I paused for a second because I had never heard her use a curse word.
“I know,” I whispered, showing her the brand. “What will Mother Superior do to me?”
“The cross is upside down.” Her voice cracked. “You need to leave. They’ll accuse you of fornication—or worse, try to kill the child. Neither is something you could live with.”
She turned away, and for one heart-stopping moment, I thought she’d abandon me. But then she wrenched open a hidden compartment in her sewing tin, revealing folded wads of cash.
“Take this and go,” she hissed, shoving the money into my hands. “You don’t know what they’re capable of. I do.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I saw things, Lucia. Things no one should.”
I crushed her in a hug, my swollen belly pressing between us. She held me back just as tightly—the first real touch I’d had in years that wasn’t aggressive or prayer.
“Thank you,” I sobbed into her shoulder.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she muttered. “Run. And don’t look back.”
???
The sun hung low on the horizon, its orange glow bleeding into the dawn like a fresh wound. I stepped past the convent’s iron gates, brushing my fingertips on the cold metal. I paused to glance at the road beyond the gates.
Rain began to fall, soft at first and then heavier, as if the sky mourned what I carried. My suitcase dragged at my arm, and my swollen belly pulled at my spine, but neither burden compared to the weight in my chest.
Had I invited this? Was my faith so weak? What grew inside of me? Being a nun was all I knew.
The bus stop loomed in the distance. I focused on it, a mundane beacon, though every step made my insides cramp. Was that the child moving? I shuddered.
Sister Margaret’s face flashed in my mind—her papery hands shoving cash into mine, the tears she wouldn’t let fall. She’d survived decades in that place and would know where the bodies were buried. Literal bodies, if the news reports were correct about unmarked graves. Even Mother Superior gave her a wide berth.
She never doubted me.
A car horn shattered the silence.
I looked up, rain stinging my eyes. A blood-red sports car slowed beside me, its windshield wipers thumping like a lazy pulse. The driver’s window rolled down.
“Need a ride, Sister?”
The voice was smooth. Familiar.
My breath caught.
Because I knew before I even saw his face who sat behind that wheel.
The brand on my finger burned hotter.
“You.” The word tore from my throat like a curse. “The audacity—”
He leaned over in that obscene red car, all pearly teeth and tailored arrogance, looking for all the world like some devil-may-care businessman, not the thing that had pinned me to a bed of nightmares.
I kicked the door.
Bad idea.
Pain shot up my leg.
“Ow, ow, ow—” I hopped on one foot, the other throbbing. The car didn’t even get dented.
“Stubborn woman,” he muttered, flicking his hazard lights on and climbing out of the car while I backed away. The glow bathed me in hellish amber.
