Chapter 5 #2
"He can do that?" I ask, though I already know the answer. Ezra wouldn't joke about this. It's too important.
"When you have the connections he does, you can do whatever you like," he answers. "Immorier shut down Chryseum Reformatory Academy earlier this year. Blamed it on risk—state investigations, allegations of misconduct, that sort of thing."
"And the real reason?"
"Profitability." He frowns and continues polishing his trinket.
"No one wants a crazy kid." I shake my head. "Isn't that good news, though? One less shithole to worry about."
He doesn't answer. "Immorier's threat has Georgina rattled. We need to continue our work, Xade. The convent can't close."
"Rattled?" I nearly laugh. "Paranoid is more like it. She has a lamb caged in the basement like a tiger. Have you seen the girl's tiny, windowless room?"
I shouldn't mention it.
I don't know why I do.
I don't care about the girl, after all.
Ezra sighs in exasperation as his brows knit together. I see the threads of his patience begin to fray.
"Georgina thinks the basement is best, for now.
She's afraid the girl will kill herself trying to go home.
The girl begged me for help the first day she arrived, in front of the entire convent no less, and managed to escape a week ago.
Georgina found her at the gates, shaking and scared in the dark. "
"Jesus," I murmur under my breath. "What did she do to end up here anyway?"
Ezra shrugs and eyes the massive crucifix hanging above the pulpit. I look along with him, staring at the bloodied, nearly necrotic son of God. I'm going to have to convince him to remove the damn thing.
"No idea," he answers with a shrug.
I frown, but he doesn't offer any more details. After a long moment, I settle against the pew and sigh.
"Whatever that girl did, she doesn't belong here," I tell him.
"Tell that to Immorier," Ezra mutters, polishing the trinket in his hands even harder.
"You couldn't have called someone else?" I groan. "I nearly lost my job."
"The dean will take you back." He smirks at me. "We both know she has a soft spot for you."
I don't deny it, but it annoys me, nevertheless.
Reverting back to his inscrutable self, Ezra purses his lips. "Thanks for coming, Xade."
"Like I had a choice."
"There's always a choice."
I ignore whatever ideological bullshit he's trying to pull on me.
"Well, what do you need me to do, oh holy one?" I ask him, not sparing the sarcasm.
Ezra laughs at that, showing all his straight teeth.
"You're such a dick, Xade," he says through his laughter. He sounds like his old self again, and for the briefest of moments, it brings a smile to my lips.
"And you're such a good boy in your priest costume," I remark.
Ezra laughs heartily again, throwing his head back, before his laughter withers, and he returns to his elusive, frustratingly composed self.
"I spoke with the girl's grandfather," he tells me. "He's allowed her to continue her studies."
The realization hits me with the force of a runaway train, smothering me.
He did not just say what I think he did.
"He didn't require me to be here?" I nearly come undone.
"No," Ezra side-eyes me, "her grandfather did not require it, but this isn't the place for someone like her, Xade. She'll get bored. She'll get curious. And, most importantly, she cannot be allowed to interrupt our work."
He blinks at the pulpit.
He doesn't sound like a priest right now.
He sounds like my friend, and it ticks me off even more.
"I convinced her grandfather that it would be best if she continued her studies, so she doesn't fall behind. She was supposed to have started college."
Oh, fuck no.
"I'm supposed to cover all of freshman year with her?!" I nearly yell. "Her grandfather should've sent her to an actual university!"
Ezra shrugs. "He won't."
I pinch the bridge of my nose hard to stop myself from wringing his neck.
"At the risk of repeating myself," I grumble through gritted teeth, "I'm not a babysitter. I have a master's degree in linguistics and a doctorate in literary studies. I don't teach gen ed to lower classmen. Only one of us chose a life of self-flagellation and virginity, and it wasn't me."
"Think of it as a sabbatical," Ezra offers. "You'll only need to teach her a few hours a day, the rest of the time is yours to do with as you wish."
I scoff. "And what am I supposed to do? This is going to set my progress back months."
"Everything happens for a reason," he remarks.
I stand abruptly. If I don't leave, I'm going to kill him, and I'm certain it's reprehensible to kill a priest.
"Where are you going?" he asks me.
"To find a suitable classroom and an office," I snap. "Then I'm going to sleep for fourteen hours since I drove through the night to get here."
Ezra fishes in his pocket and hands me a pair of keys. "I already took the liberty. You'll find the room numbers marked on each key."
"Thanks," I mutter before I leave the chapel.
The lingering scent of incense clings to my clothes as I step out into the early morning fog. It wraps around me, obscuring the brick buildings and winding paths of the convent.
This place feels like it was plucked straight out of an Edgar Allan Poe narrative, complete with mercurial fog, malice, and gnarled trees that stand like dark sentinels around the property.
I hate that I left my job to become a tutor.
I hate that I'm here.
But most of all, I hate knowing that if this place is my hell, then the bright blue eyes of the angel caged thirty feet below me are the only slice of heaven I'll ever see between these walls.