Page 49 of Crossed

A crack sounds from beside the large dumpster at the end of the alley, and it’s loud enough to make us both jump and for Andrew’s grip to slacken. I don’t waste the opportunity, ramming my elbow into his stomach and slipping beneath his arms, my stomach heaving as I sprint away.

I don’t stop and I sure as hell don’t look back, only slowing down when I make it to the bus stop where there’s a few people already waiting. There’s safety in numbers.

Glancing behind me and not seeing Andrew, I relax, hunching over and resting my hands on my knees, my lungs burning from the exertion and my body stinging from the shock. My hands shake and my mouth turns sour, and I close my eyes to keep from throwing up.

It’s ten minutes before the bus shows up, and it takes every single one for me to calm down. To convince myself that everything is fine. That I’m overreacting. That if I talk to my boss, Phillip, he’ll ban Andrew from ever coming back in the club and everything can go back to the way it was before.

By the time I make it back to the apartment, I’ve done my best to wipe the experience from my mind, not wanting Dalia to pick up on anything being wrong. Luckily, she’s not even awake when I get home, so I slip in as quietly as possible and closing the door once I’m in my room.

And that’s where I stay for the rest of the night. In my bed, burrowing in the covers and pretending that I’m choosing to stay awake.

Chapter18

Cade

WHEN I WAS A YOUNG CHILD, I WAS FILLED WITH untenable rage. It crashed through my system like a hurricane, lighting up every single nerve and throwing it into chaos.

I was angry.

Angry at my parents, whomever they were, for giving me up as soon as I was born.

Angry at them for dropping me in a dumpster, like it was justthateasy to take back the gift of life.

Angry at the people who found me and took me to that terrible orphanage instead of anywhere else.

And angry at the world for not giving me anyone who cared when I ran away from that horrid place at seven years old.

It was only when I found seminary that I was able to compartmentalize properly. To take things apart, analyze them, and then put them back together, fitting them into a new mold and learning that if I put all my faith in Him, He wouldn’t lead me astray.

BecauseHecares. And He forgives.

The reason became clear one night during prayer, my insides aching with scars as I askedwhy?And I heard His voice as surely as my own, whispering the answers.

It was an epiphany realizing that all the pain, all the strife, all theunfairnessof life was thrust upon me because I was His loyal soldier: here to experience the worst of the worst and come out stronger. To recognize it within myself so I could help heal it in others. I fell into the role effortlessly, and for a brief moment in time, I believed I was cured myself.

But then another voice slithered its way back into my head, one that convinced me healing them wasn’t enough. A need, putrid and violent, rose up inside me like it never left, and when I took a nighttime walk to try and cast it away, whateveritwas took the reins instead.

That was the first night I killed a man.

It felt incredible. I reasoned away the guilt while it was happening, that voice in my head saying it was ourduty. That he was sick with demons, the same way I was as a boy.

“There’s a sickness in you, child, and God wants me to beat it out.”

Sister Agnes’s voice murmured in my head, telling me I was doing the right thing.

Therighteousthing.

It was only once the adrenaline left and the thrill of holding another man’s life in my hands faded away that I was able to feel the gaping hole of truth.

There’s still a sickness in me too.

So I went home, and I beat it out.

The cycle continues to this day, but none of it—not a single moment of that anger—compares to the fury that’s coursing through me at the sight of another man touching Amaya in the private rooms at the Chapel and herlikingit.

They’re both lucky that she came to her senses before I could rip open the curtain and tear his eyeballs from his sockets. Even now, as I wait for her in the back alley, I’m shaking with the unsteady feeling.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, and visions of her eyes closed, mouth parted, and chest flushed with her arousal flash through my mind, my chest burning with jealousy.