Chapter 3: The Confession of a Broken Heart
The rectory on Crockett Island smelled of damp wood and the faint, metallic hint of Paul’s own unshed blood. He’d just come from the weekly AA meeting in the community center. Riley had spoken, his voice steady, about making amends. About forgiving himself. The clean, sober sweat on his neck had pulsed with a vitality that made Paul’s gums ache. He’d watched the strong line of Riley’s jaw working, the earnest light in his eyes that was no longer drowned in guilt, and Paul had felt a hunger so multifaceted it short-circuited his mind.
Was it a craving to sink his teeth into that newly vibrant carotid, to finally taste the man’s healing? Or was it the desperate, human need to drag Riley behind the vestry and beg for his hands, his mouth, his weight—to be claimed, known, ruined in the most sacred way? To be his husband. His bride. The dichotomy was a sawing blade in his gut.
Now, alone in his narrow chamber, the war erupted. He fell to his knees beside the cot, hands clawing at his own shirt as if he could rip the contradiction out of his chest. A low groan seeped from him, building into a choked wail that scraped his throat raw.
“Please,” he gasped into the empty room, his face wet. “God, please. Take this from me. The hunger or the love, just take one. I can’t carry both. I can’t.” He was begging his silent, absent God, the same plea he’d uttered for decades. The silence that answered was louder than any scream. It was the silence of the cosmos, of a divine turned back.
He curled inward on the cold floorboards, his body seizing with tremors that felt geological. Sobs wracked him in harsh, grunting spasms—ugly, animal sounds. He pictured Riley’s smile, and his fangs elongated in a painful surge. He imagined Riley’s hand in his, and a wave of desperate loneliness hollowed him out. The competing needs didn’t merge; they warred, tearing him at the atomic level. He shuddered, muscles locking, a puppet of pure anguish. He wanted to be drained by Riley. He wanted to be filled by him. He wanted to be unmade and remade, and the not-knowing which want was damnation and which was salvation was the true hell.
Seven hundred miles south, in the vast, echoing nave of his church, Jud Duplenticy pressed the end call button on his phone. His fingers were trembling.
Benoit’s voice still lingered in his ear, warm and patient. “You’re not a burden, Jud. Never that. Call anytime, you hear?” They’d talked about the case, about the symbols on the Polaroid left on Jud’s car. Benoit was methodical, clever, reassuring. And Jud, under the guise of seeking counsel, had just wanted to listen to him breathe.
He had no one else. Paul understood the monstrous half, but Paul wasn’t here. Benoit was here, in his life, a steady, kind presence that became the sun around which Jud’s entire world orbited. The threat from the cult—the vampires, the demons, whatever they were—wasn’t some abstract spiritual battle. It was a direct threat to that man. To the laugh that made Jud’s chest tight. To the dry wit, the intelligence, the profound goodness.
He walked to the altar rail, the same spot he’d knelt a week before. The stone floor felt like ice through his trousers. He gripped the cold wood until his knuckles blanched.
He hated this. He hated the twist in his stomach when Benoit said his name. He hated the way his prayers had become a frantic list of bargains for Benoit’s safety. He hated the body that felt like a betrayal—a man’s frame hiding a secret, sinful topography, yearning for a love the Church called disordered.
But he loved Benoit Blanc. It wasn’t a crush. It was a want that went down to the marrow. He wanted to make him coffee in the morning. He wanted to kiss the wrinkles by his eyes. He wanted to stand beside him, publicly, proudly, and pledge himself. He wanted a ring and a life and a quiet porch at the end of it.
The want was a cathedral in itself, vast and magnificent and built on forbidden ground.
A choked sound escaped him. Then another. It spiraled up from the wreckage in his chest, a cyclone of fear, love, and self-loathing. It tore out of him—a raw, ragged scream that echoed off the stone walls, the vaulted ceiling, the stained glass saints.
The church threw it back at him, twofold, a chorus of agonized echoes. It wasn't an answer. It was an amplification. His grief filled the sacred space, a profound and personal desecration. He sucked in a breath to scream again, his voice breaking, because the noise was the only thing that made the feeling inside him seem finite, something that could be spent and exhausted.
But it couldn’t. It was cosmic. It was splitting him in half, and in his rectory on a distant island, Paul Hill felt the same invisible blade finding the crack in his own soul, and wept into the silent, uncaring dark.