Page 28

I forced my eyes open. The ceiling above me was pale and cracked, crossed by a dark wooden beam. A small crucifix hung on the wall opposite the bed. Beneath it stood a narrow table with a lamp burning low. It didn’t look like I was in a hospital. Nor was I in a car, fleeing from the place where my father had died.

My breath snagged. My father. The thought of him struck me like a fist across the heart. No. I shut my eyes again, but memory had already found the wound and driven both hands deep inside.

Marble beneath my knees. White marble veined with grey, polished so brightly it reflected the chandelier overhead.

My father had fallen hard, one hand stretched toward me, his fingers shining wet and red. His mouth had moved around words I could not hear over the sound of my own screaming.

The men had laughed. One of them had grabbed my hair.

Another had declared I had to be silenced.“You know what you have to do now. She saw too much.”

Father had tried to get up. Even with blood soaking through his shirt and his face turning that awful pale color no living person should ever become. He had tried to crawl toward me.

Then someone had kicked him in the ribs.

I had screamed his name. A hand had clamped over my mouth. There was the smell of nauseating, tangy cologne mixed with stale cigarettes. Metallic blood. Rain belting at the tall windows.

I had bit down hard on the hand silencing my voice. And been rewarded with a fist to the face.

Then falling, falling. Falling to the ground. Someone kicked me into submission and all I could see were stars. All I could feel was an aching pain.

I remembered hands shoving me into the back seat of a car after being dragged from the house. I didn’t want to leave him. My shoulder struck the door. They tied my wrists so tightly that I could feel the plastic cutting into my skin. One of the men in the car had turned to look at me and smiled. “You and your father should have stayed in your own lane, Adriana.”

And then I was running, my shoes slapping against mud.

The world tilting. Headlights smeared across wet roads. My lungs burning. My body no longer mine but some wounded animal dragging itself forward because stopping meant I would die. I knew they were going to kill me. And I was not ready to die.

I ran. Through the dense forest, ignoring the thicket and thorns and branches as they slapped hungrily at my body.

I didn’t turn. I didn’t look to see how close they were, even though I could hear voices yelling over the rain.

I waded through a stream, my body freezing. I walked upstream, keeping as close to the bank as possible without drawing attention to myself.

Then I saw the church. It was a soft glow through the rain, the only sense of safety in view. I pushed through the door.

A man in black was standing near the altar with candlelight behind him. For one deranged second, I had thought he was death. Then I had seen his collar.

Help me, please. They’re coming.

After that, there had been arms around me. And darkness.

A sound escaped me before I could stop it.

A woman appeared beside the bed. She was elderly, dressed in a grey habit, with sharp eyes and a face that did not waste itself on comforting lies. A nun.

“Hello, dear child,” she greeted me.

I tried to pull away, but my body betrayed me. Pain tore through my ribs and stole the air from my lungs.

I stared at her. Where was I? Who was she? How long had I been here? Had they found me? The questions crashed through me quicker than I could ask them.

Another nun came into view, this one younger. She carried a glass of water and a folded cloth.

The older nun had a kind face with eyes that looked like they had lived a thousand lifetimes. “You’re at a convent outside Rome and you’re safe here. I am Sister Marina. This is Sister Joanne. You were brought here last night.”

Last night. Only last night. My father had been alive just yesterday. The thought was so impossible that I almost laughed. It rose in my chest, twisted into a sob, and died before it reached my mouth.

Sister Joanne leaned over me. “Can you tell me your name?”