Page 168 of Priest and his Anarchist

As if she can see right through my lies. The lies that keep me seated on this throne.

Bending down, she collects the discarded piece of clothing and doesn’t pull from me until she reaches the door.

“What do you think?” Corbin asks.

I turn back to him, the smile on my face wide. Manic. “I think we should go.”

His blue eyes search mine. Hungry and needy, much like I remembered them that day in Aspen. I’d let go of that day a long time ago. He held nothing on me now.

“When we get there…” Corbin leans forward, licking his lip and smirking. “Will you dance for me?”

“Always.” I bat my lashes at him as he takes my hand and presses a gentle kiss to the base.

“Very good. Very good.”

I should have asked what the problem in New York is, but what if I was to know what is happening. That’ll blow everything. The stupid fuck had figured out that we were twins, yet still believed she lived within me.

The smell of the underground tunnels was the constant reminder of everything that shouldn’t exist in this world. I didn’t know much about how they came about, not until that one night when the Fathers asked me into the office for that favor…

Past

Bishop pushes up from his chair, making his way to the flickering fireplace tucked in the darkest corner of the room. He shoves his hand in his pocket, watching the flames lick the walls closely while taking a long sip of his whiskey.

“We need a favor. But this one is going to be tricky, Luna.”

“I’m prepared,” I say, nodding. “You’ve all done so much for me over the years, especially after Priest.” I cross one leg over the other, staring at the burning ember of my cigarette as time slowly ticks in the background. I know that whatever it is that they’re about to ask me, that it doesn’t matter, because I’ll do it. I’ll do anything that they want me to do.

“You have a twin sister.”

I keep the whiskey beneath my tongue to stop it from coming out. “What?” I swipe the residue from my bottom lip.

“Do you remember much of what happened in Aspen? Before Priest found you?”

No one liked to revisit demons they burned. The memories of that night ran over my spine like ice, as cold as the night he found me.

“Yes. I remember being found, I remember what Corbin did to me at the order of the man in charge who they call the Minister, and I remember being lost. So lost.” I blink when my eyes burn. “I guess I thought that my memories must have suppressed the time that I knew you all. When he found me, I—” The words stop for a moment, and I push up from the couch I’m sitting on, making my way toward the bookshelf behind his desk. The photo is a printed reminder of that day when I swipe to pick it up. I run my thumb over the glass as if it just happened yesterday.

“Priest didn’t tell us about what happened to you when he found you. For whatever reason, he decided to keep that secret.”

It’s no wonder.

I place the photo back onto the shelf, pressing my dress down over my thighs and feeling the bump over the holster of my thigh. I turn back to them all staring back at me. “This twin…” I say the words out loud, though I don’t like them much. “Is she, was she, like me? What happened?”

“You were taken at birth, spent all the years with them until Aspen. You were raised in their tunnels.” The smell hits me first, and I fall backward, reaching for the counter to steady myself.

“I’m—I thought I could smell—hear things sometimes. I’d ask my parents, and they’d look at me as if I was crazy.”

“Well, that’s the other thing,” Nate says, leaning forward on the sofa. “They all assume you split every time you’re triggered and that there’s a dark side to you that hasn’t popped up since you were seven. They’re all waiting for it to happen, some more than others, I’d imagine.” Nate rolls his eyes, huffing back into his chair.

“What was that?” I ask, brow raised as I make my way back to my spot. When I lower myself down, his eyes come to me.

“Just that Priest has been in love with that version of you since he was a toddler, so he’s spent all this time since finding you when you were seven years old to see if she’ll come back to him.” Nate doesn’t move and my face falls.

I don’t know why it stings more than it should but finding out that everything I thought I had with someone was only one-sided feels a lot like a lie.

“I can’t imagine what he put you through during those years to pull her out. Attempting to trigger a version of you that doesn’t exist must have been hell.”

It was.

---