Page 52 of Turn That River Red

And I realize just how much I don’t want to kill her. Eat her, yes. Make her bleed, absolutely. Butendher?

I couldn’t. Ican’t.

Christ, I’m getting soft in my old age.

“Thank you,” she says again, and then she pulls away from me, our bodies finally separating. She crawls around and sits back on her heels, gazing at me through the mussed tangle of her hair. “I didn’t—I’ve never—” She glances away, shy, and it feels like my heart might burst with whatever it is I’m feeling for her. Affection, lust, I don’t know. “Thank you for showing me what it’s supposed to feel like.”

That nearly melts me on the spot. For the first time since I was a young man I almost wish I was human, not a Hunter, so I could drag her away from this shithole church. I know that’s what she wants from me. I can see it in her expression.

But she doesn’t wantme. She doesn’t want the boogeyman. She wants the itinerant preacher, and that man doesn’t exist.

“You’re welcome.” I stand up and help her to her feet, too. She’s shaky, and I hold her hand to steady her. But she pulls away from me to gather up her clothes and get dressed. I watchher move through the shadows, and I realize I’m trying to memorize what she looks like.

It hits me, then, that I’m never going to see her again. And she has no fucking idea. Just like she has no fucking idea what I truly am.

Mercy twists around, trying to zip up her dress, and I step over and do it for her without thinking. That just earns me another shy glance over her shoulder and a quivering sense of normalcy. “Thanks,” she says in that small voice, and I can just tell that she’s imagining us doing this for the rest of our lives.

You don’t want me, I think, like I might be able to plant the idea in her head.

“Now what?” Mercy gathers up her mangled bra and tries to fold it down as small as possible. I pick up the file I came here for. It feels absurd, now.

“I’ll walk you back to your house,” I say.

She’s disappointed, even though she tries to hide it.

“I can take that, too.” I pluck the bra out of her hand. “Get rid of it for you.”

Her cheeks pinken, but there’s delight in her eyes. It’s killing me, knowing I’m about to break her heart into a thousand pieces. She’s gonna come by the cabin tomorrow and find me and the dogs gone. But I can’t say goodbye. It’ll invite too many questions, and I’ve fucked up enough in the last few days as it is.

So this is it. Me, Mercy, and a long walk through a quiet, terrified compound.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MERCY

True to his word, Ambrose gets me home safely, winding us through the darkness as if he’s lived at the Church of the Well his entire life. It’s almost like he doesn’t evenneedto see the walking trails.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers as we pass by the administration building, closed up tight for the evening. “The closest guard is patrolling along the fence. We’re in the clear.”

“How could you know that?” I whisper back, glancing sideways at him. It’s so dark out here that I can barely make out his features, but I know when he looks at me, because his eyes catch the light strangely, and for a moment, they gleam like a cat’s.

“Just do.”

I wonder if it’s God speaking through him. That feels blasphemous to consider, given what we just did in the bunker. Or rather, it feels like itshouldbe blasphemous—the truth is, everything that’s happened tonight has felt completely right in a way I’ve never experienced before. I’m used to the opposite, to everyone in the Church of the Well telling me that something’s right even though it feels deeply, profoundly wrong.

Like being Reverend Gunner’s helpmeet. Or offering myself to Pastor Sullivan.

I know what Reverend Gunner would say, that sin always feels good and doing the right thing always feels difficult. That it’s God’s way of testing us and Satan’s way of seducing us. I’ve always accepted that.

But tonight—tonight I wonder if maybe I’ve had it backward all this time.

We turn onto my street, which I recognize even in the dark. My heart constricts. I don’t want to go home. I want to go back to Ambrose’s cabin and fall asleep in his bed.

“There you are,” Ambrose says as we come to my porch. I stare up at my front door, fear twitching through my body. Not fear of the killer, though. Not fear of the devil. Fear that everything I’ve learned has been a lie, that Ambrose gave me my first glimpse of Heaven and I’ll never get to experience it again.

But I still can’t bring myself to ask Ambrose to take me with him. Because why would he agree to such a thing?

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says stiffly, and he presses his lips against my cheek. It’s not chaste. His kiss lingers, and then he repeats it on my mouth—quick, urgent, hungry.

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