Chapter 8 Katarina
KATARINA
“Here, have some tea, it’s got lots of milk in it,” I told Mira, and set down the mug I’d had to spend half an hour begging for in the kitchen.
She wrapped her bony fingers around it and shivered. The back of her hand was bruised. I knew that bruise.
I picked up her hand, anger welling up inside me that couldn’t be contained.
“Was it Benedict? What’s he been giving you?”
She swallowed, her slender throat bobbing around the movement. She was so thin. It was a miracle the baby continued to grow when the rest of her was wasting away.
“I don’t know . . . He says it’ll make the birth easier. I’m scared,” she admitted.
I wrapped my hand around hers. “Of course you are, because you’re smart. But women have been having babies forever. You’ll be okay. They’ll take care of you here.” I was lying and we both knew it, but what else could I say?
She took a sip of tea and put it back down quickly.
“You feel sick?”
She nodded slowly.
“Did you sleep okay?”
She sighed. “I had therapy before . . . I couldn’t sleep well after.”
“What therapy?”
“With Father Pavol,” she confessed in a whisper.
The anger inside me turned red-hot. What was the bastard doing to a nine-months-pregnant sixteen-year-old?
I gripped her hand tightly.
“One day, he and Benedict, and Vargas, too, they will all get what they deserve. You believe in God, don’t you?” I looked down at the small gold crucifix around her neck.
She shrugged noncommittally.
“Yes, you do. I know you do.”
“If so, he doesn’t believe in me. I’m a fallen woman.”
“Don’t repeat those monsters’ words to me. I know you, the real you. You’re forgiven. You haven’t done anything wrong. Everything is going to be okay.” I said the words and believed all but the last.
“When we get out of here, we’ll raise the baby together in a house by the sea,” I told her. It was our ongoing story, one we had made up to make us feel better about the sorry state of our lives. I waited for Mira to continue.
With a sigh, she nodded. “And we’ll put our feet in the water every day, and make mekitsi and drink tea, and all of this will just be a bad memory. One day,” she finished like she always did.
I nodded. “One day.”
I woke to the sound of someone banging on my door. The metallic sound clanged around my head. It was early, before the usual wake-up time, which could only mean one thing. It was visiting day.
Twice a year, Father Vargas visited and brought along the head of the board of directors to tour the facility. Everyone was washed and dressed nicely. The more problematic people were drugged up and hidden away.
I could barely remember the last visit day, I’d been so drugged up.
Today, I was painfully aware.
Today, all three of the worst people I’d ever met would be in the same room. The unholy trinity of evil.
My dream of Mira was fresh in my mind as I walked to the showers with the other women from my ward.
That memory had been near the end. Only a week later, she’d been screaming in the operating room, and I’d snuck in to see her after they’d carried a screaming baby out. I’d seen the light leave her eyes and—
I forced my thoughts away from that particularly dark memory.
I couldn’t go over it again or I’d lose my mind.
That had triggered the start of the heavy medications.
Before then, I’d been on something light .
. . but what I’d seen had changed everything.
Three years ago. Three long and terrible years.
My breath grew short, and I struggled to stay calm. I couldn’t let them know I was off my medication. If I did, I’d be drugged up again in minutes, or worse.
You might still end up like Mira. I wonder how much your organs are worth these days?
I didn’t bother shushing the voice in my head.
The terrible question haunted me while I washed and dried my butt-length hair.
I tied it into a braid then helped the girl in the room next to mine with hers.
If we were good, then we’d get extra dinner tonight and maybe a communal movie.
If we were bad, well, that really didn’t bear thinking about.
My nerves were jumping by the time we were told to line up in the hallway, waiting for Father Vargas and the director to arrive.
I was watching through the windows when an expensive car pulled up.
It was flanked by men on motorcycles and another two black utility-sized vehicles.
It was a large security presence for the director of some random, backward institute like ours.
I’d long suspected that Centrium Group had a lot of fingers in different pies and Hallow Hall was just one of them.
How exactly they made enough money here to justify the expenses I had no idea.
I told you—an organ harvest can bring in a pretty penny.
I felt sick. Surely the company that owned this place had no idea what Vargas was doing.
He was just taking advantage of a situation where he had access to vulnerable people no one would miss.
If not, why would he go to such trouble to put a professional, respectable face on the place whenever the director came to see his investment?
A flurry of whispers erupted along the corridor; our VIPs appeared in the entrance.
Father Vargas was just as I remembered him, tall and severe in ceremonial robes, but everything holy about that man seemed performative.
He swept inside and waited for the director to follow.
The man entered with an entourage of black-clad bodyguards.
He didn’t look like any CEO I’d ever seen on TV or in movies.
He had a squat build and thick shoulders.
His bald head gleamed under the lights overhead.
His hands resembled ones that had suffered busted knuckles more than once and were adorned with rings.
He appeared bullishly strong. The man was more like a brawler than a businessman.
They walked along the hallway, glancing this way and that at the patients they passed by.
Benedict and Pavol led the way, and I felt dizzy at the sight of them all together in the same place.
Father Lucciano was conspicuously absent.
Maybe because he was new? Would I feel reassured or more afraid with him present? I had no idea.
I wanted to kill them all. I wished I had even half the power Father Lucciano commanded.
Just the way he moved told me he had lethal skills.
His body was a weapon, and he knew how to use it like one.
I was jealous. If I were like him, I could take them all out and make it as bloody as I wanted.
My savage thoughts were shocking, honestly.
For a girl who had grown up spending every Sunday in church, learning goodness from my mother’s side, Hallow Hall had changed me, damaged me.
Ruined me.
The director was silent for the most part while Vargas rattled on, gesturing around with expansive movements. They stopped here and there, never for more than a few seconds, until they reached me. To my horror, Father Vargas stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder.
“And you remember Katarina Dmitrova.”
The director stared me up and down, a suffocating inspection. He nodded slowly.
“Buongiorno, Katarina. You look well,” he said slowly in stilted Italian. He had a mildly Eastern European accent.
I held my tongue, unsure what to say. Pavol, Vargas, and Benedict all watched me expectantly.
“You won’t speak to me, child?” The director pushed. “I said you look well.”
I shrugged. “I guess appearances can be deceiving.”
“Katarina!” Vargas snapped, anger transforming his serene expression into one of ugly rage before he quickly smoothed his features.
The director chuckled and held out a hand to me. “Don’t worry, Michal, I like a woman who speaks her mind. I’m Sergei. Nice to meet you.”
I just stared at his pale tattooed hand. Why was I being singled out like this?
I shook his hand limply and willed this to be over.
“How old are you, Katarina?”
I shrugged. “Twenty-five, I think.” Well, that was what Father Lucciano had said yesterday, so I was going with it.
“Twenty-five, already. I have a daughter your age,” Sergei said, staring at me with an intensity that made me feel like something was on my face.
“We are going to tour around the institution and then have something to eat,” Sergei continued. “Would you like to join us?”
“No,” I blurted immediately.
Pavol stiffened, and Benedict jerked like I’d slapped him.
Vargas, though, just laughed and clapped a hand on the director’s shoulder.
“You know the youth, so temperamental.”
Sergei nodded and peered back at me. “Well, I’d love to know the opinion of a young person into how we are performing here for our patients. How are the care and standards in your view? Things can’t improve without input.”
Improve? Was it really possible that the company that ran Hallow Hall didn’t know what kinds of things were going on under its crumbling roof? Maybe I should try to speak to Sergei after all.
“Katarina isn’t well enough to give any kind of feedback,” Vargas interjected before I could speak. “Now, I have someone to introduce you to, just down this way.”
He turned Sergei, and they started to walk away.
Vargas shot me a glare over his shoulder that chilled me to the bone.
One thing was for sure: I’d pissed Father Vargas off. More importantly, I needed to speak to Director Sergei alone and tell him what was going on here, tonight, before I missed the chance for another six months.
The rest of the day was unusual because the higher-ups were entertaining Sergei, so there was no therapy. Our medications were delivered to our rooms, and it wasn’t hard to avoid taking mine.