Chapter 16 Katarina
KATARINA
The next day passed in excruciating slow motion. I slept as late as I could, knowing it was one of the only ways to pass the time more quickly. However, the harsh overhead fluorescents blinked on at seven-thirty a.m. and didn’t go off until seven-thirty p.m.
Food was delivered three times. No avoiding the mystery meat this time, so I didn’t bother eating. I was used to an empty stomach.
Instead, I focused on the snowdrops.
I’d never had something to look at except my own hands in solitary before.
It was an unexpected gift. The best one I’d ever had.
I found a million things to observe about the perfect flowers.
The different layers of the blossoms, the way the colors varied and blended into each other between the stalk and into the head of the bloom.
The tiny striations inside the velvet, nearly transparent petals.
A network of veins running just below the surface. It was fascinating.
I was still enamored with them when the second full day of solitary came to an end.
My stomach was a hollow cavern. When a knock at the door sounded, I was resigned to the fact that I’d have to finally eat the disgusting lump of meat and powdered potatoes that would be dinner. But then Dr. Blackwood walked in.
Hope jumped in my chest. Was I done? I rushed to my feet, swaying a little as a wave of dizziness hit me. Whoa. I needed to eat.
“Sit down, Katarina, I’m just here to talk.”
Disappointment filled me. I had already hidden my bunch of wilting snowdrops in my pocket, luckily, so I curled my empty hands into fists and sat gingerly on the edge of the metal cot in the corner.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Okay. Bored. What else would I feel here?”
“And your medication? You’ve been taking it on schedule?”
I nodded, holding my tongue. I had no idea what Massimo had done, but no one had given me medication in solitary, something Dr. Blackwood seemed to have no idea about.
“Tell me, are you expecting visitors this weekend?”
I stared at him, wondering what answer he was looking for. Was he testing my memory to see if I had really been taking my medicine?
“I-I don’t really know,” I murmured, recalling exactly how it had felt to really not know. The confusion I’d lived in constantly when my medication schedule had been consistent felt like a bad dream.
“No? How about when you think of Hallow Hall and how you came to be here?”
I fought to keep my expression smooth and steady.
“I don’t remember. I think I was in trouble. My mom wanted me to come here and get better.”
Blackwood nodded. “And does she think the treatment is working?”
I started to answer but realized that I had no words.
I just shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t remember the last time we spoke,” I admitted. That wasn’t a lie. I had been all drugged up when she’d last come, and I didn’t even remember saying goodbye to her, though I did remember sending word to her not to visit anymore.
“I see on the visitor records that she doesn’t come often to visit. Do you know why that is?”
Because I asked her not to, because it hurt too much. I fidgeted, suddenly nervous. I hated to talk about my mother with any of the psychos at Hallow Hall. I wouldn’t give this man the satisfaction of getting anything real from me.
“Busy, I guess. It’s not like I have anything interesting to tell her about my day,” I snapped before remembering I was supposed to be acting like my usual semi-out-of-it state.
“Hmm, that’s true, I suppose. Do you think about getting out of here? Do you genuinely want to get better?” Blackwood asked.
I stared at him. “Yes. I want to get better and put my world right.”
He nodded slowly.
A hard knock sounded on the locked door, followed by the sound of the bolt being drawn back.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” Massimo’s deep voice drawled.
I turned to him, relief hitting me hard.
I didn’t think I’d ever been so relieved to see someone.
I was scared to be alone with Blackwood.
I was scared of being in solitary any longer.
Somehow, his powerful body clothed in the austere robes of the men I hated had become a welcome sight. My wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He didn’t wait for an answer from Blackwood before gesturing toward me.
“Father Benedict wants Katarina out of solitary; he says she’ll have reached her limit being isolated. She’s to go back to her room now.”
Blackwood frowned and checked his watch. How long had the fucker been planning to leave me in here?
Reluctantly he nodded, but I was already moving.
I reached Massimo’s side, and he stepped back, letting me out into the hallway.
I paused at the doorway and glanced back at Blackwood, who watched us with an unreadable expression. The door was right there. My hand itched to slam it shut and bolt it. To give that motherfucker a taste of his own medicine for once . . .
“Let’s go, Miss Dmitrova. I will see you to your room.” Massimo’s voice held a hint of amusement, like he could see exactly what I was thinking.
I moved myself away from the door with effort and followed Massimo down the hall. We passed through the secure doors at the end and into a quiet, dark hallway.
“Did Benedict really tell you that?” I asked. My voice felt weird. Too loud after days of silence.
“What do you think?” Massimo said, a rumble low in his chest.
I tensed. “What if he suspects something?”
“He won’t do anything. He doesn’t have the balls to pick on someone his own size. And like I give a fuck what Blackwood thinks about me, or us.”
We reached the stairs that would take us up to the rest of the building. I shivered in the cool chill that seemed to permeate the air on the basement level.
“Us?” I echoed.
I was so weak I swayed on the stairs, and Massimo’s hand came under my elbow to guide me.
“Us. We’re partners, aren’t we? Partners in sin.” Massimo’s voice was warm, curling around his words and making them feel wicked. I could listen to him speak all day, though to be fair, being starved of human interaction could do that to a person.
“Partners in sin. It has a nice ring to it,” I admitted, and earned myself a small smirk.
I couldn’t seem to stop gazing at his face. This man should be everything I was afraid of. A killer, a devil in a human suit. Lawless, remorseless, and comfortable with the idea of going to hell, he should be terrifying, and yet . . . his face drew me in like a magnet.
We reached the door to my room. The thought of going in after I’d just gotten out of solitary felt like a killing blow. So I hesitated at the door. I couldn’t exactly ask him in for a coffee.
Hey, you want to hang out in my room and see my crazy drawings on the wall?
Yeah, no.
“Vargas’s death has officially been ruled a suicide. So things should be back to normal tomorrow, therapy and group session.”
My face immediately heated at the thought of my last session with Massimo, when he’d pretended to put my medication into my mouth.
My fingers shook when I pushed them through my hair.
Ugh. I needed a shower. I felt disgusting, and yet the memory of Benedict’s office, of Massimo fingering my mouth, was making my blood simmer.
He stepped closer. Was he remembering it, too? Or had he really just pretended to put my pills in my mouth, and I’d imagined the way his fingers had caressed my tongue? God, I was really going crazy in here.
“I suppose I’ll see you there?” I was aiming for a casual tone but instead made it sound like a question.
“Yes, you will.” His deep voice was doing something to me.
“Oh! Here.” I suddenly remembered the contents of my pocket. I pulled the battered flowers out and held them to him. Sure, they’d seen better days, but they were still so beautiful.
“Keep them,” he said.
“You said you would have put snowdrops in your mother’s hair before she was laid to rest?” I ventured. It had felt like such a personal admission, but also one that had helped me feel less scared of him. He’d had a mother whom he’d loved and had mourned. He had a heart that beat . . . once, anyway.
He nodded.
“I can see why she loved them. They are so beautiful . . . so symbolic of spring, the world waking from winter, starting to live again. I think my mother would like them a lot, too. I’m going to take them to her when I get out of here.”
He stared at me, those dark eyes seeming to see right inside me, to my damaged soul.
I curled my fingers around the stems of the flowers and pressed them against my chest. “Anyway, thank you for that. You don’t know how much you just saved me in there.
” Words couldn’t convey how much the flowers had meant to me in solitary.
His simple action of slipping them to me before I’d gone inside had fundamentally changed my view of him, I realized.
“Don’t thank me. I don’t do anything that doesn’t benefit me.” Massimo’s voice was guarded. He seemed as uncomfortable with gratitude as I was with admitting when I needed someone.
His words were so resigned and knowing. He was so certain of his own badness, he automatically rejected any idea that he might not be as terrible as he’d decided he was.
I shook my head at him with a sigh and said as much. “I don’t think you’re as bad as you believe you are, deep down inside.”
“You’re wrong. I’m worse.”
His answer sounded absolute. It made me sad somehow.
My heart was feeling all kinds of confusing things.
There was no doubt an unhealthy attachment forming to the only person who’d treated me like a real human being in years.
The only person who seemed to be on my side .
. . even if he was only here on business.
I had been so lonely for so long. So weak.
And now, there was someone strong, someone powerful, someone helping me.
No wonder my heart didn’t know what the fuck to do.
“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” I murmured, and then, following an impulse I couldn’t quite stop, I stepped toward him, stretched up on my tiptoes, and pressed my lips on his cheek.
It was chaste. Innocent. A nothing gesture, and yet, he jerked under my lips like I’d tasered him.
I’d taken him by surprise, clearly. Even though only a few days ago, he’d kissed me like he was going to eat me alive, for some reason that quick cheek kiss felt more intimate.
It shocked us both.
I stepped back, suddenly embarrassed and terrified of his rejection.
I wouldn’t survive it.
“So, thanks,” I said. I stumbled out and fled into my room, shutting the heavy door behind me before laying my cold hands on my burning cheeks.