CHAPTER 007

Ana’s Point of View

Two hours.

And that was as long as I was sitting there, huddled upon that splintered pew of wood in the broken chapel. My back was on the hard wood and the cold was eating its way in to my bones until I felt like I had the ice in my veins.

Two hours of waiting for him.

And still, nothing.

Then without a warning, tears like nothing but noise and nonsense, dripping down my cheeks before I could catch them. I attempted to wipe them off in anger, and the more I struggled the more they dropped.

Why was I crying?

Was it exhaustion?

Was it despairing its nails into my chest till it scanned my bones?

Or was it the reality that was crowding me to death, suffocating me--the awful truth of the possibility that I had given false hope to everyone after all.

What would have happened had the person who was to receive help not been Leo?

What if I had been wrong?

What was I fooling myself... and them too?

I heard herself, Madre Rosa, my voice, and that shrill, hopeless plea of hers when she said that we had only four days left. How the sisters talked, how they whimpered that I had turned my back on the one man who could have redeemed us. And those children--those dear children--still playing in the yard, still laughing, still thinking they had a home.

I wondered what happened to all that--just because of me?

The idea made me sick.

My nails broke through my palms, and then the pain made me realize that I was in my body but still shaking. I was shivering in the cold and I knew that my teeth rattled.

All right, I said, and my voice was coarse. “Okay, think.”

If it was not Leo… then who?

The list was short.

Very short.

My life was pointless before the shelter. A dark hole which I never wanted to see.

I remembered hunger.

I recalled how damp streets were.

I recalled how it felt to be a shadow unnoticed by anybody.

And I recalled what walking in the dark was all about.

I recalled the smile of men.

They never wanted nothing.

Always.

And their hands--they had never been safe. Never kind. This was crawling, dirty, something that needed to be taken off my skin.

The one I used to be when I was not at the shelter?

She was gone.

I did not know her. I did not even know that she existed.

And the rest of the few I had seen since then? Passing faces. Strangers. Nobodies. None of them could do anything to assist. And the heart of none of them was brave enough to attempt it.

There had never been good men in my world.

The only ones who took were the ones who took. Those who laughed when they broke you. The ones who made marks where no one had noticed.

And so, supposing it was not Leo, who was it?

That was a thought that was twisting my gut like I was going to be sick.

I had put all of my hopes on a man whom I did not know. Some man who had suddenly emerged, like a devil suspended salvation with the hope that I would draw near so as to test his hypothesis.

And like a fool, I had.

I had been stupid. Silly enough to believe that the devil might redeem me.

I rubbed the back of my sleeve over my eyes and lifted myself up. My legs shook. My whole body shook.

When I pushed open the door it creaked and the night air struck me like a slap. I could feel a drizzle had begun, and the little cold drops were streaming over my skin, like fresh tears.

I ran quickly across the road, following the long road back to the shelter, and I felt the heart beating so hard I was certain you would hear it.

Now, had I been caught sneaking back in, there would be questions.

Questions I could not answer.

I slipped my fingers over the stone wall and made myself as close as I could to the shelter wall by sliding behind the tool shed. The window was too high to my room. I should strain my neck to climb.

So I crept to the back door. I pushed it open with a trembling hand.

The hallways were silent. No footsteps. No voices. And nothing but the subdued hiss of rain out there.

I climbed in the shadows, and with each squeak of the old wooden floor my heart sank still deeper.

Halfway to my room, I froze.

Maeve’s door was cracked open.

I could not help myself.

I stepped inside.

She lay cuddled up on her little bed, with dark curls falling over the pillow, and one tiny hand clenching the tattered blanket as though it was the only thing holding her in the world.

My chest was sore enough that I needed to kneel in order to breathe.

I rubbed a strand of her hair off her face, taking care not to disturb her. She woke up, shook a head, and did not open her eyes.

I said to myself, she deserves better. “Better than this. Better than me.”

I retreated and my throat was burning.

Before I got to my own door my knees were faint.

The moment I got inside I shut it and leaned my back on the wood.

And then—

I broke.

I forced a strangled sound out, and found myself sobbing. My shoulders trembled, and my chest rose and I hid my face in my hands, trying to be quiet.

I let it all out.

The fear. The weight. The shame.

It spurted like poison out of me that I could not stay.

Minutes passed. Maybe more.

Then I drew myself up with aching body, breathing roughly, wiping my face with both hands.

I reached for the switch.

The room filled with light.

And my world stopped.

Someone was sitting on my bed.

I almost screamed. I jerked my whole body, but instinct came to my rescue--I put my hand over my mouth before the sound came.

Everyone would know because I would scream. And if everyone knew… I would be finished.

The figure did not move.

One foot was stretched straight, the other knee bent. His elbow leaned on it carelessly. One hand was in his pocket.

The other held a book.

My book.

He was reading it.

Not to have it--to read it.

His head curled back a little, his eyebrows pulled in, as he seemed to be thinking hard. As he had been waiting that I would turn on the light that he could proceed.

My lungs froze.

That was my book.

The one I buried in my mattress.

The one I should not even own.

My neck was pooling with heat.

How long had he been here?

Did he hear me weeping against the door like a child of wailing?

The shame made me feel sick.

I opened my mouth and heard no sound. My mind mixed with panic and all the possible situations crashed upon me.

Because there was no way.

No way it could be him.

And yet, there he was.

Leo.

The ghost. The devil. The fellow I had just waited in that chapel.

Sitting in my room.

Breathing my air.

His dark eyes shot up only a second, just long enough to catch a glimpse of my shock, of my swollen eyes, of how I stood crowding against the door like a trapped animal.

Then as though I were none he glanced back down the book.

Another page was turned slowly by his fingers.

Oh God. Embarrassment clawed at me.

His lips twisted a little before I could say the words, before I could entreat him to cease.

He read aloud.

There was a hitch in her breath as his fingers stroked further down, ticking-

“Stop!” I leaped forward, and heat flushed my face.

He ignored me.

His caress was so feather light as to imply and disimplicate, simultaneously. She felt bad about him and screamed his name--

“Please stop!”

He finally did. It was only because he was enjoying this.

He put the book on the bed and grinned.

Then he stood.

My body stiffened.

He was bigger than I had recalled. Or could it be that it was the proximity, how he occupied the room, how he swallowed me up in his shadow.

His glance was on my direction. Intelligent. Brooding. Dangerous.

He stepped forward.

I pushed more firmly at the door and hoped I could melt into it.

He looked back to the book again, and then he gave it back to me with his lips curled up in a smile, and that made me see how my stomach sunk.

I never believed you were as innocent as you make yourself out.

My face flamed. “I—I—”

No words came.

Not one.

His voice was low, crawling down your skin and whether you like it or not.

I had a reason I could not be away of you.

My breath caught.

His hand was lying flat against the wall next my head, the weight was resting on it, boxing me in. I leaped at the sound of it, loud in the silence.

One mad moment I thought--

Madre Rosa.

Agnes.

If they heard him. If they saw this—

Panic surged.

“What did you do?” My voice was barely a whisper. “Did you hurt them?”

His smirk deepened. He left the question to dangle, like a knife in the air.

I swallowed hard. “Did you—did you touch them?”

His eyes gleamed. There is no need to worry about them.

I felt something inside me turning cold.

I leaned further against the door. “Then tell me how you got here.”

He tilted his head. Perhaps I need to ask you the same. Where were you tonight, Ana?”

My blood was chilled by hearing my name spoken in his mouth.

He was not asking.

He was demanding.

And the real question—

How did he know?