Sentencing Sapphire (Sapphire Dubois: Book 3)

Chapter 21

Sapphire opened her eyes.

When the floor caved in, she'd thought she was dead. A dark death was a reprieve from the guilt that had been weighing her down. Now it all returned.

Sapphire sat up and coughed. She was bleary-eyed and tried to squint to decipher her surroundings.

She grabbed onto a wooden surface next to her, then rose and took a step forward. Her leg yanked back and something behind her rattled. She rubbed her eyes and they focused.

Her ankle was looped in a chain that was locked under a pew next to her. In front of her, the church's altar was lit by dozens of candles. In the center sat a table, and on top of it lay something covered with a white sheet. Her father, clad in a black preacher's robe, lit another candle.

Then she saw the gun that had been placed right in front of her. She grabbed it and aimed it at him, though it was pointless. Shooting him would mean killing Julia. "What are you doing?"

Her father turned, a wide smile dressing his darkened face. "Good, you're awake. We're almost ready."

"Ready for what?" Sapphire eyed his robe and the altar. "You do religious sacrifice now too?"

Her father looked down at his robe. "Oh, no. I'm quite fond of this suit and I found this in the trunk. Blood spatter is murder to get out." He laughed. "Me, religious? Please. God is a human invention. God would mean there was an order to the universe, Sapphire. I can guarantee you there is no such thing."

Sapphire looked back at the chain and yanked again. "And what makes you think you're special enough to have figured out the secrets of the universe?"

Her father shrugged. "Had life been predestined, I wouldn't have been able to kill as many as I have." Her father walked over to a group of candles and picked up a knife. He turned it in his hand. "Sometimes, I pick a random person, just to see. No justice, no reason, no one's will other than my own."

Sapphire shivered at her father's words, his evil. She pulled at the pew, trying to lift it so she could slide the chain out. She groaned at the weight, unable to budge it.

"We're all God, Sapphire," he continued. "We have the power to do what we wish. Everything else—"

"What do you want?" Sapphire was tired of being preached at and toyed with.

He walked over to the white sheet. "I want you to join my world, where there will be no hiding of your true self, no obligations." He removed the sheet swiftly. "I want you to kill her."

Sapphire stared at Shelly McCormick who lay tied to the table by her arms and legs.

"I won't." As Sapphire said it, a strange, opposing feeling rose inside her.

"Why? Because society's propaganda has told you it's wrong. Mankind's almighty law." He waved his hands in mock fear. "The same law that tells you acts of vigilantism are illegal."

Sapphire shook her head, to try to push away the cloudy feeling.

"You've heard it, haven't you?" Her father nodded. "That voice inside, revealing your true nature."

Sapphire stared at her father as the appalling realization set it. She'd heard it. It had grown clearer and clearer over the summer.

"The moment before you pull that trigger, you'll feel terrible. But when you do it..." he exhaled and closed his eyes, "you'll accept who you really are and I promise that the thing that's been torturing you, eating away inside you, will vanish."