The Sinner

GABRIEL

Six years ago

I was born in sin and have lived in perversity ever since.

Sacrilege coursed through my veins like thick opium, intoxicating and luring me. And even though I hated this part of my life, I could never part away with it.

A depraved mortal.

An immoral sinner.

A cruel monster.

The list was endless. There was no end to the darkness which lurked deep with me. The lust, the desire and crave of blood and pain mingled so intricately that I could not tell where the lines between the man and the monster blurred.

I thought I could control myself, prevent from being spiralling down the hellhole, but I was wrong. The descent to hell has already begun for me. I had gone too far, fallen too deep, and now, I have only two choices before me.

I could give in to my base instincts and give in to the devil that was waiting to be unleashed.

Or I could force back the monster and seek a life of repentance and absolution. A life where the devil cannot tempt me, or the monster could not taunt me.

There won’t be any depravity or indulgences. No heated skin, glistening sweat or rapture of pain and pleasure. No more screams and dead bodies.

I drove through the city like a madman and pulled through the gates of the penthouse apartment. A luxury that came at the cost of sin and blood. Jumping out of the car, I stormed into my room and picked up the overnight bag thrown into the corner of the closet and left.

I left Chicago that day and never looked back.

I had abandoned and buried the sinner within me, picked up the rosary at the guidance of Father Lucas and vowed my life to God. I thought I was done with the devil dictating my life, but it seemed that God has other plans for me.

Or maybe it was the devil.

But either way, I was fucked.

SIENNA

Six years later

I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on their conversation because, honestly, the very sound coming out of her made me feel sick to the stomach. But the veil of silence around the house was too heavy, and Ivory’s voice was annoying.

Apparently, my dearest stepmother had no idea that the door to her bedroom was ajar enough to carry the sound outside.

“Have you told Sienna?”

“I am just informed by the administration of the academy that Sienna’s application is accepted. I thought I should tell her once the admission is finalized,” my father’s tired voice carried over.

Application? What the hell were they talking about?

Clutching the high heels that I had taken off a while ago tighter to my chest, I slightly leaned in for better audibility.

“What if she creates an issue?”

“Issue? We are sending her to one of the most reputed and expensive places to study. The fees were exorbitant!”

That’s it. My patience wore thin, and I believe the alcohol has already eroded the scanty layer of tenacity.

I slammed open the unlocked door and stood on the threshold with my hands planted on my hips. The sound took both of them by surprise as they turned to me with a gaping look.

“Where the fuck are you sending me?” I demanded.

They exchanged a look, followed by the eye roll of Ivory as if she was entirely bored even before I began this conversation.

“Mount Carmel Academy at Galena,” my father answered in somewhat a pacifying tone.

“Galena?”

Ivory cut in. “It’s a historic town in Illinois—”

But I was not in a mood to listen to her nauseated voice. “I am not talking to you, so shut the fuck up.”

“Sienna!” My father’s quintessential roar cut through the glaring exchange between my stepmother and me as my gaze dashed back to him.

“Don’t Sienna me, dad.” I charged into the room. “I am not going anywhere, least of all in a remote town and to some fucked up academy. You made me drop out of college and forced me through hell, and for what? A business transaction?”

“Sienna, this is for your own good. The Abbott family was insistent upon—”

“Once again, I don’t give a flying fuck what they insist upon. They wanted a deal, and I signed on it. End of story.”

I pursed my lips and breathed through the nose, realizing that the very name of the Abbott family has triggered my temper further. At the age of eighteen, I had already signed away my life against my better judgment and counted my days until I would turn twenty-one.

At twenty-one, Zac Abbott will come to put a fucking ring to my finger and forever tie me to a marriage I had not consented upon. Surprisingly, nobody gave a damn to my consent on that fateful day. Not even my father.

And that very day, I decided that I was on my own; the consequences be damned.

“Well, then you should, you little brat!” Ivory snapped, coming forward to stand beside my father. “Because the moment you put your signature on that dotted line, you have become theirs. And our entire future and the reputation of the Emerson family stands on that very contract.”

“Ivory, let it go…” my father pacified softly.

Her fiery gaze turned to him. “Somebody needs to talk some sense into her, Ray.”

“I am sure that somebody isn’t an Emerson slut.”

“You watch your tongue, girl.” My father glared, as usual coming in defense of Ivory. “The Abbott family would clip off your wings so fast you would not even know what’s coming for you. I trust Mount Carmel’s structure and discipline will reform you before you land yourself in bigger trouble.”

He meant trouble for him.

“Go to hell,” I spat.

Turning around, I stormed out of their room in a rage I haven’t felt for a very long time. And as soon as I entered my room and locked the door, a sense of palpable anxiety shot through me.

I should have been glad to hear that I won’t have to stay here, under the same roof as my father and Ivory, but the fact that I was shipped off to an unknown place to the god-knows-what town frightened me a little.

And what was my fault? One blind date with a hot bartender?

Sheesh.

Girls of my age did worse.

Tossing the high heels across the room, I walked over to the study table and fired up the laptop. And for the next hours into the morning, I scoured for every little piece of information on Mount Carmel Academy of Galena available on the internet.

Apparently, very little was available. There were a few pictures of the large compound, the look of the old-fashioned church with tall windows and overlooking gardens. It looked like it bore the testimony of a vivid medieval period. There was something eerie about the place that unnerved me to the core.

According to the little information of Wiki, Mount Carmel Academy, under the regulation of Old St. Augustine Church, was managed by a trust fund in the name of the headmaster, Father Gabriel Sullivan, whose digital footprint was practically zero. It was understandable. Except for the fact that he was a priest who managed the administration and parish duties, there was not even a picture of the man who was going to control my life for the next two years.

I leaned back against the chair and stared up at the ceiling.

“What harm could an old, pious man do to me when I have practically lived and raised amongst vipers?” I wondered.

I was often told that I looked more like my father than my mother, and for the first time, I’d welcome that attribute with a smiling face. Because my father was a cold and heartless son of a bitch who didn’t even blink an eye before selling off his daughter for a lucrative business deal.

And right now, I’d have to be equally ruthless to get myself thrown out of the academy sooner than anyone could think of.

“You are delusional if you think that an archaic community college in some remote Catholic town could change me,” I told my father as I gazed outside the windows and watched the old town blur past.

In a matter of a week, I was shipped off the Galena as punishment for a blind date and insurance for the Abbott family.

The place was nothing like the fast-paced New York I was used to since my birth. There was no bustling crowd or cosmopolitan feel, but only a heavy sense of dread swirling in my gut.

“You would be surprised how reformative the academy is,” he answered in a clipped manner like he was striking some business deal. Technically, I was a deal. “The headmaster of the academy personally supervises the strict program to rectify girls like you.”

My head snapped to him. “Girls like me? Do you mean whose fathers are busy fucking whores and skipped the life chapter called parenting? Save me the lecture, please.”

He gave me a cold, hard stare that I shrugged off. “The Abbott family is extremely religious and insists on high moral character, Sienna.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes. “Let me translate that for you: they want a good, little virginal lamb for a bride, one without a mind of her own and who can forever hold her silence. And you just offered me up on a silver platter.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you even live with yourself?”

There was a small flicker of reaction I couldn’t put the finger on that came and went.

“Arrange marriage isn’t a new concept. Your mother and I were married off by our families as well.”

“And what a fairytale it was!” I whispered.

No matter what, my mother convinced the world otherwise; she was not in love with my father, and neither was he. It was more of a compromise than marriage, and I believe that my mother has paid the price for that.

“What do you want, girl?” He snapped. “You want to spend your life dating some nobody and end up in a gutter?”

“I want to live a normal life. How difficult is it for you to grasp?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but when the car slowed down and wheeled through the creaking iron gates of the ghosted academy, he paused for a second to look at the surroundings. And by the look on his face, it was evident that he hadn’t been here before.

And he was willing to lock away his daughter, his only child, in some remote and creepy religious institution.

“Sienna, this is your last chance to uphold the good name of the Emerson family,” he told me calmly. “A name that our ancestors have built with tremendous hard work and numerous sacrifices that you can’t even imagine with your little head. And thus, I will not have a pertinent offspring of mine ruin the family’s name with her misdeeds.”

I drew in a sharp breath and gazed outside at the church beyond the large compound. “No, you will just sell her off.”

“As my only daughter, I have always tried to provide you with all the luxury and comfort in the world, but I will not have you spoiled. You might not realize it now, but I have your best interests at heart.”

A sardonic laugh tore of my throat as I shook my head and got ready to get out of the car. “We are about to enter the house of God. Try not to burst into flames.”

An odd smell of wood and desolation reeked the place. Wherever my eyes went, there was either a Cross or some religious scriptures that adorned the walls. Creepy. The place was obnoxiously large, mazed with long corridors and high walls. It looked like a medieval prison where anti-believers were probably branded with a hot iron or punished in some unthinkable ways.

“It’s a hell,” I whispered to myself as I followed my father’s footsteps.

How in the name of the devil did my father come across this place?

From the information I found on the web, it didn’t look like an academy that ever advertised itself.

We veered away from the main church building and towards the administration section, where a woman sat behind the desk. I haven’t laid my eyes on someone with a Peter Pan collar dress, full sleeves, and heavy glasses for the longest time and the unsettling feeling stirred awake in my gut.

Am I supposed to wear that dull thing, too?

My father strode forward, clearing his throat to seize her attention. And it somehow worked too. “We have an appointment with Father Sullivan at two o’clock.”

The woman looked up, gazing at my father in his five-thousand dollars suited pin-striped attire, and by the look on her face, she did not lay her eyes on something so immaculate for the longest time, given the place she was employed.

Raymond Emerson, among a lot of nasty things, was handsome and charming. Even in his late forties, he could charm a woman half his age, and I figured it has always worked in his favor.

Even bloody now.

She offered a hesitant but blushing smile. “Your name, please?”

“Raymond Emerson.”

Her clumsy hands reached out to grab a shabby leather-bound diary, and I mentally rolled my eyes. Who the hell uses a diary in this era? She frantically flipped pages, going through a list of names before she looked up to meet his eyes with a fervent smile. “Yes, I see your name is here in the appointment diary. Please wait in the chamber, and Father will be here with you shortly.”

“Thank you.”

We breezed past her desk and pushed through the heavy wooden doors to settle down in the priest’s slash headmaster’s chambers. And if that place wasn’t the dreaded warning for me, I didn’t know what would. It was exactly the kind of spine-chilling place I’d imagined. In fact, it was way worse.

“It’s a prison, isn’t it?” I asked my father irritably. “And let me guess, it was Ivory’s idea to send me here?”

My stepmother was way too predictable when it came to my so-call ‘well-being.’

“Let it go,” he gritted, without meeting my eyes.

I shot up to my feet so fast that the chair screeched against the floor. “Answer me, goddamn it!”

He tossed me an angry look. “Sit down and behave yourself. And for God’s sake, don’t you dare embarrass me in front of the priest.”

“Does he know what a son of a bitch—”

The door opened, and an arresting figure filled the threshold.

My throat was caught and cannot let out any voice somehow

The man stole my sound.