You ever heard a killer whisper prayers between bodies? I have.
The day started like nothing—soft sun, cracked ceiling, a girl tying her hair without a mirror. But I could feel something shifting. Like my shadows were whispering back. Like the air knew I was close to a truth I'd buried too deep.
I was in a church.
Not because I believed in redemption, but because someone once told me killers confess too. And I wanted to know what they sounded like when they bled words instead of bodies.
He was the priest.
Father James.
But he wasn't the kind of man who shook holy water — he shook hands with monsters and called them sons. His eyes were too kind for his sins. That made him dangerous. People like him always make it to heaven on paper.
I sat in the confessional, not to seek forgiveness, but to study.
He said, "You don't have to tell me your name."
I didn't.
I told him my sins instead. Not all. Just the ones I wanted him to feel.
He leaned in.
I whispered:
"I killed a man who called me little girl with dirty eyes.
I smiled when his lungs filled with cement.
I wrote his name with lipstick on glass."
He said, "Do you regret it?"
I said, "I regret that it didn't hurt more."
He went silent.
I watched him from behind the grid. His hands shook. Just slightly. And I knew — he had a name he wanted to confess too. A body he buried with prayer.
I didn't ask. I didn't need to.
Because I already knew.
It was in the archive.
Father James.
December 13th.
Girl. Age: 14.
Name: Anozie Grace.
Note: "Left no evidence. Too clean. He's a professional."
I stood up.
He asked, "Do you believe in justice?"
I looked at the wooden cross above the door.
"Justice?" I said.
"I believe in balance."
---
That night, his church burned slow.
The flames were gentle — not rage, just poetry.
Ashes wrote his eulogy in tongues no priest could bless.
And Grace?
I wrote her name on a candle. Let it float.
The Archive has one less name now. And one more closure.
Balance.