Page 24

The TV glow lights up the small room as a monster chases after the screaming final girl, but I haven’t bothered glancing at the movie even once. Not when my little songbird is fast asleep next to me, looking like the most gorgeous angel that could ever walk this earth.

The day was mostly quiet, but I could sense her peace with each passing fright, like the trauma that happened to her last night was being pulled away, tucked into her chest for another time.

I can’t stop thinking of her stepfather’s hands on her. His fingers even grazing the spots I long to worship. He grabbed her pussy, and he tried to steal from her what wasn’t his.

June holds Diablo to her, and for some reason, the cat lets her. He’s cuddled in her arms, acting as the perfect little spoon. I lean over and pat his butt. The cat jerks up with a guttural meow and looks over at me.

“Keep her safe,” I whisper. “I’ll be back soon.”

Diablo only flops his head back onto her arm, snuggling his fur against her skin.

Standing, I creep back into my room. I haven’t wanted to leave June’s side—even last night when the rage was threatening to boil over. Even when she fell asleep and all I could think of were the welts marring her skin, the black eye we’d been icing all day. Even when I thought about her in nothing but that drenched gray hoodie.

I didn’t leave her then. But tonight, she’s fast asleep. Tonight, she has a little more peace.

I’ll make it quick.

I pull up to the small little familiar house, its white exterior dirty and in desperate need of a power wash. I can’t help but think of June and her fucking stepdad as I see the grime slither up the white wood, mold and dirt, and who knows what else slowly infecting the house.

Shutting the car off, I step outside into the cold night and zip my hoodie all the way up, tightening the leather gloves covering my hands. My mask is already pulled snuggly over my face, but unlike when I was here for June, there will be no Salvation in the home tonight.

Taking an empty bag with me, and a kitchen knife from the church’s apartment, I walk around back—back to June’s room, back to the window I know is still open for me. I’ll grab some clothes for her, anything that might look important to her, and then she’ll never have to come back here.

And what I’ll do to her parents? I haven’t decided yet. My hands are aching to be wrapped around Daren’s throat or plunging the blade into his gut, but I only brought the kitchen knife just in case. I have only ever killed cultists, those who attempt to bring true evil into our world, who try to sow chaos and hurt and fear, who sacrifice, rape, and butcher innocents in the name of their gods. I have never killed anyone for anything else.

Yet for the first time, I want to. I want to kill the man who touched June. I want to slice his fingers off, one by one, and feed them back to him. I want to burn his palms for grabbing her tits, and I want to stab his eyes out for even daring to look at her. But just because I want to, doesn’t mean I will. I have a code I try to live by, no matter how fucked it is. It is the only thing that can tell me I’m better than them. I’m not delusional enough to believe God will grant me mercy since I’m killing his enemies. I know I’m not getting into Heaven. He said murder is a sin, and I am in no way absolved from that. But I don’t want to become another evil on earth either.

I slide the window up, and it smoothly opens as I expected it to, and when I swing myself into June’s room—it’s a total mess.

There are clothes and things everywhere, most torn up, but some . . .

My jaw clenches and for a second, all I see is red.

Her underwear drawer is pulled open, the panties all thrown about and . . . riffled through. It isn’t till I take a step closer that I also see they’re covered in dried cum, with her pink panties that I bought her sitting right at the top, covered completely.

“Fucking creep,” I hiss, trying to breathe through the leather. Taking a few steps back before I kick something, I look for anything June might want, a journal, a dress, a coat, a stuffed animal—anything. But everything in here feels as though it doesn’t actually belong to her. The clothes are more of the frumpy worn pieces I’ve seen her wear. The books are all ancient and shoved in a bookcase with a layer of dust covering them—and they’re all weird religious books that I wouldn’t even touch.

The only thing I find that might be anything worthy to her is a small songbook I find in the drawer next to her bed. It’s full of notes and worn sheet music for the organ. I stash it in the bag, and after another sweep, I realize I’ve taken what I can.

Fuck. I can’t even take her a fucking pair of underwear because of the bastard. Does her mother know what he’s done in here? What he’s done to her?

A door opens from somewhere else in the house, followed by footsteps wandering into the hall. It’s not that late, June fell asleep by nine and I had to be in my car by ten, so it’s gotta be before eleven. But as I continue to hear the ruffling of clothes and the jingle of keys, I realize this is more than just a nighttime bathroom trip.

Someone is going somewhere.

As the front door opens and closes, I also hop from the window. The house’s lights are off, but the neighbors and streetlights are all illuminated, making the sky seem more black and devoid of stars.

I creep around toward the front of the house, staying close to the wall, and spot Daren falling into the seat of his car with what looks like a Bible in his hands.

As soon as I see his taillights, I dash to my car and get in. I keep my headlights off and follow from a decent distance behind, making sure not to be too obvious.

Though it doesn’t help being two of the only cars on the road.

Daren drives through Belmouth, passing St. Mary’s where June is sound asleep, and doesn’t come to a stop until he is just outside of town. He swings the car just behind the Welcome to Belmouth sign, where I notice a handful of cars have already parked. At least five others line up, including a patrol car, and vehicles I recognize from the church.

What the fuck is this?

Still keeping my distance, I see Daren get out of the car with the Bible still in hand. He’s sporting a large bandage on his forehead where I can only assume June hit him with the idol.

That’s my girl , I think.

I count to ten, waiting for Daren to just barely be visible before I get out of the car and follow after him. He walks into an alley between two buildings before disappearing into the woods.

The moment I pass through the line of trees, every sense in my body is telling me to run . I feel the cross tattooed on my finger begin to itch and burn as the smell of . . . charcoal and rotten eggs clouds my nose.

Demons.

Fuck. What the fuck is Daren doing here?

I follow him farther, stepping carefully and keeping to the shadows. But I feel something watching me from behind—something that has been following me since I entered these woods.

And it isn’t human.

I veer away from Daren’s path. I can come back tomorrow and try to retrace his steps, but I can’t do that if he finds out I’d been following him. So, I lure the thing following me away. If it’s going to attack, let it do so where Daren can’t see, can’t hear.

The woods are dark, the moon hidden behind the clouds of the tops of the trees, and each shadow puts me on edge. Is it just another tree? Or a demon waiting to rip my throat open?

After I feel we’re far enough away, I pull the rosary from my pocket and come to an abrupt stop. The moment the cross emerges from my pocket, the leaves around me rustle, and a tiny hoard of imps peer out from between the trees, in the bushes, and out from the shadows.

There has to be at least fifteen ugly baby faces grinning with those disgusting tiny, sharp teeth and gleaming those golden goat eyes.

“Blessed Michael, archangel,” I begin, and the beasts lunge toward me, wicked claws displayed and aimed right for my gut. “Defend us in the hour of conflict.”

I slump back to the car, my fists bloodied and bruised, but content that I was able to send all the fuckers back to Hell. Imps are like mosquitoes, more annoying than anything else—but like mosquitoes often hovering near water, imps hover near demons.

If Daren is a cultist, that just made my life a whole lot fucking easier.

Sliding into the car, I drape the metal rosary on the rear-view mirror. It’s hot to the touch from use, and the three scratched up beads call my attention. If all goes how I want it to, there will soon be a fourth scratched bead to match the other.

I turn to see the small bundle of what I rescued from June’s, and can’t help but wince. It’s nothing—less than nothing.

Sighing as soon as I turn the car on, I send off a quick text.

Me: Hey, call me when you wake up. I need to borrow your ear.

Before I can even put my phone back in my pocket, it vibrates with a notification.

Willow: Still up—call now?

Of course she fucking is.

I click the call button, and at the end of the first ring, I hear a loud and long, “Well hello, hello, stranger.”

Willow has been my best friend for nearly twenty-five years—maybe more honestly. Her and Rowan are twins, and though he was who I became friends with first, that has never stopped her from being all up in my business.

“My ear is yours to borrow.”

“What the Hell are you doing up?” I grunt into the phone.

“Oh, you know.” The phone ruffles in the background, and I can tell she put me on speaker and then threw her phone across the room. “When creativity calls.”

Willow is a video editor. She works freelance for a handful of clients on rotation, and because of the flexible schedule, she is always up way late into the night. Which suits her just fine, as she’s always been a “stay up till morning and sleep till the afternoon” kind of person.

“Anyway, I know you didn’t call to ask about my latest ad run, so what do you need?” She huffs a breath. “And why has it taken you so damn long to call me?”

I huff a laugh as I pull onto the road back to St. Mary’s.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Ah, of course, exorcising and shit.”

“Hey, you’re talking to a priest.”

“ Hey, you’re talking to a priest, my ass.”

I shrug. Fair enough.

“I need your opinion—or your help, I guess. But Will, you cannot say anything to Rowan or Rodrigo.”

She laughs. “Ooo, is it as juicy as all the tattoos you’ve been hiding from Padre all this time?”

I don’t answer, letting the silence wean her into agreeing. Eventually, she does. “Urgh, fine, I won’t tell RoRo.” A name she’s given the two since her brother became a priest. They’re basically the same person now , she said to explain the God-awful name. “Anyway, tell me everything .”

“I, uh, met someone.”

I don’t even know how to explain June, how to convey all the feelings and emotions I’ve developed for this girl in just the last few days. So, I tell Willow everything. All the nights of stalking, the beatings I’ve found on her, and now—the pinnacle of it all from last night.

Willow is silent on the other side, and this is why she’s the person I trust with anything and everything. She never judges, she only lets me explain and then offers her help. Even in my dark days, even in my darker days, she was always there, always my soundboard.

“Whoa, she’s had it rough,” Willow whispers, shock coating her voice. “Is she . . . is she okay? I mean, of course she’s not, but—”

“She’s managing,” I say. “But, Will, she’s got nothing. Like, less than nothing. Not even a pair of socks to her name.”

“Does she have any friends she can talk to?”

I sigh. “Not that I know of. She’s twenty-five and doesn’t own a cellphone. I think her mother didn’t let her have a life of her own at all.”

Willow sighs also. “Fuck. Do you want me to go up? Maybe a little girl time’ll help her. And lord knows I need a break from this place.”

“I think it’d help.”

“All right, give me a few days. In the meantime, maybe take her shopping. If it was as bad as you said it was, June’s probably never been allowed to pick out her own clothes. It might help her, I don’t know, find some part of herself she had locked away.”

Which is exactly what I want. I’ve seen glimpses of the real June. I know she’s in there.

June has seen the real me, the savage, crazed, obsessed version of myself—and has preferred it to the fake version of myself I convey at church.

Now, I want the real her. Even if I have to pull it out of her myself.