The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,10

my jaw. “What do you wish me to say, my son?” He isn’t my son. “I stopped absolving you of your sins because you refused to adjust your behavior. Yet here you are now, with more sins on your soul... how can I guide you down the path of atonement if you’re not penitent?”

“But I am, Father. I’m penitent. I regret—”

Fury swarms me like a tornado that’s reached its peak. “You regret nothing,” I hiss. “You wandered down this road yourself. You could have abstained, you could have avoided this fate, instead, you walked straight into it. You could have been candid with your wife, led your life with the free will God granted you, but instead, you hid behind your image, behind your name and position in the town, and chose to lie with a prostitute—” Anger has me breaking off, and I shake my head, even though he can’t see me, before I press it back into the wall behind me.

Sometimes, this booth feels like the cell back in Oran.

I’m not sure whether that’s reassuring or hell itself.

Mouth dry, I reach for the water bottle I have for these moments when my past threatens to overwhelm me. But because I’m not weak, I don’t lace it with whisky like I want.

Once my mouth is wet, I drop the bottle on the ground and my fists turn into hard balls that I dig into my lap.

I know what’s wrong with me, so does the Church. It’s why I’m here, in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere—because I’m a charity case.

They wanted to retire me, but I couldn’t. How could I? Retire? At thirty-two? Impossible.

So, when I wish to drown myself in alcohol, I make myself take a sip of water.

And I pretend.

I pretend and I abstain, because unlike Dirk, I’m strong.

Incredibly strong.

Strong enough to live. Strong enough not to take the razor blades to my wrists when the urge to escape hits me.

When I hear Dirk blubbering beside me, I wonder how he has the audacity to come to me, to force me to listen to his nonsense.

They all know who I am.

They all know what I’ve been through.

And they’re all slightly scared of me, as well as faintly in awe.

They know I’m a survivor. They know what I’ve done for my faith, even though I’m not entirely sure I believe in what originally took me to the priesthood in the first place.

But what else can I do?

This is me.

I just...

Listening to these sinners, men who are diluted versions of the bastards who held me captive for years, sickens me.

I want to punish them as they deserve to be punished—make them pay.

An idea clicks into my head, and I shudder with it.

It’s wrong.

So wrong.

I’m a man of God.

But...

The church isn’t enough.

If anything, it’s soft soap to the sins on people’s souls—cleaning them instead of cleansing them.

Dirk will not learn.

He won’t.

I know his type.

He’s a hypocrite. He’s staunch in the fact that he’s a respected man about town, his family solid with ties to this place that are cemented for decades to come.

He’ll carry on sneaking off, paying men to service him behind his wife’s back, and he’ll hurt those men if he doesn’t learn his lesson and they take advantage of his weakness to blackmail him.

Another priest might care about him being gay. I don’t give a damn. I care about his sins.

So many of them.

Like shadows on his soul.

And the other shadow on my soul?

The poor kid who Dirk just murdered.

I foresaw this happening. Like night follows day, I saw it, and I did nothing to stop it.

That’s on me. His death, his blood are on my hands, making them my sins.

I have enough of those to pay for, enough that I know I’ll never be walking through heaven’s gates. I don’t need this bastard’s misdeeds weighing me down when the Devil embraces me as he welcomes me to eternal suffering.

And if he will, if Lucifer himself welcomes me into that fiery kingdom, I want the right kind of sins blackening my soul.

The kind that makes restitution for the sins of others.

Dirk knows what my silence means. I hear the latch of the door and know he’s about to slink out like the serpent he is. But unlike every other time I refuse to give into his wailing, I murmur, “You see the wrong you’ve done, my child?”

He pauses, and the door latch clicks as it closes. “Y-Yes, Father. I see it. I know I did