His other hand pushes the fabric higher, cold fingers pressing against the scar on my ribs, the one Raven kissed once when we hid behind the altar, the one she said would keep mesafe. He drags his thumb across it now, slow, filthy, claiming. “You’re mine,” he breathes. “You always were.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. The quiet place. The counting. The braid. I count the wax drips on the floor. I count the cracks in the stone. I count the beats of his breath against the back of my neck. His rosary beads clink as they fall against my ribs. The crucifix dangles cold over my skin. His breath sharpens. “Keep your eyes closed.”
I do. I press my hands harder to the floor until my palms burn. I chew my cheek until the taste of iron coats my tongue. “You’re praying so well,” he whispers. I feel his weight. I feel his breath. But I stay quiet. I wait for Raven. She promised. She told me if I stayed still, he’d pick someone else.
But he didn’t. He picked me.
His hand slides lower. His breath sharpens. His rosary wraps around my wrist like another lock. Like another chain. “You’ll let me keep you,” he murmurs again, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He never does. The chapel door never shuts. The sound of my own heartbeat drowns the counting. The braid slips loose. The candles flicker. The quiet place hums.
I press my face to the cold stone floor and pray for the sound to stop. Pray for her to come back. Pray to be good enough for him to leave. But he doesn’t leave. Not that time. Not the next. The quiet place keeps me. The quiet place keeps him. And Raven never comes back.
His rosary pulls tighter around my wrist, the beads biting into my skin with every shift of his hand. “Stay still, little lamb,” Father hums, dragging his breath over the back of my neck, the cane tapping once, twice, against the stone. I don’t move. I don’t speak. I don’t cry. I know what happens when I do.
His fingers push beneath the waistband of my uniform trousers—cold, slow, deliberate. His breath sharpens. “You always let me keep you.” My throat locks. My chest caves. Hisother hand presses to the base of my spine, pinning me, holding me down. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. I press my hands harder to the floor until my palms burn, until my fingernails splinter against the cracks in the stone.
“Good boy.” His voice cuts soft against my ear. “You know how to stay quiet.”
The weight of him covers me. His fingers press between my thighs, sharp and rough and wet. The rosary slides against my ribs as his hand shifts. I clamp my teeth into my cheek, hard enough to tear the skin, hard enough to taste the copper flood. His breath shudders. “You’re perfect when you don’t fight.”
The words burn. His thumb circles the soft skin where I’m not supposed to be touched, dragging the slick from his hand across me, marking me. “You’re always so pretty when you’re quiet.” The burn sharpens as his fingers press harder, deeper, violating me, the stretch biting, tearing. “You’re praying so beautifully.”
I choke on the sob that won’t break free. I keep it buried. I keep it trapped. Because she said if I was good, he’d stop. But he doesn’t stop. His hand wraps around me from the front, stroking me, forcing me to harden under his grip, forcing the shame to pool in my belly. His breath chokes against my temple. “You love this, don’t you?”
I shake my head frantically, tears soaking into the stone, but no sound escapes me.
“No?” His tongue drags over the curve of my ear. “You always love this, little lamb.” His thumb presses under my lip, dragging down until my mouth parts. “You love the way I pray with you.”
His pace quickens. His hands force the betrayal out of my body. “You always cum so sweetly for me.” I slam my palms harder to the ground, but the tremble in my thighs betrays me. The twitch of my hips betrays me. The sob trapped in my throat betrays me. His breath sharpens. His grip bruises. His voicebreaks into something reverent, something filthy. “Such a good boy.”
The forced release hits me—sharp, sick, shameful. I sob into the stone, into the cracks, into the quiet place that holds me here. His body shudders. The rosary clinks. His breath slows. His cane taps once more against the floor. Twice. Three times. The braid slips. The candles burn low. His hand drags over my ribs, over the scar Raven kissed, over the place I thought would keep me safe.
“You’ll stay for me next time, too.” His breath is gone. His steps retreat. “You always stay for me.”
The cane taps toward the door. The echo fades. The silence thickens. The chapel stays cold. The rosary digs into my wrist. The quiet place hums. I stay on the floor, breathing into the cracks, praying to something that stopped listening. Praying for her to come back. But she doesn’t. Not that time. Not the next. And I keep waiting. Because she promised. She promised she wouldn’t leave me.
But she did.
The chapel stays cold. The stone floor sticks to my skin where his hands touched me, where his breath coated me, where his rosary chained me. I don’t move. I don’t cry. I don’t make a sound. Maybe if I stay still long enough, I’ll stop feeling him there.
The beads cut into my wrist where he tightened them, a burn I don’t untangle. A lock I don’t unfasten. He always left the rosary. Always left me marked. Always left me holding the proof that I was his.
I press my face into the cracks in the floor, the taste of iron still flooding my mouth, the sharp ache still pulsing between my thighs. The quiet place hums. I stay here. Because this is where she told me to wait. Raven said she wouldn’t leave me. Ravensaid she’d save me. Raven said if I was quiet, I’d be safe. So I stay. I wait. I breathe as softly as I can.
I count the candles. I count the wax drops. I count the splinters in the wood where we used to sit. I braid my own hair with trembling hands, too tight, too sloppy, but I don’t stop. Because she always braided my hair. Because that’s how she kept me still. I pull the rosary tighter around my wrist. The burn feels like her hands. The burn feels like now.
The chapel door creaks hours later. Or maybe days. Or maybe I’ve never left. I lift my head. Raven stands there. Older. Taller. She looks at me like she doesn’t know me. Like she’s just seeing me for the first time. She says my name. But it sounds wrong. Like it’s not supposed to belong to me anymore.
“You left me here,” I say, but my voice is a scrape, a threadbare echo. Her hands tremble at her sides. She steps forward. The chain around my wrist rattles. The rosary digs into the skin. The cold floor sticks to the bruises. “You forgot me,” I say, flattening myself into the place she told me would keep me safe.
Tears flood her eyes. She says no. She says she didn’t. She says she promised. But I was here. I’ve always been here. “You told me to stay quiet.” The words bleed out like I’m still there. “You told me to be good.”
Her breath cracks. Her hands shake. “You said you’d save me.” She says she tried. She says she didn’t know. She says she was scared. But she left me. She left me in the quiet place. She left me with him. She left me in the memory. I stayed where she told me to. I stayed quiet. I stayed good. I stayed his.
She tries to touch me. I pull the rosary tighter, twisting the beads until they bite, until the pressure burns, until the scar under my ribs aches like it did when I was small. “You didn’t come back.” The chapel door never shuts. The cane taps in thedistance. Or maybe it’s inside me now. I close my eyes. The braid slips loose. The rosary stays. The quiet place keeps me.
Her hand trembles when she reaches for me. “Damien,” she says, but it scrapes against me like it’s not mine. Her breath hitches. Her knees hit the floor in front of me.
“You didn’t come back,” I whisper. The rosary bites into my wrist. The bruises burn. Her tears spill, her hands hovering just above me, like she’s afraid to touch me now.
