When the confessional booth starts moving?
I roll my eyes.
Is this a joke?
And then, when it carries on, I start to get mad.
My temper’s slow burn. Really slow burn. As in, it’s barely there until it is and boom, it’s like a blast.
But this blatant disregard of decency has pissed me off. Throw in the kid dying, and the stupid prejudiced witch from the waiting room? Yeah, I’m mad.
Super mad.
Maybe I’m not thinking straight, maybe I’ve been invaded by the crazy bug, but hell, I have to act.
And I can’t just cough and demand they stop it. I can’t just let them giggle and get excited over being caught.
Nope.
They need to be punished.
I narrow my eyes at the confessional booth, which is still moving around like it’s got an earthquake going down under it, and I know exactly what I’m going to do.
A short, sharp shock.
That’s what they need.
So, I grab my bag, hitch it on my shoulder, and prepare to leave, my intent to find the security guard who mans the doors and get him to do something.
Only... when I leave my pew, I see it.
It might as well scream at me, “Push here.”
It’s stupid. I know it is. And, God, I might get into massive trouble considering it’s, ya know, illegal, but my slow-to-rattle temper always did make me an idiot.
So, I punch the glass of the fire alarm, and when it blares out a warning, and the sprinkler system pops on a few seconds later?
My heart leaps into my throat as I think about how fucking crazy that was—
Then, she screams.
And not in a ‘I just hit the big O’ kind of way, and I stop wondering if I’m crazy.
I just smile.
Job done.
Savio
The second the trucks roll in, my stomach turns.
The men are covered in blood and they’re sporting large grins, as if raping villages with Muslim women and girls is something to celebrate.
As if it was God’s will.
Bile burns in my stomach, longing to be torn from my being, but the truth is, I can’t deal with anymore stenches in my prison.
It’s easy to swallow down my horror at my current surroundings, easier to handle a rumbling stomach than to deal with another overpowering odor.
The largest of which is me.
I reek.
I beyond reek.
I’ve never gone without showering for this length of time. My cassock is filthy, tattered at the hem, and so dusty it’s more gray-brown than black now.
When I scrub a hand over my face to wipe away the sweat, it comes back covered in grime, and the prickles of my stubble make me feel even itchier. I’ve been clean-shaven since seminary school, and the beard I’m growing feels worse for how filthy my face is.
My shoulders hunch as the buzzing of the flies competes with the raucous cheers from the rebels as they stroll in like conquerors.
They’ve conquered nothing.
This is a battle they’ll never win.
The Catholic church has been trying for over a century to convert Algeria to our creed, and while these men here are a few of the ‘devout’—yes, I’m rolling my eyes at that—and they wish to spread the word, they cannot.
There will be more death before this is over. More destruction and devastation.
The bowl they gave me to use for my personal needs is practically vibrating with insect life, but it’s better to stare at that, to wonder how I reached this point, than to look at the victors returning home.
It all started with a girl.
Sawa Oshiyan. My mission here was to tend to the poor, to heal the sick, and to bring medical aid in a war-torn country.
I did that.
I did my best. I was no doctor, even if I’m inclined toward healing, but I could swab and clean with the best of them, and I had more skills than most thanks to two years in medical school that I tossed down the drain when I realized that wasn’t my calling.
The priesthood was.
She came, I helped her. Then, when the IFS tore Oran apart? Her brother, Ishmael, came to me, and took me away.
I thought he came to help me.
But he didn’t.
He wants to use me.
The men, the acts they do, the crimes they commit—he wants me to absolve them.
And I can’t.
I just can’t.
I don’t care if I die within these cramped, foul-smelling quarters. I will never condone what they do.
I close my eyes, praying to God for guidance, but he isn’t listening.
No one in this country is.
For the first time in my life, I truly feel like I know what ‘Godforsaken’ means.
I understand it.
It resonates within this miserable cell, within this compound, within this city.
God has forsaken us.
He’s forsaken me.
The cell’s forged of bare, crude bricks that have been piled together haphazardly. It has a rickety roof, which lets in the little rain that’s fallen since my capture, and with my butt on the floor, I could feel everything. From the stomping boots to the trucks that drive down the makeshift road.
Because of the haphazard building, little drafts come in through the gaps in the bricks, and I can see my captors’ movements.
Even if I don’t want to.
My behind is the first to recognize the presence of one of the rebels, and the vibrations beneath me are enough to make my queasy stomach even queasier.
When the door’s tugged open, I squint at the face, which is just as dirty as mine, but there are streaks of blood on Ishmael that tell a tale of their own.
My eyes smart from the bright light haloing around him as I hurl, “I will not.” I know what he wants.
What he’s wanted from the start.
He sneers, and for a second, I think he’s going to leave me alone in this rat-infested hovel. But he doesn’t. He walks into the cell, grabs me by my collar, and kicks me forward. He doesn’t stop using me like a football until I’m out in the open.
I could have fought, and in another life, I would have—I even trained in some mixed martial arts before I became a priest—but that was one of the reasons I changed vocations.
That was what had led me to this point.
Violence is no longer my way.
And the strangest thing of all?
That the pain feels good. Instead of just moldering in there, I’d prefer to die.
I’d prefer to be free from this hellhole that my world has become because the writing is on the wall.
They will no longer take my rejections.
They will kill me soon, and I embrace death. I welcome it.
Only, when I’m in the center of the compound, just a few feet away from the trucks whose fenders still have tiny funnels of heat unfurling from the metal, do I realize that there is something they can do that does not involve my death.
I was short-sighted.
In fact, stupid.
I am. Stupid, I mean.
Why would they kill me when they need me?
There are ways of making me behave, and those ways are not something I can endure.
She’s small.
Young. I don’t want to think about how young, but old enough to be covered. She’s crying, dirty track marks running over her cheeks. Her nose is bleeding, and one eye is swollen shut.
My mouth tightens at the sight of her, knowing the presence of a Muslim girl on a Christian compound does not bode well. Especially not a compound such as this.
I swallow and start praying.
They could torture me, they could hurt me, and I’d never cave.
And somehow, they saw that.
They know pain is not my weakness.
But the girl?
She is.
I want to turn away from her, want to run and hide because I know what’s about to happen.
The only way to stop it is to do something just as heinous.
To a nonbeliever, absolution, penitence, and atonement are just words. But to a devout Catholic? They’re the cornerstones of the faith.
To do something wrong, to ask for forgiveness, that is what we do. What we’re taught to do.
But to be forgiven for rape? For murder?
To be given absolution to the point where the slate’s wiped clean?
No.
Just, no.
And then, in French, Ishmael rasps, “You will take our confessions.”
My throat feels choked. “No! I won’t.”
The girl cries and my gaze cuts to her. My body aches, my stomach and torso bear the imprint of each kick, and my mouth is full of dust from the ground. Overhead, the sun glares down relentlessly, making my skin feel hot and itchy, but I’d stare into the sun a thousand times over before I will do as they demand—
She cries out again.
Her veil’s torn from her, revealing an abundance of beautiful hair.
I look away, close my eyes, and then she screams and I surge to my feet. My training doesn’t allow me to stay passive, to sit idly by while these monsters abuse her.
I take them by surprise. One second I’m on the ground, a victim, and the next I’m on my feet, an aggressor.
The guy holding the girl, wearing a filthy makeshift turban on his head to protect him from the sun, his clothes bloodstained, his boots dusty, doesn’t know what hits him when I ram my fist into his throat.
He gasps, horrified, and lets the girl go to clutch at his neck.
I broke his windpipe.
There’s no saving him.
But men surge around me, and one grabs the girl just as four detain me.
“For that, we’ll kill her and—”
I tune out Ishmael’s taunt, and to the sounds of the dying man’s choked rattle, and the screams from the girl, I lose myself.
My sanity shatters like a stone tossed into a window, the glass rupturing into a thousand pieces that are impossible to fix.
This girl is the first, but she will not be the last.
They will use the innocent to get to me. To make me bow to their demands.
They will carry on until they are stopped, and this time, I pray to Allah, because my God isn’t hearing me, and plead with him to let the Islamic Salvation Front best these monsters.
“You will rot in hell,” I snarl, as the girl’s screams seem to reverberate around the compound. “The Devil will fuck you in the ass, he will stick his cock in every orifice and make you weep blood. You will rue the day you did this, you will rue the day you allowed this abomination to happen. He will fuck you, make you his sluts, and—”
The fist to my face comes as a welcome relief.
But even then, I can’t stop myself.
I headbutt the man opposite me, relishing the gush of blood as his nose breaks.
And when another approaches? I knee him in the balls, hoping to fuck that I do him some damage.
When Ishmael takes his gun and pistol-whips me, I embrace the darkness that overtakes me.
But with the force of the move, he destroys the shattered web of my sanity forever.
The Savio Martin of before is no more.
The creature standing in his place?
I know not his name.
Nor do I wish to.
And if you were smart, you wouldn’t ask it either.
Two
Andrea
Two years later
“I think you should move in with me.”
I give Diana a look, just to monitor her.
As expected, she flinches.
“I couldn’t afford the rent,” she tells me softly, which is like everything else about her.
Soft.
Not in a bad way, but just, I don’t know, a way that makes me want to protect her.
I happened upon her by chance outside of my creative writing class one day. She was on the phone, standing with her shoulders hunched, head bowed, and her attention on the person she was talking to.
I wasn’t sure if she realized it then, or if she knows it now, but she was trembling.
Like a leaf.
Her terror was palpable.
Well, at least, it had been to me.
Everyone else in the vicinity?
Nope.
Just, nope.
They walked around her like she wasn’t there. But to me? She was all I could see. All I could think of.
It was like tunnel vision, but on a different scale. I know, during a panic attack, that the field of sight can narrow as oxygen levels deplete in the bloodstream, but I wasn’t having trouble breathing.
I was fine.
Absolutely zip-a-dee-doo-dah fine.
Now—the same as back then on that fateful day I found her on the campus—I love college, and it loves me. I’m popular, have a gazillion friends, and the classes are a breeze.
For Diana?
Not so much.
She’s like the exact opposite of popular. Not nerdy, not even weird. Just nobody likes her, and I don’t get it. When we’re together, we get looks because that’s how disliked she is.
I mean, you’d think she had halitosis or something for the way everyone avoids her.
Of course, that was until I met her father, and when I did, suddenly everything began to make sense. But that moment, when I’d seen her being ignored, her evident distress just tossed aside like she was trash?
I had no choice but to take her under my wing.
She’s been there ever since. Three months later.
“You should,” I repeat. “The rent is cheap, and you can always come and work at the coffee store with me.” I mean, technically, there were no openings, but Rachel, the owner, is just as much of a sucker for a sob story as I am.
Not that Diana has a sob story. Well, she has one, but she’s never mentioned it to me.
Not once.
I get it though, I really do. She’s terrified of her dad. He’s a massive bastard, and to make it worse, the small college town is pretty much his. He’s the mayor, and he’s a prick. So far, I haven’t gotten on his bad side, but he doesn’t like me.
I don’t think he likes anyone who could help give Diana a backbone.
Whatever he’s doing to her, I don’t know, but it’s there. Wriggling beneath the surface. I feel like I’m going fly-fishing for the first time and I’m trying to pluck that story out of the water.
I’ve always sucked at fishing, so I guess that’s a shitty example.
Shoving some of my takeout her way, I bribe her with Kung Pao chicken, and murmur, “Please? I get a little lonely—”
Her eyes widen at that, and she stops staring at her salad.
Yeah, she’s eating salad.
While I’m having takeout.
Not because she doesn’t have the money. Nope, she ordered this.
Because her dad calls her fat.
I mean, I guess she’s big boned, but she’s gorgeous. Like her bright red hair is pretty much ‘STOP’ sign worthy. If I was gay, I’d gape at her for her hair alone. Then, she has big boobs, a curvy butt, and she has the taste to pull it off—even if she always shrouds at least one part of her body in something massive to cover it up.
She should have all the guys around here panting after her like the dogs they are.
Instead, it’s like she’s Typhoid Mary.
Sheesh.
I have to help the girl, or she’ll be a virgin until she dies.
Nudging her in the side, I mutter, “Go on, have some. There’s too much for me.”
There isn’t.
That’s a whopper of a lie, but I don’t think I can be condemned for it.
She needs me.
She probably needs me more than anyone else I’ve ever come across—well, except for the boy I tried to save when I was seventeen.
I only found out in the obituaries that his name was David McKenna.
T
o me, he’ll always be ‘the boy I failed.’
I refuse to fail with Diana. Whatever her dad is doing to her, whether it’s just undermining her confidence—because, yeah, that’s a ‘just’ in this scenario—or if he’s hurting her physically, mentally, or sexually, I have to figure it out.
Have to break the seal on what’s happening to her.
“You’re never alone. You have so many friends... how can you be lonely?”
She speaks so softly that she might as well whisper. I swear, I need an ear horn just to hear most of the stuff she says.
“Never seen Lost In Translation?” I waggle my chopsticks at her, already mourning the Kung Pao I offered her, which she tentatively bites in case I Rohypnoled it or something. “That was like, proof on how you can be in a city full of people but feel totally alone.”
She blinks at me, then her disbelief starts to shine through. “You’re too sanguine to be lonely.”
I pshaw at that. “It’s a crime to be egregious? Ebullient? Friendly?”
Her lips twitch. “Not a crime, no, but still, you like your own space. I know you do. There are a bunch of people you could choose from for a roommate.”
I shrug. “I don’t want them. They might stink. Or fart every time they eat ice cream.” My brow puckers. “I don’t think I could deal with that.”
“You mean you want a roommate who isn’t lactose intolerant and you’re willing to specify that during the interview?”
Her lips have started twitching, and I feel like I’ve seen the light of day at last. Every time we get together, it takes me a good ninety minutes to break her out of her shell.
I hate having to do that. Hate it with a passion. Not because it’s boring or tiring—which it is. It’s really draining—but because whatever he does to her? It makes her turn into a tortoise.
“You don’t fart when we eat ice cream,” I tease.
“And that’s why I’d be the perfect roommate?” She grins at me, revealing the most perfect teeth I’ve ever seen. I know she isn’t lying when she says she didn’t have braces, but fuck, this girl was blessed with a banging bod, teeth that belong on an advertisement for toothpaste, hair that should be on a shampoo commercial... in fact, she should be a model. Period.
Yet it’s like she has an arrow overhead telling guys she has Chlamydia.
The Vows We Break: A Twisted Taboo Tale Page 2