Page 29 of Acts of Contrition
Lisa rolls her eyes. “What good are we to God if only half of us have any knowledge of His world? Besides, I don’t think Narnia books are going to radicalize you.”
“Tell him thank you for me, please.” Whatever brought on the show of kindness, I am smart enough to know I need to be as grateful as I’d be were he to release me.
“You can tell him yourself, later,” Catherine says. “Now, please eat. Sort your books in the cabinet as you’d like. It’s solid,I doubt you can lift it, but note that if you try to use anything as a weapon, it will be taken away.”
My eyes widen. “I’d never use a book as a weapon. I don’t want to damage one.”
Lisa laughs at that. “Yeah, lob one at Thomas’ hard head, it will definitely get damaged.”
They leave me, and I want to immediately start organizing my books, but if they return, or if my jailer does, and sees I haven’t eaten, I don’t want to deal with any sort of punishment.
I open the container and poke at the food, things I read about in books but never had the chance to try my whole life. A celebration that someone who made me sin is gone.
So Thomas killed my evil landlord. I should be terrified of that, of him. All I feel is gratitude. But now I worry about the building, everyone living there. What will happen to them? What if the next owner is worse?
There is nothing I can do about it now. So I do the one thing I can, the one thing that I loved to do since I was a child: I read.
But first I organize the ten books I was given by author name in the small cabinet, and then sit down on the floor, back against the bed, and open upThe Hobbit.
I don’t know how long I read for. The passage of time is meaningless in reality, while my mind is elsewhere, living a whole other life through these characters. I am not trapped, stuck, chained in a basement with a religious cultist who beats me to “save” me. I am an adventurer, a burglar, fighting a fire-breathing dragon protecting its stolen hoard. I am a gentle friend, a brave soul who ventured far from home to help someone else retrieve what they lost.
When I read, I am home.
When the door to my dungeon opens, I jump and realize my ass hurts.
It has to have been hours.
Thomas looks over at me from the doorway, looking more like his normal self in a white shirt and jeans — not black this time — with his hair tied back. But there is something with his expression…
He’s smiling. And not the polite smile he gave when I met him on the street, or the cunning one I often see. This is a sweet smile you’d give a friend … or a girlfriend.
How could someone who kidnaps, tortures, degrades, and murders look so … cute?
“I see you are enjoying your reward,” he says.
“Thank you, I am,” I reply.
“Mother Catherine said you have some questions about last night,” he continues, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Sit by me, put the book down.”
I do as he asks, placing the book on the metal tray where the takeout container, now empty, sits.
“I was wondering … what happens to the building my landlord owns now?”
Thomas cocks his head, as if pondering my question. He does that a lot, as if the things I say or ask don’t align with what he expects of me, and yet for these things I am never punished.
“I own that building. And all his other assets were sold to good owners and the money donated to charitable causes,” he replies.
“Will you … will you take others like you took me?” The thought of Mrs. Thompson or little Whitney being held here makes me want to vomit.
“You are the only one I want, my little dove.” His eyes are hard at the suggestion he’d take anyone else. Obsession shines inthem. “I will never replace the gift God sent to me.” He places his hand in my hair, gently tugging, as if showing possession.
I wasn’t sent to you,I think.You took me!
I nod. “Um … thank you. You made sure a lot of people were safe.”
He nods, removing his hand from my hair.
“Have you … ever worried about yourself? Since you arrived here, while you asked me what I was going to do with you, all you have spoken of are others,” Thomas says.
