My heart swells, and I close my eyes and take a breath. It seems too good to be true, this perfect specimen saying the words to me that I’ve wanted to hear for so long. She is the one I have been waiting for my whole life, beautiful and innocent and good, pure and holy, desperate and depraved.
“What sin would you like me to commit tonight, Father?”
I open my eyes and study her from behind my spectacles, her enchanting perfection, the blend of vulnerability and fierceness, softness and strength. I have not only made her an object for the boys under my command, but I’ve made her a temptress of her own accord. I watched one of the strongest boys at this school melt like putty in her hands only an hour ago.
She stands and comes around the table, and I’m not sure I’ll fair much better than a common heathen. After all, that’s what I am, despite the trappings that convince the world otherwise.
She stops beside me, biting her lip. “Father?”
I realize I haven’t answered her, that I was so captivated I forgot myself. I’m sitting there clutching my spoon and gaping at her like one of the goofy freshman boys in my class who’ve never touched a woman before.
“Yes,” I say, dropping my spoon and standing. The utensil clatters across the wooden surface and tumbles to the floor.
Mercy crouches to pick it up, as if artifice has never occurred to her, as if she’d never consider bending in a more sexual manner. It gives me a moment to collect myself and stride into the sitting area. She joins me, hurrying to catch up, as if she still doesn’t understand that she truly has the power, if she only chooses to claim it.
When she doesn’t move to sit, I pat the cushion beside me, and Mercy tucks her skirt under her and slides onto it. I think about Heath’s cum leaking out of her, how it might wet her skirt, seep through onto my couch. There are worse things that could be on the old furniture.
“I wanted you to know,” I say at last, not trusting myself to speak the truth of my desires to her. “Your friend’s shooter was arrested.”
“Really?” Mercy asks, looking startled.
I nod. “Knowing the life he chose, that may come as a surprise, but he came onto campus with a firearm,” I explain. “He was apprehended last night at a bar outside town.”
“What about the Sinners?”
I shake my head. “No other charges were filed by the university. Though the location of the shooting, the place the students call Sinners Tower, has been closed since the incident.”
“Right,” she says, nodding. “I guess it’s a crime scene. Where are the Sin—the Sinceros?”
“They’ve been reassigned to temporary housing,” I tell her.
She stares at her lap for a second, then looks up at me. “I think they might be responsible for Eternity’s disappearance,” she admits. “Their family, anyway. Do you know them?”
I nod. “Of course. They’re members of the congregation.”
“Their dad, Julian,” she says slowly. “You couldn’t tell me, if he confessed something like that, could you?”
“No, lamb,” I say, then set a reassuring hand on her knee. “But he hasn’t.”
“Really?” she asks, looking up at me with so much hope it makes even a cold heart like mine soften. The next second, she leans in, and before I know what she’s going to do, her lips skim the side of my neck. Her breath feathers over my skin, hot with yearning. I drag my hand away from her leg, balling it into a fist while I squeeze my eyes closed and wrestle to keep myself in check.
Before I have the chance, her lips brush my earlobe, and suddenly it’s all I can do to control myself, to keep from ordering her to kneel and hold up her little plaid skirt and beg for the most unholy pleasures I can give her.
“Whatever you want, I’ll do it,” she whispers, as if she can read my mind. “Just tell me when and where you want me. For you, Father, the answer is always yes.”
sixteen
The Merciful
“I want to talk to Maverick,” I say, setting my plate down as we all settle in around the table. I notice some glances and outright glares from other girls in the dining hall, but no more than on any other day since I became Angel’s official girlfriend and started sharing meals with them. Apparently the Hellhounds don’t normally sit with their girlfriends, if they have them, so this is new, especially since my three boys have broken off to sit with me instead of the rest of the group.
It’s like when we were kids, and we’d seek each other out at school during lunch or recess; at church camp where we’d sneak away from our cabin or squad to find each other. There’s a gravity in the group that draws us back, an invisible, relentless pull toward each other. Except we are no longer the Quint without Eternity. There’s a hole in our group now, an emptiness that can’t be filled. None of us dare to mention filling it with someone else, another Hellhound or even Annabel Lee. Eternity cannot be replaced.
“Why do you want to talk to Maverick?” Heath asks, narrowing his eyes at me.
“He’s the last person who saw her alive,” I say, though I can’t meet his eyes when I say it. Since we decided to find her, none of us have admitted the possibility that she’s dead, that she died that day or in the years since. Even I can’t pretend she’s fine. If she was, she would have come home.
“I’ll talk to him,” Angel says. “He probably won’t talk to you.”
