Page 46 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

Her voice grows louder, meaner.

“I tried to get the girls out through the secret passage, but one of them—the Team Saint exorcist—found us. He used a … thing. A relic, maybe. It drained the nun with me so fast she hit the ground before she could scream.”

That explains the girls’ reluctance about Cisco. Jasmine’s fists are clenched so tightly that she shakes.

“They executed the Sinners who tried to fight. The nuns they took for questioning. I never saw them again. And the entire time, they kept shouting about purging evil. They didn’t care who they hurt. It was a massacre.”

Now she’s sweating. Literal beads form along her hairline. She scans the table, dares us to argue, but nobody does. Raven’s eyes slit. Thea sits up, even though it clearly hurts. Hannah’s eyes grow stark as they lock with Jasmine, who averts her gaze and fidgets beneath the table.

Her voice goes flat. “We hid out among corpses until maggots crawled out and hatched into flies. The only evil I saw wore a collar, so you’ll have to excuse me if I was a little jumpy when I arrived and saw you cozying up with a Team Saint.”

“Jesus,” Leila mutters, her own lips pale. “They really killed everyone?”

“It was a blood bath.” Hannah nods. “By the time I got there, it was over.”

Jasmine points her finger at me, at the Rev, at every Sinner at the table.

“You’re being played,” she declares. “The Vatican is our real enemy, not demons. We hardly saw any evidence of them out there. Don’t get distracted by fairy tales. If you trust those Saints, you’re as good as dead.”

I’m not buying it. Not all of it, anyway. Something still feels off about the timeline. If flies laid eggs in the corpses, it would take a day or two to hatch into larvae, and then another three days before they turned into flies. That would mean the attack happened days, if not a week, before Hannah arrived. Jasmine might have been covered in blood and gore, but it wasn’t a week old. Unless the Rev sent Hannah a few days earlier than what she told me the other night, Jasmine’s story has holes in it.

“You came back to us changed, Jaz,” I remark. “You kicked me out of my room, and now you’re wearing my clothes. The young girls refuse to share a room with you. What really happened over there? What aren’t you saying?”

For a heartbeat, nothing happens. Antagonizing her like this might be cruel, but it’s smart. The truth comes out when you’re pushed to the limit, and we have an apocalypse to fight. Claiming demons aren’t out there is hogwash. Jasmine’s going to crack one way or another. At least if she breaks with us all around her, we can pick up her pieces together.

If I ever find myself in a similar position, that’s what I’d want—to be around my sisters as I fall apart.

Jasmine starts to shake and breathe heavily through her nose.

“I did what I had to do!” she snaps and pounds her chest with a fist. “I got us out. That’s all that matters. I’m not a traitor. I brought the proof.” She gestures to the sack. “I sent the prophecy. Without me, none of you would have those relics. Those three girls would be dead. Like the rest.”

She’s not wrong. I turn to Hannah. “Does her story align with what you saw during the extraction?”

Jasmine jerks to her feet, chair screeching. “I told you—they were the monsters. Not us, not demons.” She stumbles back. “Can’t you feel it? They’re coming. They never stopped coming.”

Oh-kay…

A throat-crushing, blood-draining silence fills the room.

Jasmine’s standing now, hair pasted to her face with sweat, hands clenched so tight her nails have drawn blood.

“Sit down,” I say, cool as ice.

She hovers, twitching, then slowly sinks.

“I did what I had to,” she repeats, softer now, brittle. “I got us out.”

“You done?” Hannah drawls. “Can I speak, Your Majesty?”

Jasmine bares her teeth, but Hannah barely blinks.

“What she says checks out,” she says. “By the time I arrived, it was over. There were signs of battle, nothing demonic. Blood everywhere.” She pins me with that clear senator’s gaze. “No signs of life except for Jaz … and the girls.”

“And the flies,” Jasmine points out.

Hannah intones, “Yes.”

No one, apart from the children, can corroborate Jasmine’s story.