Page 4 of The Hellkeeper

My grip on the tea mug turns white-knuckled as I fight back my panic. If I tell her the truth she’d think I’m insane. She’d send me right back out into the night.

But it spills out of me anyway.

“The village,” I whisper, my voice barely carrying over the rain outside. “The one I came from. They’re going to sacrifice me soon.”

Her face goes pale. The kind of pale that drains the blood straight from her skin. Her lips part slightly before she presses them together, as if she’s holding back a reaction.

She swallows. “What village?”

“Hell.”

She recoils like I just spit in her face. I brace myself for her to mock me, even kick me out.

“I always knew,” she murmurs, half to herself. “That village—there were rumors. Dark ones. But rumors aren’t enough to make the police listen.”

“You believe me?” I ask, perplexed, my eyes as wide as saucers. We’ve always been told that the city doesn’t believe in anything spiritual.

She nods, and validation floods my system.

“How can I help?” she asks.

The question makes me shrink into myself. Shame burns in my chest because I know what I need, but I don’t want to ask. I’m no beggar. I’m not someone who takes advantage of kindness. But what else can I do?

“Could you…could you give me enough for the train back home?” I say, even though it’s the last thing I want. She’s already done enough. I shouldn’t have asked.

She shakes her head, and I push back from the chair, guilt and humiliation tangling inside me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Before I can leave, she pulls me back to the chair gently.

“Do you want to be sacrificed?” she asks tentatively, but she already knows the answer. Maybe she just asked to make me realize it.

Yet, the question still stuns me. The answer is obvious. No. No, I want to live. But saying it feels like admitting something very selfish. What would come of the village? Who else would they choose?

I don’t want to die, but what other choice do I have? Run and starve on the streets? Stay and let the Hellkeeper take me? There may be a way out; the ritual says only virgins can be sacrificed. If I lose that, they won’t offer me to him. They’ll just kill me instead. So, it’s not even a solution in the first place.

“No,” I whisper. It feels like I’ve admitted a huge sin. The elders would have slapped me straight across the face.

She watches me for a long moment before she speaks. “Then stay here.”

“What?” It feels like the earth stopped spinning.

“I could use an extra pair of hands around here. And there’s a bed in the storage room. I sleep there sometimes when I get too tired during shifts. You can have it.”

I can’t process what she’s saying. She’s offering me safety, a place to stay, work.

There may really be a way out.

Chapter Three

Damien

Fuck.

I raise my pistol again and pull the trigger. The man chasing me doesn’t even get the chance to scream before the bullet rips through his skull. He drops, blood pooling beneath him like a crimson halo.

One down. Three left.

I keep moving. Fast.

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