Chapter Fifteen
THE ROOM WAS dark, lit only by strips of moonlight leaking through the wooden shutters.
Dust hung in the air like memory, dry, stale, and heavy.
The cot beneath me creaked with every breath I dared to take, the thin sheet sticking to my damp skin.
Everything smelled of old linens and that special soap they made here.
I’d long since learned not to fear the dark.
It was the sound of footsteps that made my blood run cold.
Soft at first. Careful. Like they didn’t belong to a person, but something slower. Something darker. Like the shadow itself had grown weight.
I sat up, breath hitching in my throat, heart punching against my ribs like it was trying to tear its way out.
The doorknob turned, slow and deliberate.
I didn’t have to see him.
I already knew.
My whisper barely scraped past my lips. “Prophet Gabrial…”
He stepped inside as if the door had opened for him alone. Like the rules never applied to him. Like the space was his, and I was his with it.
A man of God, they told us.
A mouthpiece from the outside world.
The chosen one.
His white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his eyes warm.
Too warm.
That warmth held something else behind it. Something wrong. Something I felt every time he looked at me.
“Shhh, little flame,” he said, his voice like honey poured over something rotted. “It’s late. You’ll wake the others.”
I gripped the sheet tighter, fingers curling until my nails bit into my palm. “I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t making noise.”
“You called out,” he said gently. “Your soul cries in sleep for me. It’s not your fault. You’re beginning to bloom.”
The words twisted in my stomach, sour and thick.
He walked toward me with that same slow, gliding pace—silent, like he never touched the floor at all. Like a serpent wrapped in righteousness.
“You’re special,” he murmured, crouching beside the cot. “You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded. Because I was taught to, and I didn’t know what else would keep me safe from being burned by the flame.
“Yes, Prophet Gabrial.”
He reached up, tucked a piece of hair behind my ear with a touch that pretended to be gentle. I flinched. He smiled.
That smile told me everything.
“Your obedience is sweet,” he said softly. “But obedience is only the beginning, Sable. There’s something greater. Something deeper. Do you trust me?”
The question wrapped itself around my throat.
I wanted to lie and say yes, but the truth got stuck somewhere deep inside me, lodged like a splinter in my windpipe.
I stayed quiet.
His smile faltered, just barely. The kind of shift a child wouldn’t notice, but I wasn’t a child anymore, not really.
“That’s alright,” he whispered, lowering his hand to my shoulder, before moving it up to caress my face. “It’s always frightening the first time. The flesh resists what the spirit longs for.”
His fingers moved down over my neck, gentle, but claiming.
I went still.
Stopped breathing.
Stopped blinking.
He leaned over me, breath brushing my cheek. “You’re chosen. And soon, you’ll be mine in all ways—in the eyes of the flame—but the flame understands our need to burn before the ceremony.”
“No,” I whispered. The word felt brittle. Like dry leaves in the wind, and he heard it.
The change in his face was slight but sharp, something inside him tightened. “No?” he echoed, his voice soft but warning now.
“Forgive me, Prophet Gabrial,” I forced out, remembering the punishment Sister Johanna suffered yesterday. I forced my expression into one of acceptance and gave him a small smile.
He kissed my lips and murmured, “Good girl.”
Then—
A hand on my arm. Real. Steady. “Sable.” A voice, not his. “Sable. Wake up.”
I gasped, jerking upright like I’d been yanked out of water. Air rushed into my lungs in shallow bursts, my chest tight, skin slick with sweat. The dream clung to me like oil, thick, suffocating, impossible to wash off.
The room wasn’t mine.
This wasn’t the compound.
A ceiling fan spun slow overhead. An old desk stood against the wall, books stacked haphazardly. A poster of a muscle car curled slightly at the edges. Somewhere, far off, music pulsed through the darkness.
Malik sat beside me, perched at the edge of the bed, one hand raised mid-air like he didn’t know whether to comfort me or let me breathe. His eyes were wide but calm, steady in the way he was taught to be.
“You were dreaming,” he said, his voice quiet, anchored in the now. “I heard you crying.”
I blinked hard, dragging myself out of the past. My throat burned like I’d swallowed glass. “I’m sorry,” I rasped, my voice frayed and hoarse.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Malik said. “Bad dreams happen.”
My hands trembled beneath the blanket. I kept them hidden.
I didn’t want him to see how broken I still was.
He didn’t ask questions. Didn’t push. He just sat there, small and still, like he knew sometimes silence was safer than words.
A boy forced to grow up too fast. A ten-year-old with the soul of a survivor.
Eventually, he stood. Crossed the room to the door, before he stepped out, he glanced over his shoulder. “You’re not there anymore, Sable,” he said simply. “We got out.” Then he left, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
I sat in the silence, and for once, it didn’t feel so heavy.
Because he was right.
We got out.