Page 112 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

I hiss at the other voice, another memory that hurts.

Mercy’s palm swings in that direction. “Hannah—or should I call you Maria?”

My head whips up. Maria? Yes, that’s her name. My baby sister. I blink through the agony. I battle the puppeteer pulling my head in another direction, but I need to see them. If I lose sight, I fear I’ll lose them forever. Hannah. Maria. She is one and the same. The face I know. Alive. A sob slips from my lips and is eaten by darkness, but I know them.

I know them.

More color filters in, and I see more of their figures. They’re not far away, facing each other, wind whipping in their hair.

“Fuck you,” Maria snaps at Mercy.

“Just keep a calm head, okay?” she returns.

“And why should I? He played us both.”

“Exactly. Don’t give him what he wants.”

“What he wants is for one of us to become Famine. He doesn’t care which one.”

“You know?”

“Of course I know! I’ve always known.”

“Jesus-fuck! Then why aren’t you fighting back?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all these years? I was trying to find a way to protect you all the best that I could.”

“A Spanish abbey filled with dead nuns says otherwise.”

“Not if you knew the alternative was worse.”

“Why didn’t you come to us? Why didn’t you ask us for help?”

“Why would you trust me? I was never there! I was never a part of your family, despite being a part of the same Sisterhood.” My sister holds up her hand, stopping Mercy’s response. “But that’s okay. I knew I wouldn’t be. Not since the first day I found half of Mary’s Gospel in the Spanish archives a few months ago.” She swings her pointer finger to me. “But I knew he would be there.” Her breath hitches. “And I knew that if I could make Beelzebub think he controlled me, if I could make this work, then it would make up for all the hurt I caused my family. But you fucked everything up. He was supposed to fear for your life, you idiot! Now he’ll never give up his half of the curse . . . but I suppose⁠—”

“Hannah, stop.”

“I suppose there’s still time.”

“Don’t do it.”

A scrape of metal. A flash in the darkness. The puppet strings jerk me upright. The pain in my void melts away.

I only have eyes for the dagger pressed against a pale throat, for the hand that controls it, and for how it rests just above a smattering of freckles on a shoulder.

Forty

Mercy

“Hannah, what are you doing?”

She has me pinned against her chest, her dagger at my throat.

“It’s better this way,” she replies quietly, walking us toward Cisco. “Better me than him.”

I stumble forward with her, glancing down at the sword as we pass.

I thought I could reason with Hannah, or at least get through to Cisco and diffuse this volatile situation the same way I did with his shadow ribbons in the osteria.