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I’d waited long enough to turn the tides on my father. This girl wasn’t going to sit back and let him fuck up the rest of her life.
With a sigh, I put the cross back in the drawer and turned away from it.
Time ticked by slowly. I had to wait until nightfall, and then I had to wait even more. I was supposed to meet Ezekiel after midnight at the church, and with my best guess, it took me about fifteen minutes to walk there from the house.
When it was time, I got dressed in black. Leggings paired with ankle-high boots, a long-sleeved t-shirt that hung a little low on my chest. And my black gloves, of course. I made it look like I was asleep in my bed, mounding up the pillows to look like a body in the shadows. I doubted my father would check on me, but you never knew. If he found out I was gone…
You know what? I didn’t fucking care. If he wanted me to stay in this damned house, he’d have to chain me to something in this room.
I slipped out of my room without a sound, moving through the house as quietly as I could. I passed his bedroom door, finding it was closed, which was good. It told me he was in his room, sleeping. I took the backdoor, leaving it unlocked for an easy return later, and then I was out.
Unlike the last time I’d slipped out of the house by myself without telling anyone, including Zander, I was more aware of any cars that passed on the road, any dark corners I walked by that someone could be hiding behind, waiting to shoot me again.
If it was my father, though, and my suspicions were right, I didn’t have to worry. Now, that said nothing about Atlas and his men. I truly was never safe from them. They could literally be anywhere, waiting to get their hands on me. I couldn’t depend on Ezekiel to take care of them every single time, but I refused to live my life in fear.
I made it to the church without incident, and I hesitated before pushing inside. Tossing a look over my shoulders, I made sure I was alone, that no one was nearby—either on the sidewalk or on the road—before heading in.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. The church was darker than it was during the day, a more eerie atmosphere due to the lack of light streaming in through the glass windows up top. Hardly any light, and yet it was more than enough to see. I walked in after shutting the door behind me, strolling up through the main aisle, looking for Ezekiel. The man was nowhere to be found.
Not a sound echoed in the wide, tall space. It sounded as if I was alone here, and I stood before the altar, staring up at the statue of Jesus directly behind it. It reminded me of the one at Father Charlie’s church, yet this was newer. The statue actually looked like a man carved of stone versus an artist’s vague idea of what a man looked like chiseled in whatever rock was nearest, nailed to a cross.Fancier, somehow.
I didn’t call out for him. I simply waited. I might’ve left a little early, which meant I’d arrived prematurely. It was… a strange kind of quiet in the church. I wouldn’t describe it as uneasy, but I wouldn’t call it comfortable, either. I think the blood in my veins still ran hot from today’s events, the anger inside me too strong to overcome in a mere few hours.
I was officially an engaged woman, and I couldn’t be less happy about it.
A door opening and closing somewhere in the back of the church alerted me to Ezekiel’s presence, and I watched as the man rounded the hall that wrapped around the main altar. He wore his usual; not sure what I was expecting, but a part of me did believe I’d finally see him in something other than that black outfit.
Ezekiel’s blue eyes studied me the moment he rounded the corner, his typical expressionless face giving way to something I couldn’t quite describe. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen me in black, and yet it was the first time we were truly alone when I wasn’t pretending to be someone else.
I stood with my chin turned up, watching as he approached, still studying my appearance unabashedly. In the darkened church, he looked a little different. Like he called the shadows home. Like he was so much more than a simple priest of the masses—but I already knew that. This was a man that had killed for me, and the thing was, I’d never asked him to.
I never asked, but that didn’t stop him from doing it, anyway.
As creepy and unsettling as Ezekiel could be, I found I couldn’t deny the fact that I was drawn to him. There was just something about him, past the riddles and the wisdom, that tugged at one of the innermost parts of me.
“I thought you might not come,” Ezekiel broke the silence emanating between us.
“You shouldn’t have doubted me, Ezekiel.”
He took a step towards me, cocking his head at me as he asked, “Does it make you feel better, calling me that? Is Zek too intimate for you? But if that was the case, I wonder why you wouldn’t simply call me Father Ezekiel like the rest of the flock.” Though his voice was strong, it came out in a bare whisper, and yet it sounded much like a challenge.
He probably intimidated a lot of people, or people were more than happy to listen to his so-called words of wisdom and take them to heart. Me? I would not be so easily brought to my knees before a man who claimed to be God’s messenger, yet could commit the worst sin of them all without blinking.
I mean, in God’s eyes, there was nothing worse than murder, right?
“I am not a part of your flock,” I told him. “I am no one’s flock.”
He almost smiled at that—almost. He didn’t strike me as a man who smiled often. Ezekiel didn’t address what I’d said, instead his black-haired head tilted as he once again took in my appearance. Suddenly I wondered if my shirt dipped a little too low on my chest…
“Black suits you much better than white,” he said, taking yet another step closer to me. He stood less than a foot in front of me, and I was momentarily struck by how impressive he was. He might be a priest, but he was tall and strong, radiating power out of every pore. “Or perhaps it is just you, coming into your own.”
“So perceptive,” I whispered back. Unless I was crazy, this felt like some kind of twisted foreplay. We both knew we were monsters, and we both pretended not to be when other people were looking.
We were a lot more similar than I’d thought, and that realization shocked me.
“What do you wear, when you’re not pretending?” I asked, cocking my head and placing a hand on my hip.
That got me a smile. A fleeting one, but a smile, nonetheless. “What makes you think I’m pretending, Giselle?” His eyes narrowed at me, the intensity oozing from him, sucking me in more than anything or anyone ever had.
