Saints & Sinners

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen:

"Your hair is seriously not meant to be styled like that. You look like a saint." Before I could even speak a word to her, her fingers were in my hair, ruffling it inbetween her fingers. "So soft..." she murmured, "wow, that's some soft hair."

"Thanks?"

"Done, now you look like we can be seen together. Mind you, we can always been seen together. Have I ever told you before that you're gorgeous, because it's true. You're gorgeous. Let me say it again. You're gorgeous. Just gorgeous."

I blushed. "I'm no more gorgeous than anyone else, stop saying that. I'm probably ugly to some people."

"Whoever finds you ugly must be crucified," she said flatly. There was an dense pause. A heavy, awkward silence, and then she said, "Do you think that you're beautiful, Sebastian?" Her tone was so serious that I raised my head to look into her deep brown eyes, searching for even a glimmer of folly. But there was none, her question was brutally and honestly serious.

And so was my answer. "No."

I passed her the note to swiftly change the topic. I didn't want to discuss this, not right then, not with her, or with anyone. I was perfectly fine keeping my demons all to myself, like everyone else in this village seemed to do.

"What is this, anyway?" I asked her.

Snatching it from me, she read it over again, tore it into dozens of pieces and stuffed them in her pocket. Whipping her hair over her shoulder like the "Man" she was, she grabbed my wrist and dragged me along behind her. Her fingers gently travelled down until she was now cupping my hand in hers, softly tugging me to follow her.

"Where are you taking me?"

"I'm teaching you, now shut up and follow me!" As she turned back away, her hair whooshed and slapped me straight in the face. Some of it got in my mouth, and I didn't enjoy it remotely.

She took a turn into a dimly-lit hallway that I hadn't seen before, down a flight of stairs into the basement classrooms, along another corridor, and through a set of great double doors. It had never ceased to amaze me how actually huge this school was, it must have been one massive cathedral back in its prime days. But all that remained of such a great building was rotting walls, leaking roofs, and sinning occupants. It was kind of sad to think about, or maybe just to me.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To my nest, where I hope to seduce you with my womanly wiles, and then devour you like the black widow I am. Now shut up."

"Okay."

"Shhhh!"

"Sorry."

"Dude." Her face looked so done with me. "Shut up."

There were more hallways, endless hallways that just seemed to go on and on, and for some stupid reason, we took stairs back up to the ground floor again, sweeping down dozens of more hallways before we reached a place I hadn't been before. I hadn't probably even scratched the surface with the parts of the school that I'd been shown, and apparently this was only the secondary education, and there was an entirely different block of buildings for primary children.

"And this place is?" I asked curiously, only slightly frightened as the lights flickered and dimmed. I could hear leakage, the constant drippings of water not far away.

She sighed. "It's somewhere no one goes. Except, you know, if you don't want to be found. And there happens to be a specific someone down here, a specific someone who I recently figured out comes down here every Monday to do the same filthy deed."