Page 51 of Of Heathens & Havoc

“You told me to come,” I say, narrowing my eyes and trying to figure out their game. I have next to no experience with psychological warfare, and I don’t know what move to make, which one they’re expecting. I just know that everything depends on making the right one.

Black Skull shrugs. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re free to go.”

“Really?” I ask. “You’d let me go? Or are you just predators who want to play with your food before you devour it?”

White Skull chuckles, but it’s different than the menacing one Red Skull let out. I can hear an edge of admiration in this one.

The swell of pride in my chest is disconcerting and dangerous. I need to keep my head on straight, to impress them for strategic reasons, not so they’ll love me again like they did when we were kids.

“Go on,” Black Skull says. “Leave if that’s what you want to do.”

Red Skull shakes out his fingers, getting out the nervous energy. “Or you can come when we call, and we’ll keep your secrets.”

I swallow hard, my gaze moving from one to the next. I don’t want to know which masked man is which, but I do.

“How badly do you want to keep this secret?” Red Skull taunts, circling to the end of the railing and prowling toward me. “How badly do you want the world to think you’re a good girl?”

The way he bounces on his toes when he’s standing still, his body leaned forward slightly, like a horse ready to run and barely held back by its reins, along with his slightly smaller, ropier stature, lets me know that one is Heath.

He drops his voice to a slippery whisper that hisses through the church like a snake. “What would you pay to be absolved of your sins?”

I nod slowly. “Okay.”

He leans in, so close I can see the glitter of his eyes through the small eyeholes in the mask. I jump when his fingers, clad in black leather gloves, wrap around my wrist in a gentle grip that makes me quake even harder than a rough hold would. “How much is a secret worth, little lamb?” he breathes. “More than your innocence?”

“No.” I shake my head, taking a step back, but his fingers clamp around my wrist.

“Funny, that’s what I said to the guards in juvie,” he growls. “How does it feel to have the choice taken from you?”

“Please,” I whisper in a pathetic quaver. “You said I could go.”

He laughs, quiet at first, a menacing low rumble that grows, rising, echoing off the church walls, the ceiling, erratic and unhinged.

“The funny thing is, she thinks she still has her innocence,” says a voice behind me, so close I almost scream. I was so focused on Heath I didn’t even notice Black Skull in his black robes moving like a shadow around the other end of the railing, coming up behind me. “You can’t give us something you don’t have.”

I know his voice, one that’s been a comfort all my life, from when I was so small I barely remember it saying the words I needed to hear each time, that he chose me. A voice that cracked and squeaked through those awkward preteen years before settling into a deep, slightly gravely texture that vibrated through shameful nights as I tossed and turned in heated, fretful agony, praying to forget the way it held onto my name, as if his tongue was savoring it an extra moment each time he spoke it.

White Skull—Angel, I presume—hops the railing and straightens, crossing his arms over his barrel chest and looking down at me. “You’re wasting our time,” he says. “So what’s it going to be? You in or out?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, my throat constricting with panic as I glance at the cross again. I can’t let them do what they said they were going to do. “Are you going to… Crucify me?”

“You know our intentions well enough,” Saint says. “We took that to mean you were committed. If you’re not, run back to the nunnery and stop playing games.”

“Just remember,” Heath says. “Whatever you don’t give us, the Sinners will take by force.”

I’d like to see them try, but I don’t say it. I’m here for a reason, and if this is the only way to succeed, then it’s a sacrifice I have to be willing to make. I hate that I’m not, but I force myself anyway—for her. If I do it for her, maybe it’s not a sin. Maybe it makes me a good Samaritan, a good person, to make such a sacrifice for someone else.

At last, I nod. It’s okay if I’m afraid. I just have to do it anyway. That’s what matters.

“Okay,” I manage through the stranglehold of my throat. “I’m in.”

“Good,” says Saint, picking up a coil of rough rope from the lectern. “Then let the binding begin.”

“The binding?” I whisper.

“With this rope, I bind myself to you,” Saint says, gripping the end of the rope in one hand and winding it around his wrist with the other. He passes the loop to Angel, who does the same before passing it to Heath.

“With this tie, I bind myself to you,” echoes the voice behind the red skull mask. Then he turns, handing the rope to me. I gulp down the storm of nerves inside me. This feels wrong, like some kind of satanic ritual. I glance at my brother, wishing more than anything that I could see his face, see even a hint of reassurance behind the stoic exterior. But his face is hidden, the skeleton mask staring back at me with its impassive, unchanging smile.

---