Crossed (Never After Series)

I’M TAKING CONFESSION TODAY.

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure what to expect. With the way Bishop Lamont and Parker both talk about Festivalé, I wondered if anyone would come at all, but there has been a steady stream of people here to cleanse their souls before they take Communion tomorrow. I’ve listened to everything from a housewife crying over sleeping with her stepson to a young teen who steals spare change from the register where she works so she can feed her family. Compassion lights up my heart for the latter, and my monster surges forward wanting to rid the demon from the former. As the morning bleeds into the late afternoon, the people dwindle down until there are long lags in between. I’m about to head back to the rectory when a shuffling noise hits my ears, followed by the light, airy breaths of someone new entering the other side of the confessional booth.

A pleasant smell wafts through the partition, like campfire and vanilla, a heady mix that I’ve already committed to memory. One I inhaled when she was close enough to touch. Every muscle in my body freezes, nerves zapping along my skin like an electrical shock.

Petite pécheresse.

I watched her dance again last night at the Chapel, keeping myself hidden in the shadows and then following her home. I had planned to kill her then, to rid myself of her, but I couldn’t, although I’m not sure why.

“I don’t…I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she whispers softly.

Blood floods my groin at the sound of her meek voice, and my hands curl into fists to keep myself in check. I’m unprepared for her to be here, and it makes me feel incredibly vulnerable.

“How long has it been since your last confession?” I rasp, licking my lips as though I’ll be able to taste her in the air.

“Years,” she murmurs, even softer than before. “I didn’t plan to come here. I just…I was walking by, and for some reason…”

My eyes flutter closed, and I count to three, desperation latching on to my bones, needing to hear her sins. “What is your name, child?”

I’m not foolish enough to believe it’s Esmeralda.

“Amaya.”

My heart stutters, and it makes me angry that once again, my body is not under my control when she’s here.

“Amaya,” I repeat. The syllables form on my tongue and settle in like a permanent aftertaste.

I wonder if she recognizes my voice. We only had a brief interaction at the Chapel, but selfishly, although I know it’s not probable, I hope she’s here to seek me out, that she’s spiraling in the depths of obsession just as surely as I am and somehow tracked me down and found out who I was.

“Am I… Should I say a certain thi— ”

“Tell me why you’ve come,” I say, cutting her off. It’s not the appropriate way to lead a confession, but I don’t care.

Now that she’s here, my mind is muddled to everything except for her. Again. I’m feral to hear her transgressions pass her lips.

“Oh, I…” She pauses again, and I dig my nails into my palms so I don’t leap from my side of the booth and pry the words from her throat myself. “I don’t know. I worked late last night and then couldn’t sleep so I took a walk today, and I kind of…” “There’s no judgment here,” I soothe. “Only forgiveness.”

“It’s not that,” she snaps. “I just…I don’t know what to say. Sinning is subjective.”

Her naivete makes my cock thicken. Shamefully, I reach down and press my palm against it, willing it back down. It only makes it stiffer.

“Then tell me about you,” I force out. “What do you do for a living, Amaya?”

I like the way her name feels rolling off my tongue, like a ripe berry that bursts on my taste buds, the perfect mixture of sugar and bite.

“I dance,” she replies, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

“How do you dance?” I press, wanting her to say it plainly.

“Pole. And I strip,” she rushes out. “But I don’t think that’s a sin.”

She’s wrong. Her dancing will create enough sin to overflow the city streets. I want to lash out, to say that anyone seeing her body other than me will only ensure their death. But that would be ridiculous, because the thought itself is ridiculous, so I push back the words.

“So do you believe your sexual immorality will inherit the kingdom of God?”

“I don’t know that I want his kingdom,” she says. “Besides, I enjoy what I do.”

“Sin is often steeped in pleasure,” I note, the open wounds on my back stinging with the reminder of how true my words are.

“I pay off my mother’s debts. And that makes me feel dirtier than any type of sex work ever could.”

My spine stiffens, my gaze snapping toward her, so laser focused I’m surprised it doesn’t singe through the barrier between us. “Pay off debts how?”

“Are all priests so pushy?” she questions.

I chuckle, lifting slightly as I adjust my pant legs, trying to give my cock breathing room from where it’s being suffocated by the fabric.

There’s a rustling noise and then a faint, “I shouldn’t have come,” before she’s out of the confessional, her footsteps echoing through the dome ceiling and stone walls.

Everything inside me wants to chase after her, spin her around and force her to her knees as I drag her secrets from her lips, then taste her death as I steal her last breath, but I don’t. Instead, I grip the bench beneath me so tightly my fingernails feel like they might split.

Finally, I leave the booth, staring at the empty space where I foolishly hoped she’d still exist.

“What was she doing in here?”

I glance behind me, my mind trying to catch up to the present. Jeremiah’s holding an unlit white candle and glaring at the sanctuary’s entrance.

“You know her?” My stomach tightens.

His lips twist. “Everyone knows Amaya Paquette.”

“How so?” I press.

“Her mother used to date Mr. Errien.” My brows shoot to my hairline.

“I was gone to seminary when she lived here, but apparently they all used to come with him to Mass. One day, there was a fight out front in the main square.”

My brows rise. “A fight?”

He nods. “With her and her mother.”

“Where’s her mother now?”

“Gone.” He shakes his head, staring after where Amaya just was. “Her mom called her a witch. Said she hexed the town.”

“Ridicule.”

He nods. “You’d think but…after they moved here, things started to fall apart in Festivalé. Poverty started hitting the streets. People strayed from the path of God.”

My stomach sours. “People blame Amaya’s mother for the downturn of this town?”

Jeremiah shakes his head. “People blame Amaya.”

“Non, la sorcière?”

Is it possible she’s truly using witchcraft? She ensnares me so easily.

He nods. “Cursed, at the very least. Ever since she’s come to town, it’s been nothing but trouble. The only reason she hasn’t been run out is because Mr. Errien won’t allow it. He has a soft spot for her, I think.”

I stare at the empty space where she was moments ago. I wonder if I breathe deeply enough whether I’d be able to inhale her scent or if it’s faded away as fast as her physical form. “She’s all alone then?”

He frowns. “She shouldn’t be here.”

“All God’s children are welcome,” I reprimand.

“She’s beyond saving, Father.”

I clench my jaw, half of me wanting to reprimand him for not accepting my word as law and the other half reveling in the thought of being the one to rid her from the earth. If what he says is true, then she has a demon inside her that needs to be eradicated.

And it’s up to me to free her soul.

“No one is beyond saving. That’s why I’m here.”