The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,3

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