The Fire of the Fated (The Chosen Series Book 3)

by K. C. Hamby

  I watch how high alert she is, going only by a feeling in her soul. She’s very focused, almost annoyingly so.

  She gestures for me to follow as if she’s pissed I haven’t already, so I do.

  But I’m immediately confused about our location.

  “Why are we at a church?” I whisper and jog after her fast pace. It seems like a catholic church and, when I read the sign, it confirms my suspicions with the words, ‘Our Lady of the Faithful Catholic Church.’ It’s huge and full of mesmerizing depictions in stained-glass of their god and his mother, Mary. Or was Mary his girlfriend? Or something like that.

  On the very front in the giant stained-glass window, Mary is shown as beautiful and strong in colors of red, purple, and green with a sun shining around her head. Maybe that’s a halo?

  Eddie turns to me with a wicked smile. “Just follow me and dinnae say a word, lass. And put your hood up.” She pulls hers over her head and walks up to the enormous wooden door.

  I press my lips together and sigh before throwing up my own hood and following. So, she’s going to be cryptic and bossy. I don’t like surprises or being pushed around.

  Or churches. I’m not one for the holy places in general, honestly.

  When Eddie opens the door, cool air rushes in my face and nearly knocks the hood right off my head. But it’s nice, I reason, as I secure the hood back in its place. Better than the humidity outside, that’s for damn sure.

  It’s dark inside the church, the only light coming from random candles in different places of the cathedral and this small room full of hundreds of candles in various colors and sizes. A few people are in the pews, praying with their knees on a stool and hands clasped in front of them.

  I’m worried about a fire hazard, but everyone else seems to be only concerned with the gravity of their sins weighing them down to their knees.

  Eddie moves to the center of the back of the giant room, and I scurry to follow along, having gotten stuck staring at the statue of someone being crucified.

  Now, I’m no expert in religion. In fact, I could call myself completely ignorant on the subject, but I personally wouldn’t want anyone worshipping my suffering and death.

  And displaying the worst part of my life for all to see.

  But what the fuck do I know?

  Eddie clears her throat and stands in front of a box when I catch back up.

  Well, it’s not exactly a box. It’s a rectangle thing with two doors on the front. Big enough for one person in each.

  “It’s gonnae be a tight fit, Falen. Hope you dinnae mind gettin’ up close and personal,” Eddie whispers and shows her teeth in a devious smile when my face pales.

  Of course I mind.

  I may have gotten better at not being an asshole to literally everyone I meet, but I haven’t budged much on the whole hate-being-touched thing. Or the stay-the-fuck-out-of-my-bubble thing.

  Eddie opens the door on the right of the box and beckons me in with a crooked finger.

  Reluctantly, I follow.

  Not like I have many options, anyway.

  Looking in the door, I see it’s just a tiny space with a bench for prayer and a screen leading to the other side. I shove my way in and nearly on top of Eddie. She chuckles as I attempt to make myself slightly comfortable, pulling away from her body heat as much as I can.

  “Please tell me this death box teleports us to some secret world and I don’t have to stay cramped in this sweaty, stuffy hell,” I grumble, hitting my head on the far wall. “Goddammit.” It smells like sins and regret in here, sweat of a lot of people solidifying the nasty scent.

  “Sorry, lass. No secret world. And watch your trap with the god-damning, hm? These folks dinnae like to have their god be damned. Push that button for me, will you?” Eddie gestures to a red button right beside my head.

  When I press it, nothing happens.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic,” I groan, disappointment somehow making the air thicker and harder to breathe.

  Eddie does nothing but snicker.

  A minute or so goes by—enough time for me to contemplate the life choices that have led me to this cramped, smelly bullshit—before the door on the other side of the screen scrapes open. A man in robes walks in, closes the door, and sits. I can’t really see his face because of the stupid screen, but I’m assuming he is the priest or something.

  “Good evening,” Eddie speaks up. She adjusts herself as best as she can with me on top of her. She crosses herself like I’ve seen other Catholics do. It’s confusing because she’s definitely not Catholic. Maybe there are steps to whatever she’s doing. Or it’s respectful.

  Hell, I don’t know.

  “Bless them Father, for they have sinned.”

  The Priest stiffens at her words.

  “It has been three months since my last confession.”

  “Erinys,” the Priest whispers and my mouth drops open.

  This human knows Eddie is a Fury.

  “Aye, Father. It’s me.”

  “What have your visions been to bring you to my doorstep again?” He speaks up this time and his voice is oddly high and smooth. He is obviously practiced in talking to people and soothing their worries.

  “Vague, as usual. Have you heard anythin’ about a child gettin’ hit by a car?” Eddie is all business now, sitting up straight and putting her Alpha strength into her words.

  I’m pushed against the wall, my cheek squished against the worn wood.

  The Priest is quiet for a while, probably thinking over all the confessions he has heard lately. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to say.

  “I have, yes,” he finally tells us.

  “Help a vigilante out, would you?” Eddie purrs.

  He sighs very dramatically like her request has tired him. “One of the members of my congregation came to this very confessional. I truly did not mean to, but I saw her before she came in, so I knew who she was before I received her confession. Mariah Galanis is her name. She was noticeably upset when I entered. She went about her sins, mostly minor things. When I thought she was finished, she admitted something to me.”

  “And that was….?” Eddie pushes when his pause drawls on into complete silence.

  “Before I tell you, you must know a bit of backstory. Not long ago, maybe not even three weeks ago, a little boy in our congregation—about four years old—was a victim of a hit and run. He was in terrible shape when the paramedics arrived, but they got him as stable as possible and rushed him to the nearest hospital. However, the child received injuries to his spinal cord and was pronounced brain dead. Police didn’t find the culprit, and, after a week, the investigation died down. The parents are understandably very heartbroken. I fear for the future of their mental health.”

  Wow. That’s horrible. A little kid? They aren’t old enough to die. They haven’t even been given the opportunity to become a person that chooses good, evil, or somewhere in between. And it seems like the poor kid suffered.

  Nathan pops into my mind and I shove the thought away.

  “That being said, Mariah went into quite the colorful story of how her and her husband are neighbors to the grieving family. Her husband has been struggling with alcohol addiction for years now and actively abuses her. I began to tell her I only wanted to hear of her sins, but she kept on talking.”

  ….and he didn’t care about her getting beaten? What the fuck?

  “She said one morning, she walks into the garage to get groceries or some other errand wives do and notices a dent in the front of the car. Her husband was working to fix the dent and cleaning off dark red paint, very intoxicated.”

  “Ach, so it was her husband, then,” Eddie growls.

  The priest doesn’t confirm or deny. He just goes about his story as if Eddie didn’t speak.

  “She said she confronted him, but he just admitted to hitting a pole. It wasn’t until that night when he was in a drunken rage did he admit it was him who hit the boy. Mariah insisted he turn himself in, but h
e instead told her that if she told anyone, he would kill her. She was fearful of him already, so she knew he wasn’t bluffing. She came to me because she was sick of pretending they were a functional and loving family reaching out to their neighbors in their time of grief, listening to the boy’s mother sob over her child’s killer never being found and how she may never recover, all the while knowing what exactly happened to him. It sickened her to pretend to be there for the family while harboring such a horrifying secret. I can honestly say it shocked me. I always thought Mariah and her husband, Alec, were a happy couple. That is always how they presented themselves, you see.”

  “It must have been the family calling out for vengeance,” Eddie whispers, more to herself than anything. She looks back to the screen with a nod and determination. “They’ll be sorry for these and all their sins, Father.”

  “Complete ten Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s, and your sins will be absolved,” he commands, pulling back into his priestly role.

  What does that even mean?

  “Thank you, Father,” Eddie answers and bows her head. The Priest leaves his side of the box without another word. I have a feeling this is a love hate relationship between the two of them. “Dinnae talk,” Eddie rasps when I open my mouth. “Wait.”

  We stay in the stupid box from hell for two more minutes before Eddie opens the door and squeezes out. Once her body isn’t there for me to push against, I lose my balance and tumble onto the floor.

  It smells like way too many footprints and dried gum caked to old, dusty carpet. Fucking gross.

  “You should be more careful,” Eddie chides, looking down at me with humorous, scarred lips pressed together.

  “I would show you my middle finger, but I don’t want to burst into flames,” I snap, voice barely a whisper, and stand, fixing my jacket while making sure my hood is securely on my head.

  Eddie only snorts, shaking her head before making her way back outside. I follow on her heels, ready to get the hell out of here as fast as possible and shake off the holy nonsense playing with my mind.

  When I close the big door behind us and step into muggy darkness, she removes her hood and I follow suit, shuffling back to my car, parked in the shadows of whispering trees, surely judging me like the very boards nailed in place within the church.

  “So, what the hell?” I ask and slide into the driver’s seat of my car.

  Eddie plops down in the passenger seat and closes the door, ignoring my glare as I wait for her explanation.

  She gets on her phone and types in the address of a small convenient store before fixing her phone to my dash where I can see the directions. “This is where we’ll park, aye?”

  “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” I shift into first gear and follow the directions in front of me, grumbling incomprehensible complaints beneath my breath all the while.

  “I met the Priest on one of my Fury missions. It was his boss I was gettin’ rid of.” She leans back in the seat and turns her head just so that she is staring out the passenger window at the dark sky. “The twat was takin’ the altar boys with him on trips and, as I’m sure you can imagine, their trips were less about their Holy Spirit and more about the Priest’s unholy hands.”

  “Goddess,” I mutter under my breath. Nausea tries to creep up on me, so I press the gas, shooting us faster through the night.

  “I dinnae ken if it was the Priest we just met that prayed for vengeance. I have always thought so. Even Priests have secrets. But my visions and feelin’s led me to that church, and I dealt with the squirmy bastart. The Priest we just spoke to was there and saw the whole thing. I’m ‘sposed to get rid of witnesses that arenae the victims just like we are supposed to do normally, but we struck a deal. He doesnae like hearin’ confessions of murder and all these bad things people commit kennin’ he cannae do anythin’ about it. He told me if I’ve a vision and need help understandin’ them, I can come to him. My code is the ‘Bless them Father, for they have sinned. Then he kens it’s me.” She shifts in the seat, adjusting herself to accommodate my less than legal driving. “He doesn’t necessarily believe I’m a Fury. It would go against his own religion. He only calls me Erinys because I refused to let him call me an Angel of Death.”

  There is nothing angelic about what we do, so I don’t blame her for refusing his holy nickname. That, and being called an angel sounds stupid.

  “Why not just follow the feeling you get, though? I mean, you don’t need to know what happened, right?” I ask and take a turn a little too sharp, skidding a bit. “You just follow the feeling and get the job done.”

  “I dinnae like nae kennin’ what I’m killin’ for, lass. I’ve reservations about murder as you do. It makes it easier when I ken what they did to deserve forfeitin’ their lives.” She lets down her window and lazily lets her arm dangle in the air.

  I nod through my whisps of hair blown about by the wind, focusing on the road. It makes sense. The Monster in me doesn’t care what the people I kill did, but my humanity does. It makes it justifiable somehow knowing the world would be a better place without the person in which I have my knife cutting a bleeding death sentence.

  I gain more respect for Eddie. She presents like she doesn’t give a rat’s ass about killing, but it’s probably to protect herself like I do. If she acts like she doesn’t care, maybe one day she won’t have the guilt swallow her whole.

  I glance at her briefly. She’s leaning against the door now, arms crossed under her chin as she watches the night speed by.

  It’s dark tonight and annoyingly dreary. The clouds are gray curtains in front of the full moon, swollen with rain and thunderous storms just waiting to be unleashed. I’m hoping it’s not a bad omen, but I can’t help comparing myself to those goddamn clouds. Growing with raging darkness just waiting to explode and unleash a wrath upon the world.

  I pop my knuckles against the steering wheel. I don’t want to unleash wrath and darkness. I don’t want anything to do with it, but I know it’s stirring inside me. Waiting. Just waiting.

  I shake my head of the thought. My problems don’t need to be here now. It’s selfish for me to sit and think about everything wrong with me when Eddie’s entire world has flipped on its head the past week. I wonder how she is doing since Raven is back in her life. The bitch drugged her, after all. Surely not a good relationship.

  “Hey, Eddie?”

  “Hey, Falen,” she rolls back without moving from her position.

  “How are you doing? Like with the whole…Raven thing. You don’t have to talk about it, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” I tell her and take the next right at an acceptable speed this time.

  “Ach, dinnae tell me you’re gettin’ soft,” she spits before shaking her head. She watches the night go by for a few minutes, silent and thoughtful and I rub the palms of my hands over the steering wheel.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. It could have been too personal. I know I hate when people try to get me to open up. I’m selfish with my problems and only want to keep them to myself and Nina. I wonder if Eddie is the same way.

  “I dinnae think I’ve quite processed her bein’ here myself, to tell you truly. I like doin’ that, bottlin’ up all my shite until it explodes.”

  “I’m with you there. It’s a terrible habit that I seem to enjoy engaging in as frequently as possible.”

  “Aye. It is frustratin’ because I cannae tell anyone how she makes me feel because I dinnae really understand it. There is fear and anger swellin’ in my chest to the point of me thinkin’ it may crack and leak until there is nothing left but an empty vessel.” She places her hand on her chest and makes a squeezing motion with her fingers and my chest aches in empathy. “It’s a knife in my heart and yet, my heart is trynae keep workin’ around it still. I could easily kill Raven and nae feel bad about it. In fact, I’ve had extensive thoughts of what I would do if I got a hold of that fuckin’ mongrel, but I also dinnae wantae be close enough to her to do it. The thought makes my skin crawl and al
l I would wantae do would be to run away like a coward. She confirmed that much when she ambushed me in the Pit today.”

  “She what?” So, Eddie knows Raven is on Olympia. And Raven apparently made herself known. I guess in a not-so-pleasant way if Eddie’s ragged breathing is to be taken into consideration.

  “It doesnae matter. All you should ken is she terrifies me and I fuckin’ hate it.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it, so I don’t press the matter.

  But…I get it. I understand the contradicting feelings she is experiencing. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to relate to someone like this before. To know—not precisely—a general idea of what she’s dealing with and…I…want to help.

  “Your feelings actually make a lot of sense. At least to me.” She looks over and I bite my lip, wondering if I can be vulnerable with Eddie.

  She’s my friend and my brother’s Mate. I trust her with mine and Nina’s life…

  Ah, fuck it.

  “I felt that way with the guy who did this to my face. And my neck. It’s frustrating because you know you hate them and want them dead, but the thought of seeing them almost makes you physically sick. I could picture myself squeezing his throat, watching the life fade from his face as he turned blue and his eyes grew bloodshot, but if I thought I saw him in a crowd, I would want to run and never see the bastard again.”

  “How’d you stop feelin’ that way?” she asks, moving her hand out the window with the wind and tracing the scar arcing over her lips.

  “You know, I don’t think I have stopped. It comes at the worst times, too. Like if my scars burn because they are irritated, the guy assaults my mind, reminding me over and over that, even though he is gone and I killed him myself, I will forever have the scars he gave me. I don’t like being close to fire because of how he burned me in Tartarus. The heat against my skin just throws me back and my body reacts like I’m there, watching him set fire to my feet and having absolutely no control.”

  Eddie’s eyes widen, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. She didn’t know I was burned in Tartarus. I haven’t told anyone but Nina about that.