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“Then we’ll figure something else out,” he says simply.
I shake my head. He’s talking about this as if it’s the most obvious, simple thing in the word, but it isn’t. “Because you have faith, right?” I ask. I hate how cynical I sound, how the words taste bitter in my mouth.
“Yes,” he replies.
“Why?” I ask. “It’s been pointless up to now. Everything you did, everything all of you have done to protect me, it’s been pointless. There’s nothing to have faith in.”
We stop walking, standing under the shade of a giant Southern Live Oak in the shade. I don’t want to keep walking, I want to look into Luke’s eyes as he answers my question. I don’t see any way he can answer this that isn’t going to piss me off or want me to hurry my plans up.
“But you’re wrong,” he replies, his brown eyes meeting mine. He looks so worried, his brow furrowed. “You’re still here. We’re having this conversation. If we hadn’t done anything, none of us would’ve gotten to know you, and we’d all be worse off because of it.”
I scoff. “No, you wouldn’t.”
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Trine,” he says. “Do you know why I became a priest?”
“Because you hate gay people?” Malon asks.
I think Luke is going to be annoyed, but he smiles instead, which surprises me. Are they joking with each other now? That feels weird. I don’t know how I’m supposed to think about it.
“I don’t hate anyone,” Luke says, flashing him a meaningful look, a playful smile on his face. “Present company excluded.”
This is…flirting. They’reflirting. What the fuck? I mean, it’s definitely sexy, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it considering everything else that’s happened.
“Anyway,” Luke says, waving his hand in front of his face. “That’s not why. I grew up in this tiny mexican village no one’s ever heard of, a really traditional family, with a bunch of sisters, a father I hardly ever saw except for Sundays at Church. He was not present because he had to work a lot. To be honest, when I was a kid, I barely listened to the sermons. I just remember going to mass being something I always look forward to.”
“You’re such a weirdo,” Malon says under his breath. Luke smiles, but he doesn’t acknowledge him.
“And that’s how it was until I was about sixteen,” he says. “Then my sister got sick. She was really sick. We had to go to the city for her to get treated, but…that didn’t really work. And my parents prayed and prayed, and my other sisters prayed, and nothing seemed to happen. Nothing seemed to work. We tried to go to other doctors, and that didn’t work.”
“Is that why you came here?” I ask.
He cocks his head. “No,” he says. “My family is all back home. And, honestly, Trine, healthcare in Mexico is excellent. And it’s much cheaper than American healthcare.”
I clasp my mouth shut, feeling like an idiot. “Right.”
“But I’ll get there eventually,” he says. “Anyway, the treatment finally worked. She was better. She wasn’t sick anymore. She got married, moved away. It was really nice.”
“So is she okay now?” I ask, though I think I probably shouldn’t.
“She died,” he says. “She was okay for a few years and then it came back. And during that time, I noticed how much comfort it brought her to pray–all of us, really. And I think I would be lying if I said that there was no part of me that wanted her to be miraculously cured, but none of us thought that was possible.”
“So what was the point?” I ask him. I’m genuinely curious. This is weird, surprising.
“Hope,” he says softly. “That is why I became a priest. That’s why I came here instead of staying at home, I hoped I could make my family’s life a little better. And then I realized I could help people in an impossible position, so that’s what I did. It’s what I’m still trying to do.”
“But you could give people hope by doing so many other things?” Malon asks.
“But if I was doing that, I would have never gotten to meet you,” Luke says, his smile widening into a grin. “Either of you.”
This is weird. It’s weird that they’re friends, it’s weird that they’re both trying to convince me that this is the right thing to do. If a demon and a priest are trying to convince me to do the same thing, then the very least I can do is entertain them.
I take a deep breath, my hands fisted at my sides. “Fine,” I say. “But if it’s too much, you have to promise to stop.”
“Trine…” Luke starts.
“I need people to stop coming after the people around me,” I tell them. “I need to be able to protect everyone and I can’t do that by sticking around. I’ll do it for you–for all of you–but you have to promise me that, if it doesn’t work, you’ll let me go through with my original plan.”
They look at each other for a second. “Yes,” Malon says. “And I know he can’t help you with your plan, but if it doesn’t work, I’ll try to kill you myself.”
