“Sit,” he told me.
I found his eyes again, getting lost in the ocean of his gaze. The gaze that watched me in my own reflection with a kind of lust I had never seen before, had never felt.
I swallowed, my cheeks burning red as I took my seat in the chair across from him.
“Embarrassed, Scarlett?”
I clasped my hands together tightly and refused to answer. I wasn’t embarrassed, I was…something else. I couldn’t put a name to it. Nervous of what he would think of me now. Scared that I wasn’t enough. He had probably been doing that withpeople for years. How could I compare to that? I wanted him to bemoreobsessed with me, but how could I accomplish that when I felt like this?
All of this was far more difficult when I actually cared about the person who took my purity.
Antlers slid around my jaw, tilting my head up until my eyes found his again. “You did great,” he told me, causing my skin to warm.
He released my jaw and set his cane to the side, straightening in his chair. “We have a guest in the basement,” he went on, his entire demeanor shifting back to the man I knew well, “and while her information will be greatly appreciated once she gives it to us, you still have information locked in that pretty little brain of yours that will help us. You don’t know anything about Absolution other than the fact that it’s located in Washington. What do you know about the non-profits the church opens?”
My brows furrowed. Non-profits?“Isn’t the church a non-profit by definition?”
He nodded. “Yes, but this is different. Thomas is going to Judge Manuel Ruiz, a Superior Court Judge, to open up a non-profit on behalf of the church.”
He was the one Azrael was asking about two weeks ago.
I searched his eyes before looking down. A non-profit? Why would Thomas want to…
I looked up, finding his eyes.“He was angry that they gave the…”My face scrunched.“J.O.B. to you,”I signed.
He showed me the correct sign for ‘job’. “So, Thomas wanted to be the transporter,” he pondered, turning to his screen. “Interesting.”
I glanced at the screen and back, only seeing the back of it, which was nothing but black. I leaned forward, trying to see what he was seeing. I couldn’t imagine that he was enjoying looking at blue grainy images.
But when I caught sight of the screen, it wasn’t blue and grainy at all, it was clear. Pictures of documents and a woman—
I heard a click and the picture of the woman in the scarf disappeared. My brows pulled together, my eyes falling to the bottom of the screen.
“It’s a computer screen, little sinner, I control what you see. It only moves when I want to move it.”
I frowned, sitting back in the chair.“I thought it was blue and G.R.A.I.N.Y?”
“Sonograms are blue and grainy. Computers have the same screens that televisions do. When we watch theAlice in Wonderlandmovie, it will be on a much bigger screen than this.”
My eyes widened. I had forgotten.“When?”
“When I am ready,” he answered. “How long has Thomas wanted this job?”
I thought back, feeling the buzz of excitement under my skin at the thought of actually watching a movie.“He asked his…F.A.T.H.E.R. about it in the past,”I answered.“He wanted to make sure the kids were safe.”
Azrael studied me carefully, the gears ticking in his head, but I had thoughts ticking through my own mind.
“This is your…M.I.S.S.I.O.N. and you are trying to fill the halls with blood, but what about them? The people you transport.”
His eyes hardened. “I can’t save them all, Scarlett. I take them where I am told. Daycares, houses, other churches.”
“Was that why you were gone so often?”
“Partially,” he answered cryptically.
Azrael was quiet for a long time, and I remained silent, patiently waiting. When he went silent, it wasn’t just because he was afraid nobody would hear him, it was because he was on a trail no one could see. I would give anything in the world to see itso that I could walk alongside him, but maybe that wasn’t a part of my purpose yet.
After a minute or two, he leaned forward and pressed a button at the bottom of his screen before he pushed his chair back and stood. “Come here.”
