Chapter 5
XADE
How depressing.
I ignore Reverend Mother's lingering stare as I exit the girl's room. I don't spare the girl or her keeper another glance before my loafers drum a steady beat against the weathered limestone floor.
I need to put as much distance between me and that girl as possible, and I need to do it now.
Walter Bradford Cannon once theorized that Homo sapiens have three innate instincts when threatened by an acute stressor.
Fight, flight, or freeze.
I've never been one to panic, and I'm not about to fight Reverend Mother Graves, but I need to extricate myself from that pitiful creature's room before I do something stupid, like play knight in shining armor for a trapped princess.
Like a damn fool.
Georgina calls my name behind me, but I don't stop to speak with her. I have to get away from here before I lose my mind.
Now, I don't want to consider why the withered organ in my chest thrashed like a fish on dry land when I first laid eyes on the girl.
I also don't want to contemplate why I haven't stopped wringing my fingers together at my sides since I left her room. Even now, itchiness pecks my flesh with a conspiracy of ravens, urging me to go back and play the hero.
How … unnatural, especially for me.
I'm not Odysseus, and this isn't Homer, though I'm not normally a villain either.
So why exactly is it that as I barrel down the hallway, inhaling the stench of old seawater, I ache to go back and save someone I just met?
The pedagogue in me wants to find out.
Even a half-decent psychiatrist could hypothesize that I'm trying to make amends for the one I couldn't save, who dissolved to nothing in a shithole just like that girl's room.
For fuck's sake, do not go there, Xade.
I swing open the door to the spiral stairwell, sending it against the wall.
Later tonight, I might blame my abrupt ardor to play hero on sleep deprivation or the stress of announcing a last-minute, unplanned sabbatical less than a month into the school year.
Hell, the meeting with Dean Grisham took at least a decade off my life.
For now, I push the question to the back of my mind, resolved to ignore it.
If only I could ignore the image of the girl, but I can't. It's branded into the creases of my brain. When I blink, I still see her in front of me, ghostly pale flesh and strawberry-blonde hair peeking out from beneath her ridiculous nun's uniform as her big eyes, guileless and blue, lock on me.
Whose idea was it to put that girl in a habit?
And a white one at that?
God must have a sick sense of humor because she looked like a lost lamb brought for slaughter.
Scared.
Na?ve.
Innocent.
Only I'm not a shepherd, and I still don't understand why I have to be here. I'm not a babysitter, and certainly not for some coddled girl finally facing the firing squad for whatever she's done.
I could ask Ms. Graves—or is it Mrs. since she's married to God and all?
It doesn't matter.
Fuck if I know the ins and outs of monastic life or care enough to find out.
Georgina undoubtedly knows why the girl is here, but I could barely get in the damned door before she had me traipsing down the hall after her—only to then shove me into Little Miss Pathetic's room.
I should have insisted on seeing Ezra first, but Reverend Mother makes me feel like the time a frat-bro asked me if the final was vibes-based.
Confused.
Annoyed.
Fucking tired.
Her presence would be less jarring if she'd just go ahead and nosedive a B-52 onto my head.
Dammit, where is Ezra hiding?
It's been too long since I've been here, and I don't remember how to navigate this place. I could ask one of the sisters where to go, but to do that, I'd have to find one of them, and they've dissolved into thin air like sugar in hot tea.
I climb the stairs, ignoring Georgina when she calls my name again. I need to find Ezra and wring the bastard's neck for bringing me into what-the-fuck-ever this shitshow is.
I take a corner at the end of the hall and walk straight down an empty hallway. Then I turn another winding corner, passing bare walls until—thank Christ—I see daylight.
I walk to a pair of double wooden doors, a transom window above them illuminating the entryway like a lighthouse calling me to shore.
It's all coming back to me, sort of, as I push a brass handle and beeline outside into the sunlight, spotting a chapel straight ahead down the cobblestone walkway.
Lord knows my least favorite father at the moment is definitely hiding in his holy place. I hasten my stride, and a minute later, I grab the door's black iron knocker, swing the door open, and enter the chapel.
Red votive candles flicker at the front of the church on either side of the white-draped altar.
They cast a warm glow across the front row of wooden pews and send tendrils of smoke weaving into the air.
Hanging sanctuary lights of gold metal and black glass line either wall, but their light doesn't reach the top of the cathedral's ceiling, where the stone melts into shadow.
This is the perfect place for Ezra to hide from me.
Shit.
I call his name as I stride forward, ignoring the marble basin of holy water and charging ahead.
I'm halfway down the aisle, passing the solemn stained-glass windows, when I am rewarded with the sight of Ezra sitting on a pew near the front.
His crisp white collar peeks out from beneath his vestments as he sits there, dressed in his full priest costume.
How cute.
"Ezra," I growl, continuing down the aisle as the son of God stares down from the crucifix at me.
Speaking of, what in God's name is wrong with the crucifix? Did the nuns have to choose the most grotesque one in existence? Hell, knowing Georgina, probably so.
"Xade," he says in the exact same tone.
I don't appreciate it. Aren't priests supposed to be nice or something?
I take a seat beside the asshole I call a friend, not bothering to sign the cross before I sit.
"Glad you're here," he remarks, his pensive gaze lifting from the open Bible in his lap.
"That makes one of us," I mutter as he frowns.
"It's been a long time," he tells me.
"It has," I grumble. "You look old."
It's a lie. If anything, he looks distinguished, his coffee-colored hair neatly combed behind his ears and framing his clean-shaven face. I'm not about to admit it, though. I'm irritated with him.
"So what's this all about?" I demand. "You brought me all the way out here for a pampered princess?"
He doesn't respond at first, but I don't expect him to. He's always so infuriatingly careful with his words. I seize the opportunity to speak enough for both of us.
"Why, Ezra?" I complain. "I finally got tenure." I groan, thinking about all the time and effort I'd put in. "I was doing important work. I was making progress."
Ezra swallows, his Adam's apple knocking against his collar.
"I know, Xade," he tells me, pursing his lips in a frown. "It couldn't be helped."
"I am not a babysitter for your newest pet project."
Here he goes again, adopting strays.
"No, you're not," he agrees.
Good Lord, it's maddening how calm he is. Does he ever lose his cool?
I nearly wince at the intrusive thought. Of course, he does. I know that. But not now, not anymore, not since …
"That girl is not a baby, and you are not a babysitter," he says, and if I didn't like him so much, I might punch him for the self-assured tone of his words.
I wish he wouldn't remind me.
I'm hungry.
I'm annoyed.
And I didn't have my weekly fuck with the bioengineering professor.
I can't think about the ghost in the cellar with bluebell-colored eyes.
I shouldn't be thinking about her at all.
She's too young, too na?ve, too … innocent.
Ezra reaches beside himself on the pew and grabs a gold ciborium and a rag. He begins to polish it, and I finally notice the collection of shiny adornments already at his side.
Is this what he does all day?
Rescue strays and polish sacred silverware?
Jesus fucking Christ.
"I wouldn't have called unless I had to," he says, no longer looking at me, "but the convent is Avalynne's home for the foreseeable future."
Avalynne, a pretty name for a pretty girl.
I hate myself for the thought.
"Why?" I ask him, and we both know there are more questions rolled into that one word.
Why here?
Why now?
Why me?
He sets down the ciborium and moves on to the chalice, rubbing his blue cotton rag slowly against the metal.
"Her grandfather requires it," he tells me.
Ezra isn't one to be bossed around.
Not by the world.
Not by the church.
Not by anyone.
I feel like my head is on the stocks and the executioner has readied the guillotine. He's really going to make me ask the question, isn't he?
"Who is her grandfather?" I ask.
"Marcus Immorier," he answers.
"Immorier," I muse aloud, but the word barely surfaces from the roar of rushing blood between my ears.
Immorier.
Marcus. Immorier.
Fuck!!
The Immorier family founded this place. Hell, they founded academies, asylums, colleges, orphanages, and dozens of other institutions across the world, nearly half of which are in the United States alone, including my place of employment, Prodigum University.
"Yes, that Marcus Immorier," Ezra remarks. "Avalynne is his granddaughter."
He sets down the chalice and examines the newest golden trinket he's picked up, still infuriatingly calm.
"Well, you could have led with that," I grumble to his profile. "I'd barely arrived before I was shoved into the poor girl's room."
Ezra stills, looks up from what he is doing, and raises a curious eyebrow. It's the most emotion I've seen from him in years.
I roll my eyes. "Don't worry your morals, Damienne. Your precious Reverend Mother escorted me."
"I'm sorry," he replies after a moment, eyeing my frown. "Georgina is on edge about the girl. Her grandfather threatened to have the convent closed if she didn't find a way to redeem his granddaughter."