2 #3
Gabriel doesn’t pray aloud. His plea to the Savior is a silent one. I wonder, not for the first time, how he does it. How he can believe the Savior places love and goodness above all else, only to come to Him with a heart full of the opposite.
“The Savior will take Pietersen’s family into his loving embrace,” Gabriel declares, and I lift my head to see him studying me.
I want to tell him I don’t understand how that makes any difference. According to Vicar Johannes, I spent my youth in that loving embrace, and yet I’ve never felt it. Not once.
Gabriel places his unmarred hands on the desk, palms up.
It’s an invitation, and after steeling myself, I set my hands in his.
I can feel his warmth through the leather of my gloves.
I hate to admit it, but something about his touch quells my fury slightly.
It’s rare that anyone touches me. Lately, whenever I make contact with another person, it’s to close their eyes or check for a pulse.
For a time when I first arrived in Valestadt, I experimented with intimacy against Gabriel’s wishes.
I learned the bodies of men and women alike, as well as those who fit within the confines of neither.
But it was often mechanical, fleeting, and besides, it’s become too difficult to hide the Bloodrot.
Even other sinners ask questions when the affliction has progressed this much.
Of course, this leaves Gabriel as the only person I’m close to.
I resent him yet am unable to resist his pull.
It has nothing to do with his looks, though he’s undeniably attractive.
There’s something about the Prophet that makes you yearn to please him.
There’s something about his pleasure that makes everything leading up to it feel not only worthwhile, but necessary.
“I know Vada Pietersen saw you,” Gabriel says, causing me to tense.
His fingers tighten around mine, iron-firm, and my heartbeats seem to congregate beneath each point of contact.
“I’ll admit, I was frustrated at first. I know you could sense it, in tune with my emotions as you are.
But as we prayed just now, I wasn’t merely praying for Pietersen’s family.
I was also praying for the strength to forgive you. And the Savior granted it to me.”
Convenient. “Pietersen’s wife scarcely saw a thing. You don’t need to worry—it’s not going to come back on you.”
“Ah, my lamb,” Gabriel sighs. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t only worry for myself. I know Vada Pietersen shot at you. When I tell you to be a ghost, it’s for your own protection.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“I’m impressed, you know. That you would think of Pietersen’s family…it shows empathy.” He releases my hands. “As a sinner, you may never see paradise, but the Savior’s mercy is still working within you. You are learning to care for others, and that is a beautiful thing.”
Anger burns my cheeks. I already know how to care for others. Once I cared for my family, my sister. But the world showed me that caring, no matter how well-intentioned, only leads to pain. And like any other animal, people are hard-wired to avoid pain at all costs.
I’d been a fool tonight. I’d let myself empathize with a woman I didn’t know, who ought to have been aware of the risks when she married a Regiment agent. I’d empathized with a child who would remember nothing of what happened.
Gabriel is accustomed to me saying little and continues without needing a response. “That’s not the only reason I asked you to linger. I know that you, more than Yannick or Darva, will be able to discern whether the new community of Apostles is legitimate.”
I understand what he’s getting at. “And if it is?”
“Then there will be no need for action. The Apostles follow the same teachings we do.”
“The way they implement them is dangerous.”
“They can be intense,” Gabriel allows, “but their love for the Savior is pure. I do not begrudge them that.”
“Pure?” I spit, rising to my feet. “I’m lucky I escaped the Apostles alive.”
A muscle twitches in one side of Gabriel’s sharp jaw. “Yet you only remain alive because of me.”
He’s played a winning card, and he knows it. My chest heaves as we stare each other down, the pressure of his deep-blue gaze scraping away at my will.
“I don’t want anything to do with the Apostles,” I say finally. “Legitimate or otherwise.”
Gabriel’s too-pleasant smile is a warning. “And yet, you’ll do as you’re directed. Won’t you?”
There’s no use arguing further. At his core, Gabriel is not so dissimilar from Vicar Johannes and the men I grew up with.
In my personal microcosm, he’s both savior and devil, both benefactor and exterminator.
He can snuff me out just as easily as he gifted me a purpose.
Awareness of that fact is a relentless pressure at my throat.
So I back down, just as I always do. Just as I’ve been doing for the past three years. “Where do you suggest I start?”
The question is stiff, but my tone is even, and Gabriel relaxes. Smugness plays around the corners of his mouth.
“Why don’t you start with the Trench?”