I swallowed hard as I reached for the metal handle of the other door. There was no time to think about it, not with the frantic curiosity that had taken over me. What would be said inside that room would change everything I knew.
My fingers grazed the handle and in that instant my hesitation vanished, and I slipped inside.
7
Confessions
A wall with a square metal grill in its center separated me from the priest’s side, our faces masked from each other. There was little more than that and a padded kneeler. Through the mesh of the anonymity window, I could see the faint outline of Father Lonnie leaning near the divider.
“Close the door,” he hissed. I couldn’t tell if his tone was annoyance or fear, but I obeyed. Light from outside disappeared, replaced by a glow that came from a box in the ceiling and washed over the fake wood paneling and the brown leather of the kneeler. Something about the light was nervously upsetting: a yellowish, artificial hue that was just bright enough for me to see by, but dim enough that I always felt I was struggling to make out where I could stand without hitting my toes. This paired with the narrow room and the soundproof seal of the door made it feel like I’d been buried alive.
“I don’t know how you found me,” the priest started. “I don’t know why you came here or what the bloody hell you want, but for the sake of us all our lives you should never speak of the blog aloud.”
His voice was so muffled that I kneeled in front of the window just to hear him better. He shifted, the outline of his hands and face like a broken television screen in front of me.
“I just…I can’t believe I lived to see you,” he said. “Anon wrote of you, but I never thought I would…”
His voice trailed off. He was speaking so quickly that he sounded manic.
“How did you find me?” he asked. “I’m not even safe anymore. Damn it, I’m not safe.”
“I found the blog,” I told him. “But I only found you and your church through…random chance.” My hands squeezed the wooden top of the kneeler, mind still whirling that I was actually speaking across from a man who, just a day before, I’d been certain I’d never find for months or years. Even his existence hadn’t sunk in yet. Like finding Mr. Sharpe’s car, the priest was something real that continued to prove an idea I did not want to believe.
Father Lonnie huffed. “There’s no such thing as an accident,” he muttered. “Coincidence is merely the puppeteers’ curtain, hiding the hands that pull the world’s strings. But you—”
I heard him scratch the wood of his chair nervously. “I…I don’t understand. Why aren’t you dead?” He realized his abruptness and drew back.
“I almost was,” I murmured. “I think I killed my killer instead.”
Father Lonnie shook his head. I knew he and I both regarded each other’s existence with equal suspicion.
“So,” he said, “this isn’t their doing at all. You’ve managed to…oh good God.”
His forehead hit against the wood panel in weakness, his breath now so close that I could hear it going in and out of him. I couldn’t tell if he was simply lost in fright or if he was silently weeping, eyes closed and fingers over the front of his face in an exhausted manner.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” he told me bluntly.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I replied.
“No,” he insisted. “You’re supposed to be dead. You being alive…it changes everything. Everything for me. For us. For the whole world.”
His voice stayed at its steady, quiet volume, but I could hear the terror in his tone, the thoughts and calculations that were going through his head even as he spoke. Behind the old man, crazy from fear of conspiracies and plots, was a machine of a mind that sped sharper than ever—one that my appearance had sent reeling from miscalculation.
“Look, I don’t know you,” I told him. “I came to you to get answers. Why would anyone want me dead?”
I could think of a few examples, actually. I’d exposed a lot of cheaters and liars before. But none of them would have been criminal enough to pull off what Mr. Sharpe had done—or so I thought.
“Do they know you’re alive?” Father Lonnie asked, ignoring my question.
“Whoever tried to kill me is dead now, if that helps,” I said.
“It’ll throw them off for a day or two, at most,” he replied. “You’re only alive now because of their overconfidence. It was so easy for them the last few times…”
Father Lonnie was blathering to himself more than to me. He mumbled things I couldn’t even discern, muffled curses as he pressed his head harder against the wood paneling and winced as the thoughts continued to bubble inside of him. I wondered if he even heard me when I spoke.
“This is good though,” he said. “This is a change, a hope. You’ve still got a chance. But I—what do I do?”
He looked up, but I couldn’t see his eyes through the panel, only the frightened outline of his hands and face as they tried intently to sort through a thousand thoughts at once.
“Your birthday,” he said. “How long until you turn seventeen?”
There it was: the same question about my age that Mr. Sharpe had asked, minutes before he’d attempted his murderous dissection.
“Three days.” I replied.
“Good God,” he hissed. “They’re looking for you again by now, for sure. And your Chosens are nowhere to be found? You don’t have a chance. It might be best to let you die and try again in another seventeen…”
“What are you talking about?” I burst shakily. “There’s someone else who wants to kill me? If you know something then I need to go to the police.”
“Going to the police is the quickest way for you to get killed,” Father Lonnie said, his voice turning sharp. “You don’t think they have the police? It’s not much use going to anyone. You’re unguarded now. You’ve got three days and you don’t stand a chance of making it.”
“Why are you so certain I’m going to die?” I protested.
“If they knew you were here, you’d be gone the second you step out of this church,” Father Lonnie said, with such strong resolution any doubt I had was erased at once. The protest that I had already prepared to counter him vanished.
“If that’s true then why am I not dead now?” I asked. “Who are they?”
Had I somehow been confused with someone else? Someone who owed a debt, or had killed someone, or knew some great secret that couldn’t get out? There was no reason for anyone to kill me. I was sixteen, I went to school, and sometimes I read eyes for clients. But never anything worth killing me for. Never anything worth the giant plot that Father Lonnie was too fearful to speak of.
The wood of his chair creaked as he shifted. How could this be so difficult, especially for a man who from the pulpit had appeared so fiery and so mentally disciplined?
“I—I don’t know what to call them,” he said, still resisting.
“Don’t give me crap answers,” I spat, tired of the games. The confessional fell to silence again, the very walls seeming to wait upon his answer.
“Some people call them Reptilians,” he finally whispered. “Or Lizard People. But that’s not what they call themselves. They’re…the Guardians…at least, that’s what Anon has told me.”
“Why did they send someone to kill me?” I pressed. But that hardly contained every question I wanted to ask at once. The silver claws? The flying? All the things I’d read on the blog?