beside him. For a second, we’re not a priest’s daughter and a lost sinner. We’re not bruised or broken. We’re just two people, trying to feel whole.
I don’t mean to touch him. But as I set the bottle down, my fingers graze his.
The heat of it. The jolt. Like a thread pulled taut between us—tight, trembling, impossible to ignore. His hand twitches. Then he wraps it around mine. I should flinch. Pull away. Say something sharp enough to cut through the strange softnessunfurling in my chest. But I don’t. I stay right here—still, breath shallow, skin to skin with a stranger.
Trey watches me like he sees too much. Like he sees more than I want him to. “You don’t have to tell me,’’ he says softly, “but… if you ever need help—real help—I know people. A place.” He shifts, reaching into his jacket. The leather creaks, damp and slow, as he pulls out a small square of paper, worn and soft at the edges. He presses it into my palm. I glance down. An address. Portland. Not a shelter. Not a church. And his name scribbled along the bottom. Trey Baker.
“If you go there,” he says, “give them my name. They’ll take care of you. No questions. No judgment.”
My brows pull together. “Why?”
His voice drops. “Braden. He did it for me. Now I’m paying it forward. You matter, Seraphina. Let me help you.”
I look back at the paper in my hand. My throat tightens.
“I don’t deserve this,” I whisper.
Trey meets my gaze, his eyes fierce in the candlelight. “You don’t get to decide that.”
His voice softens, like he’s trying not to scare me. “I don’t know what you’re going through, Sera. But fate doesn’t screw around. I ended up here tonight for a reason. Something wanted me to find you.”
I want to believe him.
That the universe didn’t just spit me out into the path of another man who’ll take more than he gives. That maybe… maybe this one’s different. I don’t let go of the paper.
