Chapter 11 Katarina
KATARINA
The next day, the morning hymn sent me out of bed at the usual time. The halls were quiet, and there wasn’t a nun to be seen. Usually they watched over the cafeteria while patients ate, but this morning, it was bedlam without them.
I sat with Tatiana. She ate cereal and played with a small corn-husk doll we’d made together. Moving was challenging. My ribs were a colorful array of purples and dark blues.
Dr. Blackwood walked through the room looking harassed. I spied Alonso, but he barely had a second to wave to me before he was striding away.
I shot out of my seat before remembering the state of my midsection. Ouch. I collapsed back into my chair, and Tatiana eyed me curiously.
“Where are you going?”
“I just wanted to speak to my friend,” I muttered.
She turned to look at Alonso’s departing back. She seemed unsettled. All the patients were. The staff might not have announced that something was wrong, but the tension was palpable.
“Knock, knock,” Tatiana said after a moment.
I summoned a smile for her. “Who’s there?”
“Howl,” she said seriously.
“Howl who?”
She bit her lip, her gaze moving to Dr. Blackwood, who was now walking toward us.
“Howl we ever get out of the haunted house?” she whispered just as he arrived at our table.
“Katarina, a word,” he snapped at me.
I jerked at his tone. Blackwood was usually civil—well, civil enough. He didn’t seem to share the perverted interests of the unholy trinity.
Tatiana tensed, and I patted her hand.
“Be right back, don’t worry.”
I felt her watching me as I walked across the room.
“How can I help you, Doctor?” I asked Blackwood.
He stopped just outside the doorway. “Did you see Father Vargas last night?”
I fought to keep my expression neutral. “No, why?”
He peered at me. “He asked me about you . . . It seemed he was about to speak to you about something. Are you sure you didn’t see him?”
I swallowed, my throat too dry to answer. I wasn’t like Massimo. I was no seasoned killer who could lie with a straight face, and it felt like Blackwood was trying to crack open my skull and inspect my memories.
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“Why don’t you just ask him?” I wondered suddenly, remembering that I shouldn’t know there was anything wrong with Vargas.
Blackwood narrowed his eyes at me, then gripped my upper arm.
“Liars have tells; I’m sure you know that, Katarina. They have tells for when they don’t want to appear like they’re lying. Too much eye contact is one, and not blinking is another. Come with me.”
He tugged me along the hall. Crap. I’d been so busy trying to avoid seeming like a typical liar, I’d acted weird enough to make him suspicious.
Or maybe he was just suspicious because he’d known what Vargas’s plans were going to be last night.
Either way, he was pissed off. There was an urgent, frantic sort of energy hiding behind his usual stern and dispassionate demeanor that was unsettling.
We reached his office, and he pushed me inside. My ribs twinged hard, and I hid a flinch.
“Doctor, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t see Father Vargas last night,” I attempted, and stumbled across the floor.
His office was roomy, with a desk and seating area and another area behind a medical curtain. He pulled the curtain back and pointed at the exam table there.
“You’re overdue for your checkup. Sit.”
I took a deep breath and slowly walked over. Resisting now would only get me thrown into solitary. Blackwood had never hurt me, as far as I remembered, and I was overdue for my checkup.
It was the usual routine. Blood pressure, weight, pulse. He checked my eyes with a little light and then my throat.
“I suspect you’re anemic again,” he said, and sighed, as if the nutritional choices I made at Hallow Hall were my own.
He fiddled around with an IV bag before wheeling it over to me.
I drew back. “I feel fine.”
“But you’re not. Aren’t you tired? You haven’t been skipping medication doses, have you?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m always tired, so it doesn’t feel any different.” Crap. I was getting myself into all kinds of trouble today.
He took my arm and cleaned it with a sterile wipe, then slipped the fresh IV needle in. It didn’t hurt. My arms were a patchwork of small, silvery lines of scar tissue. I’d been stuck and poked and prodded so much in the three years I’d been here, an IV going in hardly registered.
“Lie back and relax. Take half an hour to enjoy the quiet,” he said, picking up my medical chart and making copious notes on it.
I lay back, my arm feeling slightly cold where the iron infusion was passing into me.
“So, when was the last time you saw Father Vargas?” Blackwood suddenly asked me. His focus was still trained on his notes, but I had the feeling he was watching me more closely than ever.
“I don’t know, when he walked around with the director, or maybe in the dining room . . . I think he passed through while the patients were eating.”
“And you’re sure it wasn’t at any other time?”
A wave of tiredness washed over me. It was soft, and gentle, like the breeze of a peaceful sea. Well, what I imagined a breeze off a peaceful sea might feel like. I’d only ever read about them and dreamed.
My skin prickled, and heat washed through me from my arm. It felt different than any other IVs I’d ever gotten.
“I feel strange,” I said, my voice surprisingly deep.
Blackwood nodded. “I popped a sedative into the solution to keep you calm. Today isn’t the day for hysteria or acting out, and besides, I thought you might remember something more about last night if you relaxed.”
He pulled a chair up closer to me and shined the light in my eyes again.
“This solution is just one of Bendict’s passion projects. I confess, it hasn’t been tested yet, but I’m going to observe how it affects you and make a note of it.”
“You’re testing a new drug on me? Is that ethical?
” A ridiculous question considering how often they did so, but I was panicking.
Strangely, my body didn’t feel that way at all.
His words should outrage me, but instead, I felt nothing.
No, not nothing . . . I felt hot. My clothes were harsh and uncomfortable on my skin, and suddenly all I could think about was taking them off.
“It’s not unethical . . . People care more about animal testing than humans these days, anyway. This isn’t a new drug; it’s just a new combination. It’s no big deal . . . unless you want me to get that stray cat from the chapel and test it on him?”
“Gravy? How’d you know about Gravy?” I asked.
Blackwood pushed the hair back from my sticky forehead. I was sweating. I felt like I was burning alive.
“Because I know everything about you, Katarina. You were the first patient I referred here to Hallow Hall. You might say I’m invested in your recovery. About last night—”
“I’m too hot, I can’t breathe,” I muttered, and tugged at my sweater, but the IV was still in my arm, and it hurt. I flopped back on the bed.
Blackwood frowned and glanced down at his notes.
“The sedative should just relax you, make you feel good and willing to answer anything I ask you.” He kept reading his notes for a moment before raising his brows.
“Ah, is that what it is?” He wrote something down in small black scribbles.
“Too many dopamine agonists? Maybe an interaction with the antipsychotic.”
I reached out and grabbed his hand, and he jolted, shocked into looking at me.
“I feel strange,” I confessed in a rush.
His pale cheeks reddened, and he gave me the once-over. I became aware of how my body was moving. Fidgeting, and rubbing my thighs together.
“Tell me exactly how you feel,” he murmured.
“My skin hurts, like the clothes are too rough, and it’s so hot.
” I squeezed my eyes shut. The awful truth filtered through my overheated brain.
I felt turned on. Completely against my will and at odds with anything I’d naturally feel around this weed of a man, this monster who worked in Hallow Hall and did the bidding of the unholy trinity.
Blackwood flushed even more and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Doctor?” Knock, knock. A hard, urgent sound.
Blackwood tore his attention from me and stood. He put the clipboard over his crotch, though it was plain to see he was hard. A sharp feeling of disgust cut through my arousal.
Blackwood pulled the door open.
“Yes, what?” he all but barked at Sister Vera.
“There’s been an incident. One of the seniors has cut himself badly, and he needs to see you. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Blackwood cursed and peered back at me. “I’ll return shortly, Katarina. Do not move from this spot.”
Then he strode out of the room. Sister Vera looked into the room and saw me. She took in my posture, the way I was writhing on the bed, and her eyes gleamed with judgment. Her face full of disgust, she closed the door.
Alone in the silence finally, I shoved my hand down the front of my sweatpants and found my pussy. I was wet. Pressing my fingers on my folds gave me a vague sort of relief, but it wasn’t enough.
I rubbed at myself inexpertly before giving up out of frustration. It just wasn’t enough.
“Don’t stop on my account, little stray. I was enjoying the show.”
Massimo’s deep voice sent me scrambling upward. He lounged against the closed door. He must have entered while I’d been attempting to get myself off.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I’d ask what the hell you’re doing, but that seems pretty self-explanatory. I do question your setting, though. I wouldn’t have thought this room capable of turning anyone on.”
“It’s not me,” I said, and tugged at the IV. “Please, take this out.”
Massimo crossed to my side and slowly drew the curtain shut, hiding us from anyone who might enter the room.
“What’s in it?” he wondered.
“Some kind of sedative. Blackwood suspects me. He was trying to question me about last night . . .” I panted.