Page 16 of Of Heathens & Havoc

“No,” I admit. “It’s still the other one.”

I feel my face heat, and I can’t bring myself to say the word.

“Lust?” he says, his voice dropping an octave, the word sounding like pure sin rolling off his tongue. There’s a dark undercurrent in it, something that takes my breath and makes impure thoughts lick inside my brain.

Is he hard?

“Yes,” I manage, my pulse quickening dizzyingly.

“From seeing the boy from your childhood?”

“All of them,” I admit. “They’re men now and…”

I can’t say all the sins aloud, not even to the man who can absolve me. I can’t admit that the hunger inside me is kindled not just by Heath, but Angel and even my brother. It’s bad enough to harbor sinful thoughts for one man, but that’s not the end. I have to lust after all three of them, including a member of my own family. Not to mention the way I’m squirming on the seat at the sound of a priest’s voice. This time, I know it’s wrong, but I can’t find the solution to the puzzle, the piece that snaps into place and turns it off like a switch.

“Why am I like this?” I whisper, desperate for him to give me some relief, to pour the solution into my ears in that voice that threatens to send me to the depths of hell.

“God made each of us in his image,” Father Salvatore murmurs. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.”

“I wish that were true,” I say, running my fingertips over the texture of the screen between us, wishing I could make him see all the ways I’m flawed, the ungodly things I’ve dreamt about on the nights when sleep won’t come.

“You don’t trust my word?” Father Salvatore asks.

“I do,” I say. “I trust you, Father.”

“Then believe me when I say, you are perfectly made, lamb.”

A shudder of heat ripples through my wanton flesh. “I want to believe that,” I say despondently. “But I feel like I am made of sin by the devil himself.”

“None of us is without sin,” he assures me. “Have you ever considered your desires were put there by god, not the devil?”

“That’s not possible,” I whisper, clenching my knees together.

“Nothing is impossible with God,” he says.

I swallow hard, past the trembling, liquid feeling in my throat. Images swirl through my imagination and memory—Heath’s bare skin against mine, milky liquid and throbbing muscle, dirt floors, blood and hot breath, grunts of pain and sighs of rhapsodic relief…

“If someone sins against me, that’s not my sin, right?” I ask. “I can’t help it if they do something to me.”

“Of course,” he says gently. “God does not punish us for hardships we face or the actions of others. We are only responsible for our own actions.”

I ponder that, wondering if inaction counts as an action. Maybe it doesn’t, but desire is a sin. If I don’t do a thing, but I desire what they do to me, that makes me as bad as them. I want to cry. I can’t find a way to escape my body and the weaknesses of its flesh, and it seems determined to see me burn for eternity like the fires burning inside me even now, as I sit with a holy man in a holy place, where sin should not be able to enter.

“And if I knew someone else was going to sin, and I helped prevent that, would that make me a more righteous person?” I ask. “Would that absolve me of some of my own sin?”

“Again, you’re not responsible for the sins of others.”

“But it would be a good thing, right?” I press. “To prevent more sin from entering the world?”

“What sin do you wish to prevent?”

“I was invited to this… This Halloween event,” I say haltingly. “But I think it’s a satanic ritual, Father. I think they’re doing something unholy.”

My heart stammers in my chest, and I swallow again, blood rushing in my ears. If Heath records all the confessions, and he hears me ratting him out to the Father, and the school puts an end to their night of depraved revelry…

But then, they already think I’m a rat. I told on them to a judge. What’s the difference? I didn’t save Eternity last time, and I probably won’t save myself this time. If I shut down their game, they’ll punish me the same way they will if I don’t. But maybe I can save someone else from the sins they might fall prey to that night.

“And you want to stop it,” he clarifies.

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