The Thief - Part 4

Something I read...

 The priest opened the partition and stared at me for a minute or so, eyes squinting and face screwed up in what I thought was a temper. He held out his right hand and said, “Take this, my son,” handing me a black-stoned rosary.
“Your penance is within these beads and will take you five years.”
I laughed, counting that there were 60 beads and what I guessed was supposed to be Jesus at the bottom.
“So, what, I have to say one prayer a month or 60 prayers a day? What prayers am I meant to say anyway? The ‘Our Father,’ ‘Hail Mary,’ the ‘Glory Be?’” I asked the priest, putting the rosary around my neck.
Old priesty-boy’s face slowly began to unscrew and his eyes began to widen.  His mouth turned from a scowl into a grin and it scared me to my very soul.
The priest, now adopting a sarcastically quizzical tone, said, “‘Glory Be?’ ‘Hail Mary?’ No, no, no, my son. Prayer has no place here, nor does the virgin mother, the saints, the savior, or the Father.”
As the words left his mouth, I began to feel the beads of the rosary became coarse. I, in vain, tried to remove the now stuck-fast chain.
“The trinity and its angels, and their prayer and their mercy are no longer for you, my son.”
Have you ever felt so scared that it felt almost like a fire spreading up through your veins from your chest out to your limbs? The base-line shot of terror that hits you in an instant of shock, but instead of fading, holds tight its grip on you, almost pushing your blood vessels to burst under the pressure? Well, that’s how I felt. Fighting the bile coating the base of my throat, I managed to ask, “So, what is my penance?”  The priest coldly put his hand on my shoulder.

“Once a month, you must kill somebody. And not just anybody; it must be someone who has shown you kindness. You must kill them and bring me their heart.”