The words calmed her for a moment. She remembered her mother whispering it to her to calm her down on her first mission. They weren’t very religious, but there was something comforting in the words. Like a superstition that meant they were going to be okay.
A broken laugh came out of her, “Thank fuck one of us knows it. I always tripped over the words. Mom told me it was natural for me to mess it up, that when I needed it, God would help. Course she said that when I was seven and had a lisp.”
She looked over at the bottle on the floor near her. It was tempting her to grab, but she also wasn’t sure she wanted to go to sleep in the Church anymore. After all she might as well burn in here.
“I used to go to confession - when I skipped school that’s where I was. That or looking at art. I told you I was on a mission and I was lying. I thought it would help and I realized at it only counts if you stop the sin. So I stopped going to Church.”
She listened to his request and the tears stung her eyes in away they hadn’t in awhile. She had to be strong in front of him right? He couldn’t see her like this. Not this far of a mess.
“I remember all of it Atticus. You know why hunters die young? It’s not because it’s dangerous it’s because you remember everything. It gets into your head, and you can see it in everything. By the end you’re the monster you’re trying to fight. No matter how good you think you are. How strong you think you are it comes, and it breaks you. Only you can’t stop it, because if you quit someone else takes your place. If you die someone else’s life is forfeited. And then you let your kids see nightmares because you try to get them to understand why. And it’s horrifying.”
She coughed her free arm covering her eyes. “Don’t come to get me. I can’t stop you - I’m at the church, but I’m telling you don’t come get me. I couldn’t give you a normal childhood, but I fucking tried to give you a way out. And you need to let me go. If you come get me I’m not going to be able to leave and I’m going to corrupt you. I don’t want to, but I’m a monster Atti. And that’s what they do.”
Atticus let out a small sigh, a ghost of a smile tracing across his face despite the situation. “Yeah, well you know me Lil, I was always the one that could memorise the words taught to us over and over, while you were the one that could go out and do what needed to be done,” he said. And that was the truth; Atticus had always been best at memorising facts and repeating the lessons they were taught back, but give him a weapon and place him in the field and he freezed up. In many ways Atticus and Lilith were polar opposites, and maybe that’s why he latched onto her like he did.
There was nothing he could do but listen to her words, unsure of what to say. The knowledge that she would go and sit in a church, to perhaps hate what she did almost as much as he did. And that was what he did, he simply sat in the driver’s seat and listened to her poured her heart out and as she did he felt his break. Atticus was so much younger than Lilith that he hadn’t known a lot of what happened as he grew up, but now they were both adults and he was starting to realise that Lilith was struggling, and perhaps always had been. It was clear that the death of their parents affected her far more than it had him.
“Bullshit, I’m coming to you and you know it. Lil, don’t you realise you did it? You succeeded, you gave me a way out and nothing that has happened or will happen will change that. But you’re my sister and I’m never going to let you go - I never did and now... now I realise how much you did for me and I’m not going to lose you. Look, I won’t force you to come back home with me and eat the fabulous meal I cooked, but I still want to see you. I love you Lil.”
He wished that he didn’t have to hang up, but if he wanted to get to his sister he knew he had to. And so he regretfully rung off and put the car into gear. It wouldn’t take him long to get to the church.
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