The Devil's Labyrinth

CHAPTER 17

DARREN BENDER STARED AT the television without seeing the screen. He wasn’t exactly hiding in the dorm’s common room, he was just avoiding Father Sebastian. Not that it really mattered where he was; the priest would find him sooner or later.

Still, at least he would get to deal with Father Sebastian instead of Sister Mary David — he didn’t even want to think about what she might be doing with Sofia.

The door to the common room opened, and Darren could tell who it was just by the expression on Clay Matthews’s face. The fact that everyone else in the room sat up a little straighter only strengthened Darren’s feeling that his time had come, and José Alvarez’s picking up of the remote to click off the television was the final confirmation. No one ever straightened up for Brother Francis, let alone shut off the TV.

“Darren?” Father Sebastian’s voice asked.

Darren’s face began to burn and his heart pounded. He’d made a mistake coming to the lounge — he’d rather have this conversation in private, where at least all his friends wouldn’t hear him getting chewed out. But now Father Sebastian was going to use him as an example in front of all the other guys. Just what he needed. “Yes?” he finally said, doing his best to make the single word sound neither guilty nor frightened, and succeeding at neither.

“I hear you and Sofia Capelli were breaking a few rules this evening.”

Father Sebastian didn’t sound too upset, so Darren risked a slight shrug. “I guess.”

“I’m sorry?” the priest asked, his voice taking on an edge that made Darren instantly turn to face him. “You ‘guess’?”

Darren looked up at the priest, his tongue running nervously over his lower lip. “I mean, yes, we did, Father.” He said it so quickly that a faint snicker emerged from his roommate.

Father Sebastian silenced Tim Kennedy with nothing more than a sidelong glare, then returned his attention to Darren. “So you think you can just break rules whenever you feel like it?”

The sudden shift back to an easy conversational tone only served to set Darren’s nerves more on edge. “N-No, sir,” he replied.

“Well, then?”

Darren took a chance. “We were just making out a little.”

“That’s not exactly what Sister Mary David tells me she saw,” the priest countered.

“But we weren’t doing anything really wrong,” Darren protested, immediately regretting his words as he saw Father Sebastian’s expression darken.

“Well, let’s see,” the priest began. “First off, you were in the girls’ dorm. That in itself is wrong, given that it’s against the rules. Whether what you were doing once you were in Sofia’s room is wrong is—”

“Maybe the rules are wrong,” Darren blurted out, knowing as he spoke the words that he’d just made yet another mistake.

Father Sebastian lowered himself onto the ottoman in front of Darren’s spot on the couch, his eyes boring into the boy’s.

“That may be so, but it’s not your decision to make. When you entered this school, you agreed to abide by the rules, whether you agreed with them or not. And breaking that particular rule is grounds for expulsion, as I’m sure you are very well aware.”

Darren heard someone gasp and felt his face start to burn with humiliation. “We — Sofia and me — we just wanted to be together.”

“You can be together anywhere on campus other than the dorms. And I repeat: you knew that.” Darren sagged on the couch. It was actually going to happen — he was actually going to be expelled. “I want you to think about what you’ve done,” the priest went on. “Not just in the eyes of the school, but in the eyes of God, as well.” He paused, and his voice dropped slightly. “You are sixteen years old. When a boy your age stands his moral ground with an innocent young woman, God is pleased. But when he gives in to his basest urges, it pleases God not at all. It will spell trouble for both you and Sofia, and my job is to help you keep from harming yourself — or anyone else — until you’re old enough to exercise your own self-control.”

Darren felt a flicker of hope. Was it possible that maybe he wasn’t going to be expelled after all? Was it possible that Father Sebastian intended to try to help him, and not just punish him? Then the priest stood up, and Darren, almost as if drawn by some unseen force, rose as well.

“I shall have to consider your penance carefully,” Father Sebastian said. Then he looked around the room. “No one here has to study? You’re all straight-A students? I’m impressed!”

Everyone but Darren scrambled to leave, and when they were alone, Darren scuffed at the floor. “I’m sorry, Father,” he said, his voice trembling slightly.

“I’m sure you are,” Father Sebastian replied. He laid a gentle hand on Darren’s shoulder and began steering him toward the door. “I want you to go to confession before breakfast tomorrow, and then come to my office after classes.”

The flicker of hope that had been burning faintly inside Darren suddenly flared. “I will,” he promised. “And it won’t happen again.”

Father Sebastian’s brows arched slightly. “I’m sure it won’t.”

As Father Sebastian turned to leave the dorm, Darren headed for his room. His room, and his cell phone, with which he could find out what had happened to Sofia.

His roommate, Tim Kennedy, was waiting for him, leering gleefully now that Father Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. “So you got to first base, eh?”

“Not funny,” Darren shot back. He dug in his backpack for his cell phone and tapped in a quick message to Sofia: Are you okay?

He waited a minute, then another.

Then five more.

No response. Brushing aside Tim Kennedy’s questions about what —exactly—had happened in Sofia’s room, Darren opened his history text, but couldn’t concentrate.

Sofia was being punished simply for being with him.

There was a soft knock on the door, then Clay Matthews and his new roommate stuck their heads in, Clay grinning even more lasciviously than Tim Kennedy had a few minutes earlier. “Give us the details,” Clay said.

Darren shook his head. “Just go away, okay?” he said, and turned away from them.

They left.

An hour later, Tim Kennedy went to bed.

But Darren stayed up, turning pages in his history book but seeing none of the words. Every few moments he checked his phone, but it was working fine. The signal was strong, the battery was nearly full.

But no text messages had come in.

Finally giving up, Darren went to bed and turned out the light, but knew he wouldn’t go to sleep.

What had happened?

Was Sofia all right? He never should have run away like a scared jackrabbit — he should have stayed, and explained to Sister Mary David that it was all his fault. He could have told her he’d pushed his way into Sofia’s room, and she’d wanted him to leave but he wouldn’t, and—

— and now she was probably in more trouble than he was, and would never even talk to him again, let alone let him kiss her, or touch her, or—

Rolling over and pulling the covers over his head, Darren put the phone under his pillow and tried to sleep.

Maybe tomorrow he’d figure out how to make it up to her.

Assuming she was even still here tomorrow. Knowing Sister Mary David, Sofia’s parents might have had to come and get her this very night.

Darren Bender rolled over again, punched his pillow, and tried to get comfortable. But even as he closed his eyes again, he knew it was futile. No matter what he did, he wasn’t going to go to sleep tonight.

Not with the guilt gnawing at his gut that Father Sebastian had instilled in him.

How could he have been such an idiot?