"Confessional," I murmured on a breath, veering toward the booth, him at my back.
I reached for the door to the priest's section, and I was glad—glad because it meant I could spare Aidan this. No brother should have to see what I was witnessing, and I'd already been through much worse.
The priest had his hands on Conor's head—
No.
Just, no.
Hatred bloomed inside me.
I didn't just see the priest and Conor, I saw me and my father. I saw the shit that fuckers on the streets had done to other homeless kids who were just trying to fill their stomachs. Things that I might have had to endure if Aidan hadn't figured out I'd run from home and that I needed somewhere to live.
The second the door opened, the priest jumped, and though it took me a second to process everything, it took him longer. By the time his hands had stopped holding Conor down, mine were working.
I reached forward and slammed the altar ornament into the priest's head, only then realizing it was a plate. A fucking plate.
Christ.
With him dazed after my hit, more from my brute force than the shape of my weapon, I grabbed Conor's shoulder and pulled him away. His face was tear sore, pink, his eyes drenched. Terror and hope and hatred and wrath blurred into one in his gaze, and while I thought he'd be down for it, I growled, "You don't want to see this, Conor."
He snarled, wiping his hands over his wet cheeks, as I dragged him away. "I do!" Bloodthirsty little shit.
Ignoring him now I’d shoved him out of the way, I reached into the confessional and went to grab the priest by the throat, but he was on his knees now, sobbing, his hands in the prayer pose as he pleaded with God for forgiveness.
He hadn't tried to run so that meant he knew what was about to go down.
"You'll need more than God to forgive you," I rasped. "When Aidan Sr. finds out—"
"No!" Conor wailed. "Da can never find out!" He snatched the plate from me and made to hurl it at the priest, but Aidan was there, the heavy gold candlestick held high as he commanded grimly, "Conor, move back."
"Leave this to your da," I urged. "He'll make the bastard pay."
But Aidan wasn't here anymore.
The kid who found it hard to shoot targets even though he had twenty-ten vision had left the building.
The kid who played Super Mario and howled whenever Freddie Krueger got busy with it was no more.
In that moment, I saw Aidan Jr. ascend to his place as his father's heir, and all for the love of his baby brother.
The candlestick swung high before he brought it down, lodging it in McKenna's shoulder as blood sprayed, bone shattered. The gold ornament stuck fast, making the priest howl as Aidan dragged him out of the booth by it, with him flailing around like a dead fish. The way it was wedged into his shoulder would have made another person gag, but we weren't just 'any' people—we were Five Pointers.
Aidan and me might be fifteen, Conor might only be seven, but violence was in our veins.
Seeing that Jr. wasn't about to stop, I shoved Conor over to a pew and said, "Stay."
"You're not the boss of me, Finn," he growled, but for all his ferocity now his big brother was here to protect him, I couldn't stop overlaying what I'd seen mere minutes before.
His mouth—
My stomach churned. "You don't want blood on your hands, Conor. You're not made for that."
He frowned at me as McKenna's wails to God turned into an endless chant now Aidan was bashing him to fucking pieces with one of the altarpieces.
Conor swiped at his snotty nose, mumbling, "What am I made for?"
"I don't know," I told him, meaning it. Not in a bad way, I just knew Conor was special. Somehow, what I’d thought earlier about him either being like his da or Ted Bundy had shifted. Not because of what I’d seen, just what I’d realized. "I don't think blood is your path." He was way too fucking smart to be wasted on the streets.
"Grab his feet, Finn," Aidan growled, and I jerked my attention back to the scene, grimacing when I saw the state of the priest.
Blood had pooled beneath him, spattering around the pews, getting into the cracks in the tiles. His groin was a matted mess of torn flesh, and through it all, with every strike of that fucking candlestick to his body, McKenna prayed.
He begged for forgiveness.
He prayed for absolution.
Not once did he apologize to Conor.
Not once did he say he was sorry for what he did, just that he was sorry for falling into temptation.
Like a seven-year-old boy could ever be that.
As if he could fall into the same category as eating too many fucking cookies.
Aidan wanted me to hold him down, but I couldn't bear to hear him pray any longer so I turned to Conor and asked, "Do you have your Swiss Army Knife?"
His bottom lip wobbled as he nodded. I saw shame flicker over his face, crisscrossing his features and I knew he was thinking that I thought bad of him for not using the weapon.
But he was seven.
A kid.
Forced by a man who held our eternal souls in his hands to do something heinous.
Forced by a man who his father revered.
In our parish, a priest was not just next to God, he might as well have been God himself.
I clapped him on the shoulder as he passed me the pen knife, and I raced over to the bastard's side and smacked my fist into his jaw. That shut him up, thank Christ, but his head rocked back and forth, his eyelashes fluttering as I pressed my now-aching hand to his nose, squeezing the nostrils until his lips parted. After he gasped for breath, I let my fingers dart inside his mouth and pulled on his tongue.
"There's no forgiveness for you, you fucker," I growled as I hacked at it with the pen knife.
The second the blade was lodged deep, I grabbed his hair and dragged his head back as I sawed off the muscle that would let him talk with God.
Not anymore.
Let the motherfucker try to worm his way out of this without the ability to speak anymore.
He wailed and writhed, choking and sputtering, screaming and shaking as he gulped down blood, but Aidan did me a solid and held him down.
"May you burn in hell," I ground out, and it was eerie as fuck because Aidan said that at the exact same time as I did.
"May you burn in hell."
Blood gushed from his mouth, spurting all over us, and as the copious wounds on his body began to take effect, we watched as the mashed up flesh that had once been a son of Christ left this mortal coil and was slowly accepted into Satan's embrace.
As the light flickered in his eyes, I gave him the only last rites he deserved: "I hope demons fuck you in the ass with hot pokers for the rest of eternity."
And he died.
Which solved one problem, but triggered a whole host of others.
Aidan, panting from the brute force he'd used, stared down at the corpse like he was just waking up, like he was just starting to register what he'd done.
"Call Uncle Paddy," Conor ordered, his voice clearer now, satisfaction lacing it but also, authority.
I turned to look at him while Aidan stayed staring at the bloody mass on the church floor—his first kill.
Seeing the change in Conor lessened my nerves. His lips wobbled a little and his eyes were still wet, but they were burning with relief now that they were pinned on McKenna's corpse. His trauma was slowly coming under lock and key as his brain whirred to life.