Page 88 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

No, not crawls.

Coaxed.

Someone—not Mercy—shouts something. It triggers a sharp, visceral sense of deja vu, of moving in water, stormy skies, and a dark hunger deep enough to drown in.

It fills my limbs with violence and destroys my mind. I look up, over Mercy’s hips, and hunt for the sense of familiarity.

Like me.

Whoever it is, whatever it is, they’re like me.

I thought I was alone.

This notion was the key to the lock on my cage, not the aching desire for Mercy. It is the realization that I am not alone… and that she is in danger.

Mercy’s eyes widen on me. I know she sees my devil in my eyes, but it’s too late for me to control it now.

Maybe she should see it.

Maybe she should run because now that it’s out, I want to ruin her with it.

But a good ruin. My ruin.

First, I will hunt down the other and devour it first. I will sup on their sin and add it to mine. I will⁠—

Mercy torpedoes my side, and we careen overboard.

Icy water hits me like a thousand razor blades cutting into my flesh. Bubbles and chlorine burn my eyes, swarm around me, from me.

I see red hair, or is it blond? The color, the reflections, the ghosts take over, and I am not in a pool anymore. I am in the sea in Naples, fighting through waves and grasping at slippery limbs too thin to fit in my hand’s grip. I latch onto the rosary around her neck.

There, it breathes into my mind, filling me with relief. Doesn’t that feel better? Doesn’t that fill the spot?

A malevolent force swirls around me, kissing my skin, lifting my hair, humming and roaring.

Let her go.

She was only weighing you down.

Let her go.

I stop fighting, the rosary snaps, and Maria is gone … fading … growing smaller and murkier while I am sinking with relief.

I close my eyes against the anguish, stop fighting the waves, and I sink. Guilt weighs me down—I did it. I let her go…

But I wasn’t alone. The other was there too, whispering in my head.

How did I not know?

How could I forget?

My lungs burn with the need to breathe. I think about inhaling, even though I’m down here … sinking. But then hands hook into my armpits and lift. I go up, and she comes down. Soft, feminine, sinking, and settling before me. Tarnished red hair floats around Mercy’s face like a halo, but it’s her eyes I am ready to worship. She cups my jaw between her hands and stares at me in a way I never thought possible again.

It’s in the eyes, her beautiful blue eyes, that I find my mind.

I grip her head, fingers curling around her skull. I am trembling with the force of something stronger than hunger. Truer, deeper, maybe even blessed because this is what God feels like.

Mercy’s lips meet mine, and then we’re kissing. We are kissing, underwater, and free. My tongue is in her mouth, my legs are around her waist, and my lungs are on fire with every second I delay our resurfacing.