I flinch. His fingers freeze in my hair. And then, they tighten.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
My heart is a trapped bird. I want to scream, to run, but I know the physics of this room. He yanks my hair, dragging my gaze up to meet his.
“I saw how you looked at him,” he whispers, his breath smelling of wine and ancient dust. “Like he mattered more than me.”
A shaky breath. Mine. And then—the slap. Not hard enough to bruise, just enough to claim my silence. I crumble. He stands. His robes whisper as he walks behind me. I hear the sound of wood dragging across stone. A chair. Heavy.
“You’re a vessel,” he says, his voice velvet, his voice God’s. “You’re here to be filled.”
I start shaking. I want to rip my skin off. I want to crawl out of this memory and die. But my body is frozen. Just like it was then. Just like it is now.
The chair creaks as he shifts his weight, the sound loud enough to echo off stone walls that never cared for the screams they swallowed.
“You’re trembling,” he says gently. “Do you know why that is?”
I don’t answer. My tongue is a lead weight. My hands are fisted in my lap, nails biting into the palms because that is a pain I can control.
“You’re afraid of what you want,” he continues, leaning forward until his shadow swallows the candlelight. “Fear is part of devotion.”
The worddevotionmakes my stomach turn. I feel the weight of his attention like hands on my skin.
“I saw you watching the boy again,” he murmurs. “He’s angry. Anger makes boys reckless. Dangerous. He doesn’t understand what you are.”
His fingers land on my shoulder, claiming space, reminding me that my body is a colony he owns. I stare at the floor, counting the cracks in the tile. One. Two. Three.
“Good girls don’t look,” he whispers.
Then—glass. Shattering.
The candle flickers wildly. The priest jerks to his feet, fury snapping through his calm like a whip. I look up.
There he is. In the window. Wild-eyed. Bleeding. Furious.
Damien.
Not the man. The boy. His mouth is open, shouting something I can’t hear over the ringing in my ears, but I see his face twist with terror and rage as he hurls another rock. The priest spins toward me, his mask slipping to reveal the monster beneath.
“Stay here!” he snaps.
But Damien doesn’t stop. He throws himself at the world until it breaks. Chaos, shouting, hands grabbing me, dragging me toward the hall. I stumble. Trip. And then Damien is there, grabbing my wrist. Hard. Real.
“RUN!” he yells.
I don’t think. I just run. Bare feet slapping against stone, heart trying to beat its way free as I tear into the night.
The memory fractures. Jagged.
My body jerks violently in the present. Air floods my lungs in a broken sob as the chapel snaps back into place. Damien’s hands catch me before I hit the floor. I clutch his shirt, my fingers shaking.
“You…” My voice shatters. “You told me to run.”
He goes very still. And in that stillness, I know. He remembers it exactly the same way.
“You told me to run.”
The words are a confession I didn’t know I was making. His fingers tighten around my arms—not to hurt, but to anchor.
