Page 41 of Broken

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

Once inside, I head straight for the kitchen.

Preparing myself some tea, I ponder my next move when the edginess of being denied surfaces, making my hand shake as I spoon the tea leaves into a cup.

Although the temptation is at war with the surprise of being caught, the sin eater 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.

Despite his pleas to the contrary, Paolo is escalating.

His sobs told me as much. His shame and his pity are intertwined because he knows he’s weak—that he’ll fall again and again—so he blames his innocent niece.

Now, however, my hands are tied.

He’ll be wary of me. When he wakes up where he did, Paolo will question why he was there, why I took him to that alley.

Even if he doesn’t remember me joining him at Carlucci’s—the bar Junia complains is his regular hangout—someone on the staff will mention it and that will trigger questions.

I struck him with my blade too—a small nick but it’s enough to draw suspicion my way.

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

Doubt spears me, and I regret being caughtbeforeI 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 Paolo.

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 plastic and metal burst apart, tearing at the soldered seams, and the hiss as boiling water collides with the cold stone floors and the painted walls, make something inside me quiver.

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

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

But that will be noticed.

People will see the burn and notice the scars.

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

So I remove temptation by switching the stove off and shuffle out of the kitchen to ascend the rickety stairs that are so steep, in the dark, you could fall up or down…

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 where the window is open to let in the frigid night air, I walk toward the dresser.

The bottom drawer houses the box I need.

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