The Vows We Break: A Twisted Taboo Tale

by Serena Akeroyd

  Another priest might care about him being gay. I don’t give a damn. I care about his sins.

  So many of them.

  Like shadows on his soul.

  And the other shadow on my soul?

  The poor kid who Dirk just murdered.

  I foresaw this happening. Like night follows day, I saw it, and I did nothing to stop it.

  That’s on me. His death, his blood are on my hands, making them my sins.

  I have enough of those to pay for, enough that I know I’ll never be walking through heaven’s gates. I don’t need this bastard’s misdeeds weighing me down when the Devil embraces me as he welcomes me to eternal suffering.

  And if he will, if Lucifer himself welcomes me into that fiery kingdom, I want the right kind of sins blackening my soul.

  The kind that makes restitution for the sins of others.

  Dirk knows what my silence means. I hear the latch of the door and know he’s about to slink out like the serpent he is. But unlike every other time I refuse to give into his wailing, I murmur, “You see the wrong you’ve done, my child?”

  He pauses, and the door latch clicks as it closes. “Y-Yes, Father. I see it. I know I did wrong. I’m so sorry.”

  My nostrils flare at the blatant lie.

  He’d do it again in a flash.

  So I absolve him.

  I tell him to pray and seek penance, and when I leave the confessional a half hour later after tending to two more of my flock, I see him still there, on his knees, doing as I wished.

  It’s a small church. I man it myself, and I stay back, hidden in the shadows as the afternoon starts to fade away.

  When he rises, I can see he feels like he’s had a load lightened, and somehow, that makes the one on my heart even heavier.

  As he trudges out of the church, I follow. I know where he’s going, because he practically lives at his shop. So I go there, and when he enters, shortly after, his wife leaves to pick up their children.

  The town is small, barely four thousand people live here, and the single high street is served by their hardware store, a bakery, a small chain grocery, and a few other storefronts. A little cafe, a bar. Nothing much, but enough.

  I move around the back of the building, knowing my way about the redbrick street, and I find the back door open.

  Not surprising.

  It’s that kind of place. Trust... there’s trust woven into the bricks lining the streets, even if it’s misplaced.

  So I move into the backroom and head into his office.

  Is it wrong of me to do what I have planned?

  Yes.

  Do I care?

  No.

  I wait in the office until he starts to shuffle around, and when the door opens, I prepare to do what I must.

  Within seconds of him stepping inside the room, my arm is at his throat, and I raise his to make sure he passes out.

  With barely any struggle, he’s flailing around like the useless sack of skin he is until he’s deadweight.

  In more ways than one.

  It’s time for me to get to work.

  I unfasten his belt from around his waist, and I buckle it around his neck. With him lying flat on the floor, quiet for the moment, I peer around the small study, and find a box of tissues on the desk. Grabbing one, I unfasten his fly and grab his dick.

  When I do, I almost gag.

  He definitely has an STD of some kind.

  Just holding it through the tissue makes me want to vomit and bleach my fingers, but I focus.

  Trying not to think about how he might have touched his wife since he got the STD, and that he slept with whores without using protection and didn’t think to protect her or maybe even them—

  God help her. God help them.

  With rage in my heart, making my soul vibrate with its strength, I tie the loose end of his belt around the door handle. It’s a canvas style belt, so I can work with it. If it was leather, I’d need to come up with another plan.

  Of course, I’m in a hardware store—there’s nothing but equipment for killing in here.

  But I carry on with my plan, appreciating how organically it comes together.

  For a second, I get lost in the quagmire of this man’s sins as I maneuver his still form, but when the bell chimes from the church tower, I know I have to hurry.

  Vespers will be soon.

  With his hand on his dick, I prop him up then let him go.

  A rattling gasp escapes him, like his unconscious body knows it can’t breathe, and I watch as the air drains from his lungs and he chokes.

  It’s slow.

  But I know it will be identified as an accidental death thanks to misadventure.

  My lips twitch at that.

  The coroner has no idea just how much misadventure this prick has gone through.

  As his life drains from him, I observe, and that burden on my soul?

  It lightens some.

  And twenty minutes later, when I climb out of the back window, my only regret is that his wife will find him like this.

  She doesn’t deserve that, but neither does she deserve to be married to that piece of scum.

  No one sees me because no one is around at this time.

  Most people are at home, having dinner since the kids are out of school. But I know Dirk’s schedule because I’d been watching him.

  I’ll admit to that.

  I’ve been watching and waiting for him to fall from grace, and now that he has?

  I just delivered him to the Devil, because God, no matter how benevolent he is, won’t accept the absolution I gave him, not when there’s no regret in his heart.

  Just like there’s none in mine now.

  I’m a man of God to the eyes of the world, but between me and my Maker?

  We both know that’s a lie.

  Three

  Andrea

  Seven years later

  The second I told her I had wings, everything seemed to derail.

  Linda lost faith in me, and for a time, I lost faith in myself.

  I didn’t understand why she didn’t believe me.

  After all, they were there.

  I could feel them.

  They were large.

  Huge, golden feathers dragged down my shoulders, making me work hard at the gym to combat their weight. My shoulders were strong now, my upper back broad enough to take their weight, to hold them high with pride.

  I’d shown them to her, and all of a sudden, she stared at me with distrust and fear.

  She feared me.

  Me—who was trying to help her.

  Me—who was trying to get her away from her abusive husband.

  The night I told her the truth was the night everything started to go wrong, because I knew she couldn’t see them.

  Which meant either I was delusional, or she was.

  And while her husband had beaten her, broken her body like she was a ragdoll, she was a smart woman.

  A healthy woman.

  I managed to get Linda out from under his roof, managed to get her to stay with me.

  Just like with Diana and all the other people I helped over the years, I managed to get them into a safe haven—my home—and from then on out, they could use that place as a steppingstone as they considered their options and their next move.

  Diana has two kids now and is living in Madrid with her husband—they moved three years ago.

  She’s happy.

  She’s strong.

  Then there’s Charles, whose wife had manipulated his family into believing that he was gaslighting her so that, when she got a divorce, she’d get custody of the kids.

  Marie, James, Tina, Li?

  More people I helped along the years.

  All of them had flourished.

  But Linda?

  Since ‘the boy I failed,’ she was the first I’d let down, and not unlike the last time, it resulted in death.

  Her death.

  She left my safe haven where I protected he
r and had gone out into the streets where her husband had been waiting for her.

  He picked her up, took her home, and he killed her. Strangled her.

  And it was all my fault.

  At least, I thought it was.

  My wings... were they real, or weren’t they?

  It’s why I’m here today.

  I told my doctor I was feeling unwell, and when I shared the truth with her? All of a sudden, I was going in for appointments with specialists, and being made to endure CAT scans and all kinds of horrible torture devices to find out what was wrong with me.

  Because, yes, my wings were ‘something that was wrong with me.’

  Just thinking that has me nibbling on my bottom lip.

  I don’t think I’m sick, but something about what I told Linda caused her death, so I have to act, don’t I? I have to find out if I’m wrong.

  I stare outside the window, my hand in my mom’s, my dad at my back.

  They flew from California where Dad’s stationed now just for this meeting.

  It’s an important one.

  Words like ‘arachnoid cyst on the left temporal lobe’ flutter over my awareness.

  I know what the neurologist is saying, even if it doesn’t make sense to me.

  Just to everyone else.

  I know I’m a Watcher, a type of angel born to view the misdeeds of humanity and to guide them along the right path.

  I realized it a few years after I helped Diana.

  There was a reason I saw her when no one else did. Why I saw others, why I had to act, why I needed to help them.

  It’s a part of my nature. A part of my soul. It calls out to me to act, and I have no choice but to heed its call.

  So I flutter through life, moving around like the nomad I’m born to be. As an army brat, it fits with my past. I’m used to being on the move, and my years in college are actually the longest time I’ve spent anywhere, but it means I come across a lot of people from all walks of life.

  A few years ago, I’d written a book and had managed to find an agent to represent me. A year later, I was a bestseller, and my last two books had been bestsellers too. My publishers loved me.

  But that enabled my nomadic lifestyle as well.

  All that time, I was away from family who know me best. Who might have seen the signs before anyone else did.

  Signs that I’m apparently sick.

  My brow crinkles as my cell buzzes. I reach down and stare at the screen, seeing Diana has sent me a message.

  I’m still friends with all the people I’ve helped. Diana more than most though. We usually speak every day, but because of the distance between us, and the things we talk about, I don’t think she ever realized how much I’ve changed.

  I don’t have to understand what’s being said to know the doctor’s telling my parents I have some kind of tumor.

  A brain tumor.

  Yeah, that doesn’t bode well, does it?

  Diana: How’s it going? You out of the appointment yet?

  What should I tell her?

  The truth?

  That I believe I’m an angel?

  Or that my wings are the only reason I decided I needed to start this piggyback ride through the healthcare system, as I was referred to doctor after doctor who investigated my case?

  None of them saw my wings.

  Not a single one.

  And they’re so beautiful too.

  I gnaw on my bottom lip as I stare at her message. I know she knows I’ve read it, so I can’t not answer. She’ll just carry on pinging until I reply, and my dad will end up telling me off. He still thinks I’m eight, and ever since they figured out something wasn’t right with me, and I told them, he’s been even worse.

  Treating me like a child.

  I’m not a child.

  I’m a grown woman.

  I just...

  Well, I have wings.

  Me: They think I have a cyst in my brain.

  Diana: What’s a cyst?

  I don’t take her lack of reaction in a bad way. I know her. I know she’s freaking out in person, but she would try to be calm via message for my sake.

  Me: I don’t know. I guess I should listen to the doctor, but I just can’t seem to focus.

  Diana: You haven’t been able to focus for a while. Weren’t you telling me a few weeks ago that’s why London’s Burning is taking you so long to write?

  I blink at that—why does she remember everything? Or is it me who’s forgetting everything?

  The thought makes me huff.

  Me: Must you remember everything?

  Diana: Lol. I don’t. I have mom brain, you know that. You’re just forgetful.

  Another symptom, maybe?

  I reach up and rub my temple where an ache’s starting to grow.

  It’s strange to think of this ‘thing’ growing in my head. Do I feel it?

  I mean, some days, like today, I have headaches.

  But doesn’t everyone?

  And Diana’s right. I’m a pretty fast writer, but London’s Burning, though I’m loving the story, is taking me ages to finish.

  My agent has already been pestering me over it for at least four months now.

  I’d just blamed it on my intense need to help Linda.

  A need that backfired.

  Why had I shared the truth with her?

  Why?

  Why had I shown her my wings?

  I want to kick myself, because if I’d just stayed quiet, she’d still be alive, and her death wouldn’t be on my conscience.

  More than anything, it’s that which pains me.

  I’d gone to such efforts to get her to trust me. We’d become fast friends—that was the only reason I’d brought her into my confidence about my wings.

  But it had done the opposite of bringing us closer, and as a result, she’s now in a cemetery, returning to the earth, and I might be following her.

  “Will I die?”

  I blurt out the question, not caring that I’m being rude. I know my parents are absorbing all this, know they’re going to be researching it all later, but I don’t care about that.

  I want to know the truth.

  I hate bullshitting around.

  “The surgery is intense and—”

  I don’t let her finish. “Will I die?”

  The neurologist, a woman in her mid-fifties with a constant scowl, stares at me long enough for her eyes to soften. She wears green scrubs beneath a white doctor’s jacket, and her stethoscope has some kind of plastic thing on it that makes it look like a daisy.

  I guess that means she has kids walking through these doors.

  Jesus. How terrifying.

  “You might.”

  The admission has my mom releasing a soft sob, and I turn to look at her in surprise. I love her, and she loves me, but she’s a doctor herself. An oncologist. She’s pretty hardened when it comes to illnesses. Whenever I had anything wrong with me as a kid, she’d say, “It’s only a bruised knee. Let’s be grateful you didn’t break your patella.”

  I grew up knowing what the anatomical names of body parts were because she compared every injury to the worst-case scenario.

  “You have an earache? At least, you’re not going deaf in that ear, Andrea.”

  For her to cry now? And yeah, she has big fat blobs of tears in her eyes... I know it isn’t good.

  Huh.

  I’m dying.

  So why don’t I feel like I am? Why does this feel like the first day of the rest of my life?

  Diana: Did you see this?

  The buzz of my phone has me staring down at the screen. She’s sent a few messages, all of them demanding more information. Knowing her intent is to distract me, I ignore them to ask:

  Me: Did I see what?

  A link appears, and when I open it, uncaring about the conversation now, I see him again.

  What is it about this priest?

  Savio Martin.

  I bite my bottom lip, surprised how the sigh
t of him makes something inside me squirm.

  I’ve never been a sexual creature. I figure that was why, at twenty-eight, I’m still a virgin. Everyone else got down and dirty, and I just like watching. And no, not in a voyeur kind of way, just in a ‘life’ kind of way.

  But Father Savio? With eyes like velvet and a face that would make a saint weep?

  He makes me melt.

  I scan the article—it’s an exposé about his life since he’d been freed from his captors.

  Was that really ten years ago?

  God, how time passes.

  I’d kept an eye on his situation, his story, every now and then, but when it dried up, I couldn’t follow the trail.

  I let it go.

  Let him go.

  And now, I realize how wrong that was.

  There’s pain in his eyes.

  In his soul.

  It calls out to me. Demanding action.

  I stand up, then flinch when my dad grabs my shoulder. “Andrea? Where are you going?”

  I blink at him. “I need to leave.”

  “Leave for where?” He frowns at me like I’m crazy, and then something shifts on his face like now he sees me as sick. Like maybe all the weird stuff I do is because of this ‘arachnoid cyst on the left temporal lobe.’

  Anger whispers through me, but the doctor murmurs, “Ms. Jura, it’s important that you focus. We’re going to have to act very fast. Though benign, it’s actually quite aggressive. We need to—”

  Surgery.

  I could die under the surgeon’s knife.

  Without ever seeing Savio in the flesh.

  He needs me.

  I need to go to him.

  And that means the surgery has to work.

  When someone needs me, I never let them go.

  Ever.

  And his soul?

  It’s crying out for mine.

  The wings, the path, the choices I made—all of a sudden, it all makes sense.

  He’s been there, on every step of my journey, and now? I need to be there for him.

  Savio

  The second I touch down in Italy, it’s like I can breathe again.

  It’s intense. Overwhelming.

  Behind me, the impatient folk traveling to the Eternal City are jostling, trying to shove me out of the way, but I don’t stop them. I just stand on the top step of the airplane, waiting to descend toward the buses, sucking in the scent of jet fuel as I absorb where I am.