Page 2 of Viper

Or maybe he took the last dregs of mine.

But I know that’s not true. Cruel hands slashed away my innocence while I kneeled in a dark room with rose-scented candles and whispered sins.

Breaker gave his innocence away. He exchanged it for a single night of meaningless sex with a complete fucking stranger. I don’t know which part pisses me off more. That he gave his virginity to a random woman he picked up in a bar between missions—a woman who didn’t give a shit about him—or that he chose to sleep with someone two days after that night in the hotel when I let him strip me of all my barriers.

“We don’t have to be here.” Breaker gestures to the hilltop, eyeing me strangely. Part of me wonders if he knows the secrets I keep. He lifts his chin toward the path ahead. “Whatever is up there can stay in the past.”

“The woman in the village said the place isn’t even here anymore,” Striker adds, catching up with us. He looks around, then to the copse of trees, before his gold eyes land on me. “We can go back.”

“I have to see it,” I say.

What I don’t tell him is I need to see, to know it’s gone, so I can bury the past. Leave behind the corrosive thoughts in this God-forsaken place and be done with them. And maybe, just maybe, I can fucking breathe. Live. Be at peace.

Without explaining further, I continue on, my gut churning, knowing that we should be able to spot the tops of the towers above the tree line, but it’s just more sky and gray clouds.

The woman in the tavern we stopped at told us the old school was in ruins, which seems impossible. It was such a massive structure, with tall stone walls and angled roofs that covered the sins that lived within its dark halls. Stained glass windows depicting saints and fallen angels. Cold drafts in secret rooms filled with punishing pain. All this for a God who felt too distant to care about a boy in an orphanage.

There is no way it’s just gone.

It takes us another minute to reach the top, but when we do, we freeze, taking in the scene.

“Jesus,” Striker whispers. He steps off the path, inching forward, hands the pockets of his jeans. “What do you think happened?”

Destruction. Damnation.

A cleansing.

“What was this place?” Breaker asks. “It looks like…” He doesn’t continue. We know what it looks like.

“Saint Theresa School for Boys,” I say, my heart doing a weird tumble in my chest. “This is where Fallon found me.”

Striker glances over his shoulder at me, then down to the ground. Large stones scatter the landscape, stuck at odd anglesin the damp emerald grass. Only a few walls remain upright, all scorched with long black lines that snake up toward the sky. The large opening in the cathedral wall that held stained glass, now gapes empty and vacant.

“Looks like the place burned to the ground,” he says. “How long ago did she say this place—”

“Eighteen years ago,” I say, cutting him off.

“So you’d have been, what?” Breaker asks. “Seven?”

I nod absently, taking a step forward, careful not to step on the thick black stones embedded in the ground.

“It must have been one hell of a fire,” Breaker says. “This place looks like a fucking bomb went off.”

Striker kicks at a large stone, covered in moss. “Didn’t you mention Fallon brought you to the school when you were six?”

My heart hammers, that old fear digging into the back of my neck like talons. I don’t answer as I move ahead, mindful of each step. He knows the answer. It was in the file.

“Excuse me!” Behind us, a voice carries over the ruins, and we turn to find a man somewhere in his forties rushing up the path, waving at us.

“Who the fuck is that?” Striker asks as Breaker stalks forward to meet the man halfway.

His shaggy red hair frames a handsome but open face, covered in freckles. A woven brown sweater covers his broad chest, and worn jeans stretch over his thick legs. He has a stocky, hardworking look to him, like everyone else who lives here. When he reaches Breaker, he pulls out a piece of paper about the size of a photograph and hands it to him.

“My mum thought you’d want this,” he says with a thick accent, eyeing me as Breaker inspects the paper. “She told me to come up here and make sure you got the picture.”

“Your mother is the woman from the tavern?” I ask.

“Aye,” he says. “Mum told me to get up here and give ya that photo. Said you may want it.”