Free Red Rain: Lightning Strikes: Red Rain Series #2 by David Beers

couldn’t deny that. God and Father Charles, and eventually, Sexaholics Anonymous. It all helped to keep Harry at bay and the world he brought with him.
    Years passed and the initial shock over what he told the priest faded.
    John went to church. He participated. He took communion and he prayed daily.
    “Have you thought about therapy?” Father Charles asked.
    “I’ve been. It didn’t help.”
    “And this? How is this helping?”
    “It’s the only thing to ever help alleviate the urges,” John said.
    Their relationship was close, if strained. John still saw the care inside the priest’s eyes, but he saw fear there as well.
    John met Diane. Father Charles married them.
    “Does she know?” he asked.
    “No. I can’t tell her.”
    “And you think you can live this lie forever, without telling your other half?”
    “I’m not sure I have a choice,” John said.
    “We always have a choice.”
    “Not if I want her to stay.”
    Years went and John stayed, what the twelve-steppers called, sober. Until he didn’t.
    How many years passed? Three? Four? Quite a few. His longest stretch ever, but as always, Harry returned. He came back wanting the only thing he knew—murder. John saw him and knew that the only choice he had was to turn to Father Charles. The group couldn’t help, and though he prayed, God’s representative answered him more often than God.
    “It’s back,” John said inside the confessional booth. Once the rite concluded, John could confess, and even evil thoughts were protected under the seal. “The thoughts, Father. I can’t stop them. They’re all the time.
    “Have you prayed?”
    “Yes, but God’s not answering.”
    The priest sighed. “You have an opportunity here, to end all of this, John. You can turn yourself in now, before any more damage is done. God does not always alleviate us from our suffering. Sometimes we must alleviate ourselves.”
    John said nothing.
    “You’re talking about murder. You’re telling me that you’re having thoughts of killing someone and you don’t know how to stop it, yet when I say, turn yourself in, you don’t have an answer.”
    Father Charles had never spoken like this. The relationship was complicated, but John hadn’t felt the pull like this since starting church. It seemed as if Father Charles would take the attitude that as long as the dogs slept, let them.
    Until now.
    Turn himself in? The thought never crossed his mind. He would have sooner killed himself than put his family through the knowledge of what he’d done.
    “Do you hear me, John?”
    “I can’t do that, Father. I love my life too much.”
    “You love yourself more than the rest of God’s children?” the priest said.
    John felt the hot damp of tears in his eyes.
    “Only you can make this choice,” Father Charles said. “You can choose to do what is right or what you’ve always done. No one else can make that choice for you. If you choose to continue down this path, of even entertaining thoughts like this—I’m not sure how much more help I can be.”

    * * *
    “ H ave a seat , John,” Father Charles said. He watched as John took a chair in front of his desk, placed there for a very specific reason. The priest sat on the corner of his desk, halfway standing. “Is it worse than before?”
    John nodded but didn’t make eye contact.
    “How so?”
    John looked up at that question. “You know I won’t tell you out here.”
    “No details.”
    John took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s happened twice already.”
    “Another one since we last spoke?”
    John nodded and Father Charles looked down at his feet. Black shoes to go with the black get-up. So much black, though the Lord was supposed to be a God of joy. Maybe, though, the Church only peddled that. Maybe God was something very different and Father Charles was just now coming to understand that. Maybe God didn’t care about humanity at all, despite what the Book said.
    He looked at John and thought,