Page 5 of Drag You Down
But I can’t look him in the eye.
“Strong, yes,” he agrees, following my lead as he rises as well. “But untempered. You need somebody to guide you into beauty, to show you that your temptations are wondrous.”
My breath becomes ragged.
I have somebody to guide me already. Father Zachariah makes sure I’m on the correct path.
He teaches me how to resist temptation.
I bend down to pick up my groceries, but the Devil steps into the space directly behind me, my body brushing against his shins.
I freeze. “The Devil can only take those whose wills are weak, who have sin in their hearts, who dare to defy God,” I say. The words are limp, nowhere the fierce declaration they are in Father Zachariah’s sermons.
But there’s hope for me yet.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
All I have to do is resist.
He grasps my wrist, gently but firmly, and urges me to my feet. I end up facing him, unable to take my eyes off of his beautiful face. “You still have blood on your mouth,” he murmurs. “It’s hardly the blood of Christ, little lamb.”
I unconsciously lick my lips, and I taste it again, familiar and terrible and sosinful.
I shake my head. “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again. I’m not like the people of this city. I’m not.”
I’m protesting too much, I know. The more I argue, the more he’ll know I’mlying.
“And what are the people of this city like?” A smile quirks onto his lips. “Deplorable? Deranged? Do they have hate in their hearts?”
“They’ve lost faith,” I say. “They bare their sinful hearts to the world; they defile their bodies and their souls for a simplemoment of pleasure. They lie and cheat and steal, and they’ll drag everyone down to the depths of depravity with them.”
It’s the truth of the world, the reason Father Zachariah guards us and keeps us safe at home.
But I was the one sent out to sully my soul.
I understand that we need the supplemental groceries. Our meager garden can only produce so much, and it isn’t as though we can have a cow or even sheep in the middle of the city. On the days between deliveries, one of us must venture outside of the sanctity of our home. Somehow, it’s almost always me who goes out. The other men have proper work. The women need to care for the children. My sister Eve rarely steps foot outside.
She calls me brave for doing this for us.
She also envies me, a sin she’s confessed on multiple occasions.
Maybe that’s why she isn’t allowed to go.
“Does having faith prevent you from entertaining those thoughts?” He’s smiling, but it isn’t a pretty smile. “From indulging in them? Or does it punish you for simply having them?”
“I don’t indulge!” I protest. I pick up my groceries and stand, and I’m conscious of the fact that I’m going to be late, that the eggs are probably cracked and the apples must be bruised. “I don’t have thoughts like that. I don’t.”
“Everyone does,” the Devil who would have me call him Gabriel says. “The measure of a man is not to be taken by his thoughts, but by what he does with those thoughts.” He gestures back to the body with his free hand. “‘Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail.’”
He’s quoting scripture at me. Is he implying the man sowed injustice?
I look at the dead man, whose blood must be getting cold and sticky by now.
Then my brow furrows.
“Why are you here?” I ask the Devil. “I was looking for a way around the traffic blockade. I didn’t hear your footsteps following me.” I stop, then realize something. “…You were already in the alley.”
“Investigating a commotion.” He shrugs. “I found something better.” Those dark eyes focus on me again. Eyes so dark, they could be the pits of Hell. “I found you.”
