Mors

Chapter 17

I crawled off that blood-stained stone floor because my body simply refused to die. My legs were shaking so hard I could barely stand, my hands fumbling with the torn, ruined remnants of my clothes. I shoved myself back into the damp hoodie, the fabric dragging against the sticky warmth of the pastor's blood on my skin.

The silver rosary Augustino had slung around my neck swung heavily, the metal crucifix cold against my collarbone. I didn't take it off. I couldn't think. I was operating entirely on a hollowed-out, primal autopilot. I followed behind him out of that church because, God help me, it was the only choice left for me. The world outside had completely vanished; there was no police station to run to, no safe house, no hidden corner of the earth that his shadow couldn't reach. He was my horizon now.

The travel from the cool, sacred air of the church that has now been tainted to the suffocating luxury of the black SUV was seamless.

The Scout held the back door open, his eyes fixed firmly on the gravel beneath his boots, refusing to look at the human wreckage stumbling past him. I practically collapsed into the leather seat, pulling my knees up to my chest and burying my face in my hands. I wanted to disappear into the seams of the cushions. I wanted the earth to open up and swallow the vehicle whole.

A second later, the door clicked shut, sealing out the wind, and the heavy scent of Augustino’s expensive cologne flooded the tight space. The engine purred to life with a low, vibrating growl that rattled through my teeth.

He didn't look at me. Not right away. Instead, he pulled a crisp, white linen handkerchief from his breast pocket and began to wipe his fingers. He did it slowly, meticulously, cleaning between his knuckles and underneath his nails with a cold, clinical focus. It wasn't the action of a man cleaning up after an act of passion; it was the action of a man who felt like he had just touched something foul. He treated me like a dirty animal he had been forced to handle to prove a point.

Once he was done, he rolled down the window a fraction of an inch and casually tossed the handkerchief out into the muddy gravel. Then, he unholstered the sleek, heavy silver handgun, the very weapon he had used to shatter the pastor's legs and humiliate me. Without a hint of hesitation, he dropped the gun right out the window after the cloth. He discarded a piece of machinery worth thousands of dollars as if just being used inside my body, had rendered it permanently untouchable and contaminated.

That hit me like a physical fist to the chest. It was a second, devastating blow to whatever fragile shards of dignity I had left. He had violated me, broken me, and now he was acting like I was the one who was contagious.

The sheer cruelty of the gesture made a fresh wave of hot, pathetic tears spill over my eyelids, mixing with the drying copper on my cheeks.

Augustino leaned back against the headrest, pulling a silver case from his jacket. He snapped it open, selected a dark cigar, and lit it with a heavy gold lighter. The flame flickered, casting sharp, predatory shadows across his flawless jawline. He took a slow drag, blowing a thick cloud of grey smoke toward the leather ceiling.

"Your classes will immediately begin once we are back," he said. His voice was entirely casual, smooth and level, as if he were discussing a corporate schedule rather than the aftermath of a execution.

I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I was a sobbing, shivering mess, curled into a tight ball on the far side of the seat, pressing my body against the door handle just to be as far away from his heat as humanly possible. My chest was heaving, my throat raw from crying, and the humiliation was a living fire burning through my skin.

When the silence stretched on too long, the atmosphere in the car shifted. The casual indifference vanished, replaced by that heavy, suffocating pressure I had felt back in the church. He simply looked at me. He didn't yell, he didn't reach for me, but the weight of his stare was a physical force that squeezed the remaining air right out of my lungs. He was waiting. And Augustino Costa did not like to be kept waiting.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my entire body trembling as I dipped my head as low as it would go, burying my chin into the collar of my hoodie.

"I understand," I whispered. The words were a ragged, pathetic thread of sound, but they were the words he wanted.

Submission. Total and absolute.

A small, satisfied hum vibrated in his chest. He took another drag of his cigar, the tip glowing a fierce, angry orange in the dimming light of the cabin.

"You will go back to your apartment after I arrange a roommate for you," he announced, turning his gaze back to the window as the trees of Oakhaven began to blur into a dark green wall behind us.

A roommate. He said the word so lightly, so casually, as if he were a concerned landlord looking out for my social life. But I wasn't stupid. I knew exactly what a "roommate" meant in Augustino's vocabulary. It wouldn't be a friend, and it wouldn't be a random girl splitting the rent. It would be a warden. A handler. A highly trained shadow living in my space, breathing my air, watching my every move to make sure I never even looked at a bus schedule or a police badge ever again. He was building a prison out of my own home, and he was making me walk right into it.

"Until then, you will be trained at the estate," he added, finishing the thought with a finality that brooked no argument.

The rest of the ride back to the city was pure, unadulterated torture. The highway stretched out before us like an endless black ribbon, and with every mile we covered, the mountains of Oakhaven faded further into the distance, taking my brief, stolen illusion of freedom with them.

Inside my own skull, it was absolute chaos. My head was a violent, tangled mess of emotions that felt like they were tearing my brain apart from the inside out. I was disgusted, so entirely disgusted by what had happened, by the dead man left on the floor of the church, and by the horrific, terrifying way my own body had betrayed my mind at the very end. The guilt of that physical betrayal felt like a heavy stone sitting on my chest, suffocating me.

I felt lost. The life I had spent twenty-six years building, the quiet routines, the independence, it was all gone, burned to ash in a matter of days. I was confused, trapped in a maze of Augustino's making, unable to see a single step ahead. Rage, hot and sharp, flared up in my stomach whenever I looked at the side of his face, followed instantly by a crushing, paralyzing wave of sadness that made me want to curl up and die.

How was I supposed to survive this? How does a person keep moving when their dignity has been completely stripped away, when their home is a cage, and when the monster who broke them is the one holding the keys? I didn't have any answers.

As the glittering, malicious neon lights of the city skyline finally appeared on the horizon, I clung to my backpack like a life raft, knowing that the girl who had run away to Oakhaven had died in that church, and whatever was left of me was about to be molded into whatever shape Augustino desired.

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