“Well, no, but—”
He squeezes my arms. “I miss you.”
I don’t like the way he’s holding me. I remember him wrenching my wrist so hard I screamed for him to let go, he was hurting me, he was going to break something; his spit dripping down my cheek and drying on the neck of my dress.
“I miss you too,” I say, “but I can’t look suspicious. They don’t take risks.” And I’m making the ALC sound worse than they are, just because I want him to let me go. He needs to let me go. “They’ll kill me if they find me sneaking out.”
Theo’s grasp tightens once, just enough that it sucks the air out of my chest, and then releases. He takes a half step back, but it’s not far enough.
“Benji,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry.” I’m the one apologizing. Why is it always me? “It’s late, I’m tired, and—”
“Please stay.”
He sounds so, so small. The way he did in the balcony when he first found me. The way he did on the chapel floor, at his father’s feet, bleeding out.
He says, “Please.”
I say, “Okay. Okay. Can I just—is there a decent place to go to the bathroom around here?”
“I can show you.”
“You are not walking me out to take a piss. Just tell me.”
He points me to where, and as soon as I’m out of his sight, I yank open the back door of Reformation Faith Evangelical Church and leave.
I do not look back, not once.
And when I reach the Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, it’s burning.
Those who obey God and His commands shall be blessed, the way faithful men have always been blessed. But to those who turn from Him, He is wrath. He is fire. He tells us where to burn.
—Reverend Mother Woodside’s sermon
Genesis 19:28—And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
Hebrews 12:29—For our God is a consuming fire.
Luke 3:16—He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. O Lord our God, what the fuck happened?
The planks that used to seal the front doors of the Acheson LGBTQ+ Center lie in shards across the steps. Flames billow out of the gaping hole left behind and reach through every broken window, up to the sky, with a low, demonic rumble cut by the high-pitch cracking of embers. Just like the bridges burning on Judgment Day, columns of smoke rising high over Acheson as they all crashed into the water.
A gunshot, and another, and a scream, and a shriek. Long, high, and furious.
I would recognize the cry of a Grace anywhere.
I put on my mask and sprint toward the flames.
The heat hits half a block away. It’s a dry heat that sucks the moisture from my eyes and makes me choke. Bright white flame shines in shards of glass on the road, on abandoned cars, doubled in storefront windows, hemming me in like the Lord casting us from Him. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.
I’ve kept running through worse.
The courtyard fence is demolished, broken to pieces just like the front door. I clamber over splinters and nails, and I scrape my palm on a jagged edge.
An Angel. There, flinging open the back entrance of the ALC, raising a hand against the smoke that comes out to greet him. And a Grace. A Grace built like they were gutted doing a backbend bridge, stretched to grotesque proportions, extra arms lashed to limbs, another face peeking from their neck.
They see me.