The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,32

a lot of them are gold, so I understand even if I dislike having to do it.

I lock the doors myself and wander over to the rectory where I live. It’s right beside Santa Cecilia, and the thin, narrow building houses only four rooms—a kitchen, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.

I currently live alone, but visiting priests sometimes lodge with me.

I hate it when they do. I like being alone, prefer the isolation over being with another who may have expectations of me. I hate limiting my behavior, and I prefer the freedom that comes with solitude.

When I finally make it into the rectory, I head straight for the kitchen.

Making myself some tea, I ponder my next move, but even though the tea is supposed to be cathartic, a means of calming me down, the edginess of being denied is there.

Although it’s at war with the surprise of being caught, the part of me who needs to make people pay for their sins has not been nourished tonight.

I close my eyes as the kettle hisses out the warning that it’s boiling. The sharp sound pierces me to the quick, but I let it.

Paulo is getting worse.

I sense it.

He won’t stop. His sobs told me that. His shame and his pity intertwine because he knows he’s weak—that he’ll fall into temptation.

Now, however, my hands are tied.

He’ll be wary of me now. When he wakes up where he did? He’ll question why he was there, why I took him to that alley. If he remembers my presence at all, that is. But he’ll know when he wakes up, won’t he? He’ll know I joined him at Carlucci’s.

I can shove aside the questions with answers that will appease, but will he trust me again?

Doubt spears me, and I regret being caught before I managed to do the deed.

The notion surprises me.

As it stands, I’m not in trouble. It’s her word against mine, but if there’d been a body? Then that would have changed things dramatically.

I rub a hand over my face as the kettle carries on whistling, and the truth hits me.

I’m getting worse.

Exactly like Paulo.

Panic starts to crowd me.

How can I not care that I might end up in jail?

How can I not care that—

I throw the kettle across the room when it won’t stop whistling. The smashing sound, the destruction as springs and metal burst apart, tearing at the soldered seams, makes something inside me quiver.

Fuck, I need to let this out. I need to get this poison out of my system.

I eye the flame of the gas stove, and the strange desire to hold my hand over it fills me.

But that will be noticed.

People will see the burn, will notice the scars.

They will question, and I can’t afford the luxury of answering.

So I switch it off, take temptation away, and I move out of the kitchen and head up the rickety stairs that are so steep, in the dark, you could fall up or down them.

When I make it into my bedroom, a simple room with no ornamentation save for a crucifix above the bed, white sheets with a colorful patchwork quilt that was left behind by my predecessor, and books on the shelves that line one wall, I head for the dresser.

The bottom drawer contains the box I need.

My throat feels full, my body vibrating with so much emotion that I don’t even know how I’ll expel it all.

Then I open the box.

And inside, the bloodstained, steel-spiked leather reveals itself to me.

My heart starts to slow at the sight of it, at the acceptance of what I must do, at the poison I must milk from my system, and I shrug out of my black suit jacket, remove the dog collar and then the shirt, and when I’m bare, I pick up the lash.

My fingers tighten around the knotted handle, and a sweet serenity slithers inside me as, with a flick of a practiced wrist, I let it fly.

The pain is excruciating.

The pain is delightful as the barbs take hold and tear at my flesh.

And with it, I find freedom, a freedom I never felt when the French government liberated me from Ishmael and his rebels.

More importantly, I find peace.

Even if it’s only momentarily.

Six

Andrea

The taxi pulled up outside the church just as he was closing the doors and locking up.

I have to admit, I find that to be fortuitous.

Or maybe serendipitous.

As I sit there, watching him leave the church entrance and walking over to a narrow building at the side