It was almost time for my monthly check up, I just realized. Any day now. Perhaps next Sunday. I wondered what they would find. Despite the soreness in my muscles and a few scratches from the Leaders, I didn’t think anything was wrong with me, but he liked to check between my legs too and sometimes, that scared me. I didn’t like what he did. It never felt right.
“The doors are locked for a reason,” Thomas replied tightly. “You are not welcome when the service is over, you know that. The doors will reopen at five. That is when you can speak to him.”
Because by that time, we would all be long gone. All of us. There wouldn’t be a shred of evidence in that Back Hall once those doors unlocked this evening.
But was he truly here to pray or was he just tired of waiting for Pastor Masters to give him access to those sacred doors? Maybehe had questioned Pastor Masters about going back there, and maybe he had been declined, and that’s why he lingered.
He had to have made the oath to become a Pillar, to become a transporter, but I suppose everyone else broke it. Why shouldn’t he?
I no longer felt any hope, but the Queen of Hearts would never have given up. She would have found a window, a secret door, a key hidden in the back of a drawer behind a false wall.
Maybe my key was hidden in those nightmares I was having.
Azrael seemed to be drawing this out, which only verified my idea that he was here collecting other kinds of data too, just not for the Elders. Maybe the Back Hall was the last thing he needed to put the nail in the holy coffin.
“And yet, here I am,” he sang, his voice closer.
My tired heart fluttered. Maybe I would get to see his shoes today.
“Clever me,” he said, a smile touching his words. “Are you going to tell daddy-dearest? Or are you going to take your pretty little pet and disappear?”
My eyes flicked up enough to see his knees from where he was nearing us yards away before they fell back to my feet.“No,”I thought, my heart ripping from my chest. Did anyone see?
“I couldn’t help it, please forgive me,”I begged the Lord.“I’m sorry, it was just for a second, just a—a moment.”
He had called me pretty. That word with his voice sounded so muchmorethan it had coming from Thomas’.
“Tell him what?”
“That I needed an extra prayer session, of course. That I needed a few extra moments to praise the great God Almighty for His blessings, glorious day!” he proclaimed, his voice echoing through the room, through my soul.
I could hear the hatred dripping in his voice when he said those words. The sea was churning, the waves building,the storms brewing. The tsunami was nearly here, everything coming to a catalyst of misery because why?
Why was this happening? Why was Azrael Thorin here? He had his own Favorites so he had to have been a part of the Church of Daylight. Maybe they had wronged him in some way. Wronged his Favorites.
There were so many stories in the Good Book about God testing his people, was this one of those tests? A man out for revenge against those who hurt his Favorites? Favorites who got caught in the crossfire between The Family and the church? I had never heard of such a thing in this life, a Pillar caring so much for their women, it seemed impossible.
Would I be one of those he hung on the cross? Punished for not being the perfect Favorite? For being attached to this place? Would we all be punished for breaking the rules? Would we all burn in Azrael’s version of holy fire?
“Do you think this is a joke?” Thomas asked, taking a step forward. “I don’t care what your agenda is, you don’t deserve to be here and as soon as I am able, I’m going to file a petition with the Elders to have you excommunicated. You don’t deserve to be a Daylighter.”
I think that’s why Azrael liked playing with him so much. Because Thomas had guessed at the truth a long time ago, but his father and the other Leaders didn’t take him seriously enough to listen. They write it off as jealousy while Azrael collects his information.
“Do what you have to do,” he hummed and walked past us.
Thomas growled under his breath before he clicked his tongue. My feet began to move automatically.
But just as Azrael and I crossed paths like ships in the night, he leaned in, his scent flooding my senses. “No braid today, little sinner?” He paused. “Pity.”
My heart leaped into my throat, and I felt a muscle around my eye twitch. They wanted to widen. My lips wanted to part, but my autopilot was far more powerful than any words said to me by any man, even him.
He had noticed.
He had given me a name.
Little sinner, that was me. But why? Did he see my braid as rebellion? It wasn’t, I was allowed. I was allowed one braid I made sure of it. Nothing in the Good Book said I wasn’t allowed to have one braid. Thomas said. Thomas said I was allowed, so I was. I made sure of it. I wassure of it.
Had I committed another sin then? Was I impure?
