Chapter 14
Fourteen
Cisco
We are escorted like criminals, like inmates, in a single-file procession. Raven guards the front, Tawny at the side, and Mercy at the rear. I am the last in line, and when my team casts glances over their shoulders, trying to catch my eyes, I look down and stare at the wooden stairs.
I spent decades reshaping this darkness within me, hoping that each good deed paved my path to absolution.
Our team’s purpose has always been to eradicate and purge evil, no matter the form.
We go into the dark places that others fear to tread.
We face perils never seen in generations, things that defy logic and reality.
These things have also affirmed my faith. For if there is true, supernatural evil, then there must be forces of good. If there is a devil within me, a ravenous evil that drives me to sin, then surely it is God who put me on the path to its containment.
“God can use even the devil’s tools to do His work, Francisco.” The Cardinal mispronounced my name from the day I met him. “Your ability to ‘sniff out your own kind’ is not a curse. It is a gift. We will not exorcise your devil. We will aim it.”
A part of me always knew I was saved by an institution that colors outside the lines of what it preaches. They chose me because of the lines I’ve already crossed.
I thought I was okay with that.
But when I look at the new Sinner, Jasmine, when I touch her, that same weapon my collar holds to heel flares to life. The echo of it still vibrates within me, buzzing with excitement. It senses something … familiar.
Cresting the landing on the dormitory floor, I watch as Raven forces Wesley into his room ahead. Tawny does the same for Zeke. My room is next in line, but Mercy has stopped behind me, first locking in Dominic. He goes without a backward glance.
When the last door slams and the key turns in the lock, it is just the Sinners and me.
Mercy’s soft yet firm body brushes my arm as she opens my door.
It takes every ounce of willpower I own to avoid rubbing the point of contact, to soothe the riotous nerves.
As she waits, boldly staring at me, I can’t help but feel I am on my knees.
It is always like this around her. She is shorter than I am, but I feel small.
No, not small. Perhaps humble. Good in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever known, except that one week in summer I spent fishing with Uncle Nico.
“In you go,” she intones.
I should turn and run. There is nothing but air between my back and the staircase.
Leave them behind, the devil whispers. Cut your losses. I’ll be your famiglia. I’ll keep you fed.
Hand slipping into my pocket, I clutch my rosary and thumb the beads.
I stare back at the woman before me, at her flushed, dewy, and flawless skin.
Untamed hair, wild and free. Baggy gym clothes hide more of her curvaceous body than usual, yet somehow, it still feels obscene.
A tiny beauty mark sits so close to the corner crease of her lips that it disappears when she is upset … like now.
“Tonight, Padre,” she growls, gesturing to the doorway.
“Interrogate me first,” I demand, voice rougher than intended.
Her brows wing up, and something in her study of me, the cock of her round hips, brings heat to my cheeks.
“Why?”
I clear my throat. “Because—”
A prickle up my spine urges me to turn moments before a rhythmic banging grows behind me—a thumping up the stairs. Hannah arrives first, and then Jasmine crests the landing with her suitcases in hand.
She glowers at me but asks Mercy, “Where are we bunking now?”
“You’re with me.” Mercy points at the door directly across the hall from us.
“Hannah, you’re with Leila.” Raven taps the door beside her with her boot.
“I know,” Hannah clips and strides past, ignoring me completely.
Tawny jogs to the staircase. “I’m going to chase down that pizza!”
Mercy reaches out as if about to grab Tawny, but Jasmine blocks her when she stomps to her room, suitcase dragging behind her. She opens the door. Stops. Turns and glares through my open doorway.
“We have to bunk,” shrieks. “And they get a room to themselves?”
“Right now, I don’t give a fuck.” Hannah pushes into her room. “I’m jonesing for a shower.”
“You can’t have a shower before me!” Jasmine cries. “I’m the one covered in blood and gore.”
Mercy stiffens. Narrows her eyes. “If it bothered you that much, why didn’t you wash on the jet?” She pauses. “Wait, you flew public dressed like that? How come Hannah is clean?”
“I was a little busy looking after three orphans to worry about changing!”
“The entire time?”
Hot, angry lances of fury spear my way. “Because of him!”
“Not him,” Mercy returns, ever so quietly. “Not specifically.”
But she is not defending me, I don’t think.
She watches for a reaction and waits. Testing.
Something in the exchange just now has unsettled Mercy.
No one else seems to notice the shift in her opinion, but I do.
I know when Mercy is upset, when she is happy, when she is sad.
I know when she is dangerous versus when she is joking.
I know when she is … needy. Just by looking at the tilt of her head, the tension in her body, the cock of her hip.
By how visible that little beauty mark is at the corner of her lips.
Jasmine doesn’t take the bait. She huffs and drags her suitcase into their room, kicking the door shut. I face Mercy and find her eyes are already on me. She steps closer, consuming my space, and I’m forced to suck in a breath, but I taste her fresh, feminine scent. My insides clench. Ache.
I take a step back and repeat, “Interrogate me first.”
And again, she asks, “Why?”
“Because—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jasmine’s shrill voice comes from inside their room.
Nostrils flaring, I ground my teeth.
“What now?” Mercy rolls her eyes and pivots.
Jasmine opens her door and throws something. I yank Mercy to me, and she narrowly misses a projectile that lands in my room with a hollow thud.
We have but a moment to share a look before the attack continues.
“What now?” Jasmine’s high-pitched voice is slightly muffled as she backs into her room. “I’ll tell you what now.” She returns. Something hits the wall above me. Another thud on the opposite side of the hallway. “I’m not sharing a room with all this … this … argh!”
“Calm your farm, Jaz,” Mercy drawls.
Another projectile flies at us, and this time, she deflects it like a bro baseballer, barking something at the other Sinners I miss because she’s shoving me into my room as though it’s a fallout shelter.
I catch a glimpse of blue eyes, and then she closes the door, locking it.
Two seconds later, the door opens, and I step back to avoid being hit as Mercy rushes in.
“Almost forgot,” she says, advancing on me.
Before I know it, she has me against the wall, body pressed against mine, and then nothing else registers except the weight of her hands on my hips. The closeness. The heat.
“What are you—?” I gasp as she reaches inside my trouser pockets, each hand digging around. Sensation erupts around my groin. Travels up my abdomen. Burns my logic.
A part of me knows what she’s looking for.
It’s obvious.
But a larger, aching, and lonely part silently begs her not to be so efficient.
To linger.
Mercy pulls out my phone and steps back from me.
Still a hot, breathless mess, I try to hide it. Swallow. I’m thankful that she’s not staring into my eyes anymore, but down at the items she stole, because if she weren’t, she’d see the feral edge of desire brimming beneath the surface.
She’d know how hungry I am.
“I’ll take these,” she announces, voice buttery sweet, lashes sweeping down.
She pockets my phone, but stares at the rosary beads. They click-clack when she lets the crucifix dangle. The sound snaps me out of my deluded state.
“Put them back,” I growl.
“Oh, you mean these?” Plump lips pout with mock innocence. She lifts her fist before her eyes and inspects the rosary closely. “These are sharp. I’ve seen you bleed using these during confession. Wouldn’t want you to open your veins with them or something when I turn my back.”
“There are far sharper things in this room, Misericordia.”
My veiled threat only makes her lips curve as if it’s a challenge.
For a moment, neither of us inhales, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
Then she asks as casually as if it’s a Sunday sermon, “If you could choose one—the phone or the rosary—to keep, which would it be?”
“The rosary.”
“Hm.” Her eyes narrow, amused. “Interesting.”
It’s that humor that calls to the monster in me, coaxes him from his deep, dark slumber curled around my soul. My vision crowds at the edges.
“Put it back,” I repeat.
“Fine.” She holds the beads dangling from her hovering fist and sweeps the room with a glance. “You’re not really the cyanide pill type, anyway.”
But I don’t take the beads. They blur in my vision, and I am still paralyzed with trembling, bone-deep fury, and … fear.
Why?
Air drags into my lungs in ragged breaths. I stare at the beads, wondering why—what is this feeling? Why do I half want to flay her skin and expose her bones, yet the other half wants to scream in horror?
I clutch my shirt beneath the collar, fisting the fabric against the tightness in my chest.
What is this pain?
Oblivious to my state, her hand droops as she continues to scour my room for sharp objects. I search for answers in her unguarded face, but all I learn is that I’m incapable of looking away.
That’s when it hits me.
Seeing those tainted beads in Mercy’s hands—the ones Maria wore as she drowned, the ones I grabbed, and they broke—terrifies me.
What if Mercy knows? What if somehow, she feels my sin and selfishness through that object she touches and knows?
It’s an irrational fear, but a chill creeps up my spine, nonetheless. I grind out through clenched teeth, “Put it back.”