Candles lit the sky, and the town crowded beneath the glow of the church.
Eden's head was bowed, blonde curls falling like wilted petals across her face. Her father's voice rang calm through the chapel, but his hand in hers was shaking.
The air was thick with fear—tense, reverent, heavy. Eden glanced toward her mother, whose eyes shimmered with tears. Her father preached of purity and punishment, of salvation and wrath. Death rode the pews. The air stung with guilt and shame.
Behind her, Micah gently placed a hand on her shoulder, offering silent comfort. But Eden's mind was still poisoned by Rowan's words—words that lingered like smoke.
Through the stained glass, she saw him.
Pacing outside the church, cigarette lit, smoke curling behind him like a showman's trick. She rolled her eyes, forcing his presence from her mind, trying to focus on the vigil.
Everyone was tense.
Lila sat nearby, her gaze fixed not on the altar, but on Eden's rosary.
Her father's grip tightened—subtle, but meaningful. A reminder. That their family stood together, always. Even in crisis. Especially in crisis.
He was the town's Pharaoh, the one Saint Lillian looked to when the sky cracked. And right now, the sky was breaking. Everything was crumbling.
Eden stared into the stained glass window, trying to find herself in the holy water. But instead, she saw oil—dark and spreading. She couldn't breathe.
She blinked hard, silencing Rowan's voice in her mind, forcing calm into her lungs. Her hand rested gently over Micah's, steadying herself.
The town needed to see them strong.
She and her family.
As God willed it.
The service ended on a note of sorrow—a melancholy tale of love turned bitter, of hate born from grace.
Outside, the sky had darkened. Gray clouds dripped across the fading sun like ink in water.
Eden met Lila at the chapel's edge.
"People are saying you were alone with Rowan before the lights went out," Lila said, her voice quiet but sharp. Her gaze cut through Eden like a knife.
Eden's breath caught in her throat. She bit the inside of her cheek.
"He was just... trying to toy with me. Micah shut it down."
She looked around. Eyes were on her. Watching. Judging. Whispering.
Did everyone believe it? That she'd been alone with him?
God help her.
Lila smiled, cold. "Oh, really?"
Eden swatted her hand away, jaw tight. She and Micah had shared something that night. A moment. She couldn't let it fracture now—not over Rowan.
Especially not over rumors that crawled straight from hell.
Eden's eyes darted to the treeline. Rowan was leaning against a cypress, dog tags hanging from his neck, catching the wind like relics. She rolled her eyes. But as she turned the corner, she felt his eyes on her, too.
"He's just so weird," Lila muttered as they passed.
Lila kept walking toward the car, but Eden felt a hand catch her arm. Rowan.
His fiery eyes locked with hers as he cornered her in front of the chapel.
"You should be scared," he murmured, breath hot against her skin.
When she shoved him, he grabbed her wrist, pulling her flush against him.
"Not of me."
Rowan wasn't trying to charm her. He was trying to warn her. Frustrated. Accused.
"You think I'm dangerous? Good. You should. Because someone out there is playing holy—and they're going to make sure people like you get hurt first."
Eden pushed him again, desperate to keep a distance so no one would see her talking to the town's pariah.
"And what does that make you? A hero?" she snapped.
Rowan's voice dropped.
"I'm not a hero. I'm just not a hypocrite."
Eden didn't need his help. She turned and walked away.
Across the graves, Micah watched.
He gripped a lily so tight, his fingers bled.
Then—
A scream tore through the vigil.
"Someone was watching," Lila gasped. "In the trees. Just standing there."
Rowan appeared at Eden's side, silent and steady. She flinched when she realized he was beside her.
Micah was the one who pulled Lila up, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"It's just shadows. Just nerves," he murmured, but his voice cracked like a lie.Eden ran to comfort her friend, but Rowan stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
"You really think I'm too soft for this?"
His eyes met hers, red with something deeper than anger.
"No," he said. "I think this place eats people alive and calls it salvation."
Eden decided to stay and help clean until the moon rose and the crowd thinned. Eden should've left, but she couldn't. Her feet moved past the graveyard where Lila had been pointing.
"Still pretending it's nothing?" Rowan said mysteriously behind her.
She turned sharply. "Why are you following me?"
"Because someone needs to. You walk straight into danger like you're bulletproof."
She opened her mouth — then closed it. There was no use arguing.
He stepped past her, ducking under a bent iron fence.
"What exactly are you looking for?" she asked, following him now.
"Proof."
He crouched low near a cracked grave — his fingers brushing something pale.
Eden knelt beside him. What she saw made her recoil:
A child's doll. Head cracked. A rusty nail through its chest, pinning it to the stone.
"This grave's for a girl who died in 1963," Rowan muttered, brushing moss from the inscription.
"No one visits it. No reason for this to be here."
Eden stared at the doll. Its eyes had been painted over with black crosses.
Something sharp sat at its feet — a tiny piece of mirror.
"Look." Rowan pointed to the grave marker. Scratched into the side, just above the moss, was a single word.
CLEANSE.
"Do you think Lila saw who did this?"
Rowan didn't respond, his eyes pinned on the trees.
"I think whoever did this wanted someone to see."
___________________
Eden stayed silent in the car while Lila talked—boys, drinking, friends.
She wasn't listening.
The road twisted through trees, and then she saw it.
The Thorne house barely stood. The screen door clung on by rusted hinges, the paint peeling like a scab. One window was boarded up. The others stared hollow. Beer cans littered the porch. The yard was more weeds than grass. In the overgrown lot, a bicycle lay on its side, untouched for years.
There were no lights on.
It didn't look abandoned.
It looked like something terrible had happened.
Like the house was caught in a moment of fear and never moved again.
Eden turned to look back through the rear window, unable to stop herself.
She saw him—Rowan—standing on the porch.
Leaning in the doorway, cigarette between his lips, watching her.
Just watching.
His expression unreadable. His face half-lit by the ember's glow.
The dog tags still around his neck, swinging gently in the breeze.
Eden turned back forward. Her chest tightened.
She didn't know what she felt. Pity? Shame?
Something colder?
What had happened to Rowan's family?
The town treated his name like cursed blood.