Chapter 15
Fifteen
Mercy
Nothing surprises me anymore. I’ve crossed oceans, lost count of how many languages I can curse in. I’ve taken out men built like tanks without so much as a drop of blood spilled. So, I should’ve seen it coming.
But the priest … the priest caught me off guard, and I’m still standing outside his room, wondering why.
It wasn’t the way he tried to snap my wrist. I’ve survived worse. I know how to read bruises and what they mean. It wasn’t even the storm I glimpsed in those deep brown eyes, or the kind of haunting pain that goes with it.
No, it was his choice.
He chose old, broken rosary beads instead of his only link to the Vatican.
Standing in the hallway, staring at his phone in my hand, I have to wonder why. I know the password. Surely, he understands that I can unlock it.
Why choose the broken beads? Why act like putting them back himself was torture? Why did that matter more than salvation?
It was almost as if he believed that if he didn’t touch them, they never left his pocket. I never took them.
Directly opposite me, Jasmine opens the door, and she’s still covered in grime and blood.
She pauses on the threshold as if caught stealing from Sister Martha’s cookie jar.
At first, I think she notices me surreptitiously slipping Cisco’s phone into my yoga pants’ side pocket, pretending to adjust my cilices through the fabric, but then I see what’s in her hands—more of my belongings.
Clothes, shoes, and perfume. More of my precious sex toys.
She threw something long and pink over my head earlier, and it landed in Cisco’s room. My palm hits my face, and I let out a strangled groan. How many of my toys are in there right now?
Jasmine drops my things. Bottles clink and roll off the clothes.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I put up my hands. “What do you think you’re doing, Jasmine?”
She scowls. “I refuse to share a room with a … you.”
With a slut, I’m sure she wanted to say.
Movement at the staircase stops me from responding the way I want.
Tawny and the three young girls are damn near invisible in the gloom, barely making a sound as they crest the staircase, tattered suitcases in tow.
Jasmine slams the door. Well, she tries to. The mountain of my clothes gets in the way. She lets out an animalistic shriek and kicks the blockage clear until the door closes.
I rub at the throb in my temples and ask Tawny, “Why aren’t you settling them in downstairs with the magpies?”
“They don’t want to sleep down there. Too quiet.” She winces. “I said they could sleep up here.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “It’s fine.”
“Their names are Lucia, Eliska, and Mathilde,” Tawny says.
The girls flinch when I suddenly face them.
“Easy, girls,” I say. “You’re safe now. Nobody’s gonna hurt you here.”
The boyish one—Lucia—is a little bird with her arms wrapped so tight around her middle. Mathilde is the willowy, French one with the fox eyes, who doesn’t even blink. She watches me with a silent calculation that reminds me of Thea on a bad day: sizing up the angles, always ready for an exit.
It’s the littlest one that gets me. Eliska can’t be more than nine, probably less if we hacked off her stringy hair and she wasn’t packed in oversized sweats. She stares at the floors, at the walls, at anything but my face.
I kneel to their level, and wince as the cilices burn my flesh.
“Listen to me.” I try for my softest voice, which is still about as gentle as a cheese grater. “You don’t have to be scared. Not of me. Not of anyone here.”
I pray they don’t see the lie in my eyes.
They don’t answer, and so I run through my best moves—hand on my heart, the Sinner sign of peace, a smile, but only the fox girl dares meet my gaze.
For a split second, her mask slips, and there’s a flash of raw, feral hunger.
That’s what the world does to us: chews us up, spits us out, makes us animals fighting for scraps.
“Okay. Let’s start again.” I point at myself. “I’m Mercy, the boss.”
Tawny snorts. When I raise my brows at her, she covers her mouth but can’t hide her smile.
“I am,” I insist.
“After the Rev, maybe.” She shrugs.
“Close enough.” I point at Eliska and ask for her name again.
Her accent is heavy when she answers.
“Eli for short,” Tawny adds, absently running her fingers through the girl’s uneven hair. “She’s Czech.”
Ah. Now I see why they want to sleep up here. Tawny has been playing big sister. I switch to Eliska’s native language and confirm that she can sleep up here. I repeat the same thing to Lucia in Portuguese and then point at the third girl.
“And what’s your name again?” I ask.
“Mathilde.”
“La Francaise?”
She nods. “Oui.”
“Parlez-vous anglais?”
A pause. “Yes.”
Mm. I thought as much. “And the others?”
“Some.” She shrugs, acting nonchalant, but I see a glimmer of pride in her eyes. She likes that I asked her for answers about speaking English, and not the others. Protective or bossy.
I straighten and say, “Let’s get you settled. Best rooms are on the Sinner level anyway. We have pillows, blankets, and cookies. Unless Tawny ate them all.”
I give her a wink, and she returns an eyeroll.
The light beneath Jasmine’s door is still on, a thin slice of feverish yellow. Every so often, something inside thuds, like she’s tossing her suitcase against the wall.
The only reason I’m not reprimanding her is that what she said might be true … if another Team Saint has played us and Jasmine’s the only one who saw it and survived, then we need her on our side.
I glance down the length of the corridor and pause to run the math.
Three girls, but only two beds in every cell.
Thea’s old room might be suitable as she’ll sleep in the infirmary tonight, and Prue was the last one bunking with her.
I glance at my belongings on the floor. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Me out of the room means a free bunk.
“Jasmine’s a Sinner, like me. Maybe one of you wants to bunk with her tonight?” I suggest. They seemed amiable to Jaz. “You know. Safety in numbers.”
I barely finish the pitch before the smallest one launches into a full-body protest. She shakes her head so hard her teeth rattle. “No,” she whispers. Tawny tugs her into her side. The others take a step back, eyes wide, arms crossed, glued together like ducklings in a thunderstorm.
Well, that’s fucking interesting.
I drop my tone even lower, gentle as rain. “Alright. You don’t have to. No one will make you.”
I shoot a glance at Jasmine’s door, then back at the girls.
Is this just trauma, or something else? I try to recall their behavior upon arrival, but everything was so chaotic that I don’t think I registered much, apart from them appearing skittish.
I file the notion away into a mental evidence folder: Jasmine Could Be Fucked Up.
“I have an idea,” I say, and walk down to Thea’s room. It’s a standard Sinner setup—two cots, one narrow window, the barest hint of moonlight on clean sheets. I flick the overhead, and for once the bulb holds steady.
“We can put a mattress on the floor between the cots.” I make a show of plumping pillows, unfurling soft, woolen blankets, tossing them with a flourish. “You can even build a fort. I won’t tell the Rev, but I will pop by in a bit with snacks and make sure you’re all tucked in.”
Mathilde inspects the room first. She walks it like she’s casing a safehouse, checking the corners, the closet, even the gap under the beds. For a hot second, I see myself in her, the way I used to search the asylum’s rooms for threats and escape routes. I get it.
Eliska circles the tiny space three times. When she finally stops, she sits on the edge of a bed like she’s ready to bolt. Lucia slinks in, looking like she wants to crawl beneath the bed.
So much fear. So much space where comfort should be.
I lean on the doorframe with my arms crossed.
“Girls, calm down,” I joke. “Don’t fight over the blankets, or I’ll have to bring in the water pistols.”
No response. Not even a twitch.
“Tough crowd.” I squeeze Tawny’s arm. “Why don’t you find a mattress and some snacks to make them feel comfortable?”
“But nothing tastes…” She trails off at my warning look. We don’t need another reminder of doom right now.
“Don’t you have a secret stash beneath your bed?”
A guilty look flashes over her face, but then she sighs and nods. “I also have spare cozy pajamas and pillows, too. Been hiding them from Raven.”
“I think there are a few extra blankets on the lounges in the common area downstairs.”
When Tawny goes, I try to calm the girls again for the third time.
“You’re safe here. You get to choose, okay? If you want to sleep all in one bed, you do that. If you want lights on, I’ll find a nightlight. If you want to keep the door open, fine. Whatever makes you feel okay.”
The fox is staring at me again. She studies my lips like she’s trying to read words I’m not saying.
“Are you staying close?” she asks, and her English is so crisp it gives me chills. “If something bad comes?”
I slide down and sit, ignoring the protest of my muscles and the zing of pain in my thighs. Today was not a normal day, and I should have taken the cilices off hours ago.
“How about I sit right here until you fall asleep?” I smile gently at the girls.
“All night?”
“I have a team meeting in a few minutes.” I glance down the corridor at my discarded lumpy pile of things. Where else am I going to sleep tonight … if I sleep at all. “I guess I could return. If you like.”
Mathilde tilts her head and gives a sharp nod. “Okay. You are the boss.”
The girls exchange glances. They believe me. For now.
I crawl into the room and help them haul both mattresses onto the floor, upturn the cots, and make an enormous sleeping cave beneath a blanket. We keep adding layers, building a fort of comfort, even if it’s pure theater.