Page 6 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
They rolled their eyes and huffed out a laugh. “Calm down, mija.” They leaned their hip against the counter and offered a tired smile. “Hope you like chai.”
“How’d you do that? With the light bulb, and the cat, shadow,thing ...How’d you ...” She exhaled sharply through her nose. “How’d you figure out how to control it?”
Bishop crossed the kitchen and spooned a dollop of honey into their cup. “Practice, mostly. Made a lot of mistakes. Gave too much of myself to someone I trusted and learned a hell of a lesson.” They kept their distance, and she appreciated that, but the way Bishop carried themself, so sure, so unbothered, scared her. They stirred their tea and met her eyes, nodding thoughtfully. “Eighteen?”
She cocked her head.
They mirrored her.“Nineteen?”
She snorted. “I’m twenty-one.”
“You’re full grown yet you followed a cult to Colorado,” they stated, lifting their brows. Their smile twitched into a grin. “Did you drink the Kool-Aid or did somethin’ else get to you?”
My sister.“I had nowhere to go.”I couldn’t let Haven have her.“So I packed my shit and went along for the ride.” She pushed the taste of cardamom and chicory around in her mouth.I wanted to believe.“They weren’t, like, an actualcultat first.” The lie soured. She sipped more tea. “Maybe they were, I don’t know.”I tried.“By the time I wanted out, it was too late.”
“How’d they convince you to go through with ...” They lifted their pointer finger and gestured vaguely to her chest. “All that.”
“Convince me,” she repeated, and choked down a laugh. She kept her attention pinned to them. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was fear, but she refused to look away. “And I fight, not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection.” She watched for recognition, but Bishop merely blinked. “Amy recited scripture—that verse, specifically—when Rose baptized me.”
“Drowned you,” they said, not quite a question.
“According to an old Aramaic text, the Breath of Judas has to be administered at a crossroads. Life and death, purgatory, all that shit. My sister opened the vial, poured the”—she shrugged, clutching the tumbler until her palm sizzled—“whatever it was into her mouth and gave me CPR. I thought she’d saved me.”Forgiven me.She cleared the anger clogging her throat. “So yeah. I wouldn’t say they did anyconvincing.”
Bishop nodded. “And now you’ve got your shit packed.”
“What else am I supposed to do? Wait for one of you to pin the murder spree on me?”
They tipped their head back and forth. “Can’t say I blame you for being paranoid, but that’s not the plan.”
“Whatisthe plan, Bishop?” she asked. Their name echoed, hissed like a match strike.
“Look, I don’t trust you either, okay? Let’s get that out of the way.” They sipped their tea. Their soft, round features and loose clothes were a confusing contrast to the shadowy jaguar that’d attached itself to their ankles yesterday. “I don’t believe in much. Faith, maybe. Magic, somewhat. Power, obviously. People, though?” They shook their head. “But I just spent a good chunk of time watching Colin pull a demon out of a teenager. He saved that kid’s life.”
“And?”
“And I believe in him.” They shrugged. “You’d be wise to believe in him too.”
“Colin’s the priest, right?” She slouched in the chair and glanced down the hall, staring at her backpack.
“Yeah,” Bishop said, laughing under their breath. Something like love filled their voice. Hope, maybe. “He’s the priest.”
“And he has a friend in California? Someone who can helpme?”
“I guess so.”
Sophia faced Bishop again and brought the tumbler to her mouth, sipping gingerly. The question slipped out, accidental, quick. “Are you going to kill me?”
Bishop sighed. “No,” they said.
A ghostly voice bloomed in her skull.Liar.
Chapter three
The fifteen-hour journey fromColoradoto Los Angeles left Sophia dazed and drowsy. She napped fitfully in the back seat of Colin’s Subaru, dozing as the snow-capped Rockies disappeared in the rearview mirror. She woke once when they pulled into a truck stop for a bathroom break where she peed and stole a candy bar, and again as they motored through Moab, surrounded by stone arches and alien desert. Every so often she’d focus on the podcast Bishop had chosen for the road trip and flick back and forth between her text messages.
Before the revival, after Sophia’s baptism, Sophia’s phone had stayed in Amy’s possession, tucked away in a pocket or purse, and handed over for supervised check-ins with their mother.Holy vessels don’t need electronics,Rose had assured.Best to stay unplugged.She paused over the sunflower emoji next to Amy’s contact information and tapped the name above it, opening her most recent conversation.
Tehlor Nilsen:colin’s a little cooky but he’s nice
