Hell Followed with Us(14)

I’m an asshole. Thanks for the brain rot, Mom.

Truth is, I’m the person they should be worried about, not the other way around. I can’t let anyone but Nick and Erin know what I used to be, because they’ll want me dead, and I won’t blame them. I have to figure out the rules for the ALC the way I figured out the rules for New Nazareth.

Rule one: Be careful with religion. Even if Faith is wearing cross earrings. Even if her name is Faith.

I really want to ask about the earrings. They’re the first crosses I’ve seen in days besides the ones carved into the dead. After a second of scrubbing a stain off the countertop, I decide my best course of action is not to ask at all, but to point it out, no judgment implied.

“I like your earrings,” I say.

Faith reaches up to touch them, eyes widening a bit in surprise. “What, these?”

Her hand jerks away.

“They don’t mean anything,” she says defensively. “I just thought they were pretty.”

Her tone takes me off guard. “They are.”

“They were my mom’s. We stopped going to church when I was ten, anyway. It doesn’t mean anything, really.”

Her chest heaves. Her gaze won’t meet mine.

“It’s fine,” I assure her. “Do people give you trouble for it? For the earrings, for going to church—”

“No. Nobody does. Sorry, I’m overreacting.”

I put the rag back in the bucket. We’re the only two on this side of the kitchen. For what it’s worth, we might as well be alone.

So I say, “Can I ask if you believe in God?”

Faith blinks at me.

“It’s not a trap,” I say. “I swear.”

She immediately falls into a ramble, like she’s just been waiting for someone to ask. “I do, actually. And I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about that. Talking to friends—you know, Sadaf is Muslim, Salvador is Catholic, Carly is Jewish—to see if anything clicks. Or if I’m just going to have to deal with believing in the same kind of God those motherfuckers do.” Even though I flinch at the sudden swear, her cheeks push up into her eyes, the way it happens when someone is actually, really smiling. “You know, the first time I brought it up to Sadaf, she couldn’t stop laughing. I felt like an asshole. I guess what I’m saying is, I believe in something, and I don’t know what to do with it, and maybe I don’t actually believe in anything at all, and I just want to because I hate the idea of Trevor being faced with nothing.”

A moment of silence. It’s not awkward or anything. Just a second of respect for the dead.

“I’m sorry,” Faith says again. “I don’t mean to be so…”

“No, I get it.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it. Since he. You know.”

“I know.”

Faith says, “What about you? What’s going on in your head?”

Before I can answer, Aisha wanders into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Faith mouths Sorry and grabs a mug from the cabinet.

“I smell coffee,” Aisha mumbles.

“That’s because I made some.” Faith pours a cup and sets it gently in Aisha’s hands. “Take it easy today.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Please take the coffee.”

“You can’t act like nothing’s wrong.”

Faith’s smile wavers, the light dropping from her eyes for just a second. “Please. Let me have this.”

Aisha accepts the mug, bringing down her mask to take a slow, tentative sip, and her eyes close in exhaustion for just a moment, perfectly still like if she moves, she’ll shatter into a million pieces. Under her mask, she’s put on a pretty red lipstick that stains the rim of the mug.

Faith’s question latches on with teeth. What’s going on in my head? What do I believe? How much of it is me, and how much of it was put there?

I don’t know.



* * *





Over the course of the day, a few other people introduce themselves, and I fumble through a parade of awkward conversations. One is with another trans guy, Calvin. When I turn down the offer of a chest binder—I’ve never really cared about flattening my chest—he scrunches up his nose like I smell bad and says he has something else to do.

The only person I manage to hold a decent conversation with is Sadaf, a Black hijabi girl with a medical textbook who asks me to visit her if I ever feel even slightly under the weather.

“Never hurts to be proactive,” she says, smiling so wide her eyes close a little bit.

“What do you do if someone gets infected?” I ask.

She says, “I tell Nick. He takes care of it.”

I do the math, trying to recall how long the other Seraph trials lasted. The time it took for the other martyrs to fall apart, for their skin to come off in their hands. Instead of the Flood’s usual days, hours, Seraph has given me a precious few weeks. I can hide the vomiting and the pain, but by the end of February, there will be no hiding anything.

Nick said I would be okay. Erin said I would be okay. They promised. I know that.

Right?





Our LORD’s message is clear: Mankind has disappointed Him once again. We have been tempted beyond salvation and have become a plague upon His earth. Our redemption, our eternal life, lies only in this: an eye for an eye, a plague for a plague.