Redemption Read Online Free PDF

“She’s the key, you know. She is our purpose. We need to find out how she woke us, and then maybe we can sustain ourselves without an essentialist. We could have freedom.”
    “Freedom to do what?” he asked aloud.
    “To live.”
    Vincent shook his head sadly. “What do you think we’ve been doing, Guillaume?”
    Maybe Vincent had been living the past centuries, but I hadn’t, not really. There was a time with Marguerite that felt like life. At the thought of her, I noticed Garnier’s absence. “Where is he?”
    “Garnier? He’s visiting her. Marguerite.”
    So I had been right. Guilt settled into the pit of my stomach. After watching for seventy years, the first thing Garnier did was visit her. I should have done that, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to face her. To face what I had done to her. Vincent studied me, waiting for my reaction. I gave him none.
    “So what now?” I asked.
    “We wait for Antoine, I guess.”
    Waiting. Hadn’t we done enough waiting already? I slunk down next to Vincent and puffed on my cigarette. “It’s strange, you know?”
    “I know.” Vincent sighed.
    “I mean all of it. Not just our sudden fill of essence, but everything else.”
    “Feeling the air on our skin … ”
    “Yes, exactly. And you … ”
    The eleven-year-old boy next to me was the form I had known Vincent for most of our time together, but when I’d last seen him, he’d been older. He’d been a parental figure to us somehow, had taken over Antoine’s role in taking care of us.
    He shrugged again.
    There were no more words to say. So we sat, not in silence like we had for the past decades. This time, we listened to the sound of our breath.
    We must have fallen asleep back there, hidden from the street, because it was already late in the morning by the time Antoine returned.
    Sometime during the night, Garnier had returned and now sat next to us. Antoine ran a hand through his dirty hair. “The money we had in the account for building-maintenance fees ran out quickly when the charges more than quadrupled. So, they took our apartment and sold it. Now, I can contact a lawyer in order to try and get some of the money back. But it doesn’t solve the problem; we need somewhere to live.” He took a breath. “One of the penthouses is empty. It’s for sale and the seller is looking to move fast on it.”
    “So let’s just buy it,” Garnier said.
    “We can look into dipping into our long-term investments, or at worst, I’m sure our more liquid assets are still hidden where we’ve left them. But our biggest obstacle is paperwork. It will take at least a few days to sort everything out before we can even begin the paperwork required to purchase the penthouse.”
    The more Antoine talked about accounts, investments, mortgages, etcetera, the more tense I became. Yes, we needed somewhere to live, but it wasn’t our priority.
    “Where did you say that penthouse was?” I asked.
    Antoine pointed to the corner nearest us.
    “Perfect,” I replied.
    I scanned the area to make sure no one could see me, and climbed up the side. I found all the familiar footholds and crannies. My balance was better than any human’s, but without using more essence than I had at the moment, I couldn’t ascend the building much faster than a seasoned mountain climber. I could have taken the fire escape up, but it was noisy and there were more chances I’d be seen.
    “What are you doing?” Antoine asked.
    “Well, while you guys worry about interest rates and mortgage and all the pointless, useless stuff, I’m going to break in and rest.” Yes, we needed somewhere to live, but it couldn’t be our priority. Preserving our essence should come first, and the energy we used keeping ourselves warm in the winter cold was draining it.
    “ We don’t have an essentialist, our essence is not unlimited.” They shouldn’t have needed the reminder.
    “If you had let me finish, I was going to suggest we stay in a hotel,” said