Brighter Nights - Chapter 6 (Final)

Chapter 6.
For I Have Sinned
<>•<>•<>•<>

I cried until my head hurt more than my heart. I was exceedingly tired, but my need for food and water and relief kept me from falling asleep. Hours, maybe even an entire agonizing day passed before I was approached. By Jack.

“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he whispered, kneeling beside me, “but this had to happen. I’ll see about the pain, okay?”

I closed my eyes and took in a breath, trying to keep myself from crying again. I hated Jack, and I hated meeting him, and I hated myself for following him when I was suspecting him of cheating on me. He hadn’t been, of course, but I didn’t know that until after I had followed him.

It began around when I got my license; just a week before that, Jack started becoming distant. As soon as I could drive on my own, I went to the address I had seen on his phone. I pulled up to an old strip mall, the only thing in our town still with the “For Lease” sign in front, and gathered up the courage to get out of my new car.

I had no way of knowing which closed-up building held Jack, so I pulled softly on all six of the doors out front. They were all locked. I had no choice but to walk around the back unless I wanted to go home. There were no working street lights nearby, but I was too nervous to pull out my phone’s flashlight. What if someone had been close enough to notice? I could’ve gotten arrested. Or…kidnapped.

And put to death.

The only entrance I could find was an open window large enough to climb in, leading to a closed-down shoe store. This wasn’t exactly a romantic place, I realized, but at that point, I was more worried for Jack than I was for me.

“Never take the forgiveness—”

The four words of the chant I caught made me jump out of my skin; I had to cover my mouth and keep myself from screaming. I leaned against a dusty display, slowing my heart rate, telling myself to keep going, I can do this.

I followed the chanting into a storage room in the back, then down a staircase into a basement. My heart was back to pounding, but I tried to work on focusing on how cliché this entire thing was. I mean, following chanting into a basement, thinking about my heart pounding? I was walking straight into a horror movie, and laughing about that gave me the courage to open the door at the bottom of the staircase.

Candles. So many unscented candles. They made the should-have-been dull walls glow a reddish orange, and I was taken aback by how simple the room was. Concrete walls, floors, ceiling, and a single circular table in the middle. I could see heads on the other side of the table; everyone in the room was sitting in a circle over there, away from the door thankfully. I sat down and inched closer to the table, wanting to see if Jack was one of the ones sitting in the circle.

“Never take the forgiveness of the Father, for although we have sinned, it is all false,” the chanting continued.

“Brother Jack,” started a much older voice. “This evening, we will begin with you. Stand and confess your sins proudly.”

Jack stood, and I hid under the table, wanting to hear what he had to say. I’d already come this far, right?

“Dear brothers,” he said in a strong voice, “you all know of my girlfriend Ellie, correct? I’ve been lying to her, and lying to myself. I started dating her to test her, to see if she would be the eventual sacrifice, but I’ve started liking her.”

I was floored. My Jack? Faking it all that time?

Of course my hatred for him grew in that moment, but as I continued to sneak in to his cult gatherings, the more they talked about me, the more worried for my life I became, especially when I heard what I did the last time I ever went spying on Jack.

“My dear brothers,” Jack said as he stood to confess his sins proudly, “the time is among us. Once we catch Ellie with any sliver of information on us in the slightest, she will be ready for the annual sacrifice.”

There was cheering, making me sick to my stomach. Cheering for a live sacrifice? I was in a room full of sociopaths with one exit, and I would be dead if any one of them even noticed me.

Get out of here, I told myself. Get out of here now, don’t look back, leave, Ellie, leave!

But I couldn’t. I covered my mouth with both of my hands to keep from crying out and rested my forehead on my knees. Tears squeezed themselves out of my eyes, and I knew my silence wouldn’t last much longer.

I don’t know what made me move that night. Fear? Desperation? Disgust? Every part of me was trembling as I crawled my way back to the staircase, and once I reached the window, I bolted to my car, crying audibly. I became paranoid, lying about everything to make sure no one would suspect anything.

“It’s cliché,” Jack said, snapping me out of the past, “but I have to ask. Any last words?”

I could have asked how they found me, why they shot so many people at school, why I was the perfect sacrifice, or even what my sacrifice would do for the world.

“Tell Addie to forgive me, for I have sinned.”