The Power Of Night

The Sacrifice

Carter stopped Bradey's car on the curb. The clock on the dash said three o'clock in the morning, Delaney expected him to unbuckle his seatbelt. To finally go looking for his ditched car, for him to Finally be done with her.

After all, he'd shown her most everything thay seemed to matter.
Sweetness, Expression, Thankfulness, Friendship, Health, and a Story.

Carter spoke in nervouse tones.

"Delaney, I , I just want to know that I'm not forcing you to go anywhere - not putting my beliefs on you...."

"What are you talking about?" Delaney questions him.

His finger pionts diagonally across the street  to a tall old building with a bell tower and a cross pointing out.

"A Church." She said in monotone.

"Yeah..."  Carter sighed.
He quickly put the keys back into ignition saying.

"Yeah, nevermind, i shouldn't have taken you here, let's go-"

"No Carter," Delaney says out of spite. she didn't know why, but the glowing building with a cross a top it's roof seemed inviting in away.
No bias behind it,
Delaney had never been in a church.

Carter pushed through the doors, they didn't lock the place. Which was strange to Delaney.  Of the places they'd been to that night, most were sealed  shut,  or atleast being held watch.

But not here.

Carter walked in .
First it was a lobby type area with tile floors and an echoy ceiling. When the door shut, it rang through the entire space, boucing off one wall to meet another.

They walked further to reach more doors. These ones closing in silence.
The carpeted area infront of them held sectiond pews. Along the walls were colorfull stained glass windows.
Mantled on the wall was a small bowl filled  with water.
Carter stuck his hand in and then dotted it on  his forehead, then his heart, and his shoulders.

"It's  a Catholic thing." He explains.

Delaney wasn't sure she was alowed to touch the water, even if she was she would understand what itt meant or even what to do.

She followed him to a padded bench, pew.
Before entering he kneeled and did the same jesture as before with the water.
She glanced ahead at the towering ceilings and stage like alter.
Hanging over stood something somewhat familiar
A man on a cross.

"That's Jesus,"

Delaney spoke, pionting to the giant hanging cross.

"Yep."

Carter knods, seeming satisfied at Delaney's minimal knowledge .

"Well, do you know him?" She asked, though when said outloud seemed duller than anticipated.

"Yeah,  i know him enough."

He says staring hard at the alter.

" but not as much as you'd like?"
Delaney questions him,

He nods.

" me too." She says slumping herself onto the pew infront of her.

Carter speaks up and says,
"I guess there's just a lot of things i don't understand."

He sighs

" like why people die, or feel pain, or get sick..."

This lead's Delaney  back to Bella, the girl in the hospital.

"I have one,"

she contributes,

"why do you guys like Jesus's death so much, it looks terrible, why would you want to keep remembering that?"

The man on the cross did not look like the Jesus in Delaney's mind. He looked beaten and tourchured, not a flawless miracle worker.

"Because he died for us ."

He says perking up.

"He sacrificed himself so we could live on, in heaven."

Carter stares off into space, Delaney wants to ask more questions, but carter himself seems to have more.

Delaney stares at the cross, maybe leaving wouldn't be so bad either,
If it meant continuing into another a life, a different one.

"We should go."

Carter says picking himself up.
Delaney lifts herself off the pew, deciding that if she stayed, she'd want to step foot in a church again.

As her and Carter drive off, she wonderd how soon it might be.

As they drive off , Carter's wheels drive a familiar route.
Delaney plans the next turns as he proceeds through the journey, but also thankful she wasn't going back to the bridge, yet. As the clock changed to 4:00 she held back a growing yawn.

Suddenly the building was in view. The wasteland, the prison, the inevitable.

Carter had driven to school.
He led the vehicle to the back parking lot near the sports complexes. Before Delaney could object, carter was out of the car and running through the grass to one of the fields,
Delaney couldn't help but follow.