Chapter 3

The light switched on as I slumped forward into a cardboard cutout of the smiling Sandreka sun goddess. She crumpled inward at the waist as if to shield the girl and me, but even a goddess couldn't protect us right then.

I whirled around to face my pursuer. A wall of tall muscle blocked the door, curly, reddish-brown hair hanging in his intense hazel eyes. Hendry. He wore a black button-up shirt rolled to his elbows, jeans, and dirtied cowboy boots.

I opened my mouth to say something - an apology for fucking up when he must've suspected I would - but no words could capture just how sorry I was.

"Hendry?" Allison called from far away, her voice pitched to hysterical.

He stared at me for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw jumping fiercely, then dropped his gaze to the girl in my arms.

"Please," I finally said in a soft plea. "I'll make this right if you just let her go or find somewhere she can hide."

Something crashed into the ceiling in another area of the church, shaking down its foundations and making the three of us jump. More Berkano trying to come in.

"You'll make this right?" Hendry's eyes flashed. He shook his head, a slow grimace crawling over his mouth, and he looked more than two years older than me in that moment. "And how do you plan on doing that?"

I blinked down at the girl, at the raw skin around her neck, the full extent of what I'd just done digging between my eyebrows with a blade sharp enough to draw tears. "I don't know."

"I knew you didn't have it in you," he said. "Hope it was worth it."

"She's just a girl," I said through gritted teeth. "Since when do we kill children?"

"Since we have a new female hangman with loyalty to the church equal to that in my pinky," he snapped, waving said finger in my face. Then he braced his hand against the doorframe and leaned back into the hallway. "In here!"

Heat roiled through my blood. Hendry was the only one who ventured outside to gather supplies or collect those who wandered near our church. Only him. No one else who'd gone with him had ever come back. Had this girl wandered too close? Or had this been his mother's plan as a fun social experiment to test my devotion to the church on the most important day of my life? Either way, I'd been played.

With Hendry still leaning back in the hallway, balanced only on the heels of his boots, I barreled into him with my side, shielding the girl with my body. He tipped into the opposite wall, his hands whipping out to catch himself.

I darted around him and hissed, "Fucking asshole."

He snatched at my shoulder, but he was too slow.

We scrambled down the hallway toward the choir room at the opposite end. Once we'd crossed to the far wall, I ducked us underneath the cover of the hanging blue choir robes with their itchy fabric and white trim and set the girl on her feet.

"Okay?" I asked, cupping her face to examine the rope burn around her neck.

She nodded, her dazzling blue eyes searching my own. "Howdy hallelujah."

I barked out a laugh that ended with a sob and touched my forehead to hers. We stayed like that for several moments while I clung to her in this stormy sea of the unknown.

My ears burned for sounds other than our own breaths. If Hendry stomped up to us while we were huddled here, I was crouched at the right level for a nice crotch shot. But again, we couldn't stay here forever. This church was full of nooks and crannies, but everyone knew about them. Unless I could somehow hide outside once the Berkano left. If they ever left. Something slammed against the roof nearby, as if they would tear down the entire building just to get to us for a witch feast.

"Hey," I whispered, smoothing back her matted hair with shaky hands. "Stay here. If anyone other than me comes for you, then run and hide. You're good at that, right?"

"The monsters won't get me," she said in her scratchy voice, and I wasn't exactly sure what monsters she meant - the Berkano or the Church of Hangmen.

"No, they won't." I gave her hand a squeeze, along with a wavering smile, and then dropped to all fours to peer out from under the robes' hems.

All clear, which only curled my fingers deeper into the thick carpet fibers. Where was Hendry? He'd seen which way we'd gone when I'd shoved him out of my way. Had he doubled back for some reason instead of following? My gaze ticked from the music stands in the corner, across the practice benches below the boarded-up window, and to the other exit door that led into the blocked off nave. I'd have to double back, too. If I managed to climb over all the cardboard goddesses without killing myself in the junk room, maybe I could find a window that hadn't been boarded up. The girl and I could find a way to survive outside, hopefully longer than the second our feet touched ground.

It was a shit plan, but it was the best I could come up with. I pushed to my feet and headed back toward the narrow hallway. As I glanced down to lift my foot to the first step up, a fist shot out from the darkened entryway and smashed into my nose. Pain exploded. Fiery red stars streaked past my eyes, and the floor swept out from underneath me.

"What did you do?" Allison screamed. "What did you do?"

She lunged for me from the top step of the hallway before I'd even hit the ground, loose blonde strands from her up-do waving around her ugly scarf. Her red lips peeled back from her teeth. Her outstretched arms tipped with sharp nails bit into my face in a wild attack. But something rock hard broke my fall and tossed me away like a broken doll before she touched me again.

"Stop!" Hendry yelled. Where had he come from?

The side of my face had landed on the floor first, followed by the rest of my limbs in a haphazard pile. I blinked into a doorway that hadn't been open moments ago. My own private sanctuary, the baptismal, the first place anyone who knew me would look. Hendry must've snuck in there while we hid behind the choir robes just feet away. I didn't let my gaze stray too close to them in case I gave the girl's location away.

"You are banished from here, you hear me?" Allison spat. "Tell her, Marshall. Tell her."