Chapter Twelve Lakey
The crunch of gravel under our feet sounded like bones breaking. Fitting, considering the shithole before us. I squinted at the faded sign, my stomach churning as my body reacted before my brain could catch up.
"St. Agnes Home for Wayward Girls," I read aloud. "More like St. Agnes House of Fucking Horrors. Who the fuck was St. Agnes anyway? Probably some cunt with a stick up her ass and the pope's dick down her throat."
Cam's hand found the small of my back, a gentle pressure grounding me. "You okay, Lakes?"
I swallowed hard, pushing down the bile. "Peachy. Let's get this over with."
The building looked worse than I remembered.
Which was saying something because I remembered it being a shithole.
The paint had given up entirely now, peeling off in long strips that hung from the walls like dead skin.
The sign out front, the one Lydia had drawn a smiley face on years ago, was barely legible.
The smiley face was gone. Probably scrubbed off by Sister Anne because joy was a sin and fun was for heathens and smiling was only appropriate during mass when Father Christopher was watching.
We approached the building, each step closer making my body tighten in ways I couldn't control.
My hands were fisting at my sides. My jaw was locked.
My breathing had gone shallow without me deciding to do that.
The body remembers what the brain can't, and my body remembered this place the way a dog remembers the vet.
Every cell was telling me to turn around and run.
I didn't run. I hadn't run from anything since I was seven years old and I wasn't about to start now.
"You sure about this, Lakes?" Cam's voice was low, concern etched in his features as he regarded my hesitancy. "We can turn back."
I shook my head, steeling myself. "No. I need to face this. There are too many blind spots in my memory. They probably kept some kind of filing system here. Names, addresses... procedures..."
Cam nodded, scanning the perimeter. "Alright. Let's find a way in."
He led us around back, his tall frame casting long shadows in the moonlight.
I trailed behind, my fingers absently tracing the scars on my arms. Each one a reminder of what I'd endured, what I'd survived.
The ones I could remember, anyway. There were scars on my body that belonged to memories I didn't have, and those were the ones that scared me most.
"Hey," Cam called out suddenly, jerking me from my thoughts. He was pointing at a window, slightly ajar. "Kitchen entrance. Looks like our ticket in."
I stared at the opening, my heart racing. This was it. No turning back now.
"After you, doll," Cam said with a smirk, gesturing dramatically.
I rolled my eyes but couldn't help the small smile tugging at my lips.
"Such a gentleman," I quipped, moving towards the window. "Don't forget, if anyone's in here, they're mine. Don't even think about killing them before I do."
Cam's laugh echoed in the empty yard. "Wouldn't dream of it. Your murderous tendencies are one of your most endearing qualities."
As I gripped the windowsill, preparing to hoist myself inside, I paused.
The scent of lemon-pine cleaner somehow wafted out, mixed with mold and decay.
That smell. They used to mop the floors with it every morning at 5 a.m., the squeak of the mop and the chemical sting of the cleaner serving as our alarm clock.
I'd wake up to it every single day, and now, years later, I still couldn't walk past the cleaning aisle at the grocery store without my hands starting to shake.
"I can do this," I whispered to myself, closing my eyes briefly. "I'm not that little girl anymore."
Cam's hand squeezed my shoulder. "No, you're not. You're a goddamn force of nature, Lakey Aldrich. Now let's go raise some hell."
With a deep breath, I nodded and pulled myself through the window, ready to face whatever ghosts awaited us inside.
I landed on the dusty kitchen floor with a soft thud, my feet kicking up clouds of neglect. The sound echoed through the empty room. As Cam's large frame followed me through the window, I took in our surroundings.
"Jesus fucking Christ," I muttered, my eyes darting around the kitchen.
Broken plates and shattered cups littered the floor.
Chairs lay overturned, frozen in a moment of panic that had long since passed.
The air was filled with dust and something else, something organic and rotten.
The industrial fridge was still plugged in, humming weakly, and I didn't want to know what was inside it.
"Looks like everyone left in a hurry," Cam observed, his dark eyes scanning the room. "Bad memories, sweetheart?"
I swallowed hard, pushing down the bile rising in my throat. "You have no idea."
The kitchen was where they fed us. If you could call it feeding.
Watery cereal, cement-like oatmeal, half-rotten fruit.
Bread that was always stale. Soup that was mostly water with the tiniest of vegetables floating in it.
We ate at 6 a.m. sharp. If you were late, you didn't eat.
If you talked during the meal, you didn't eat.
If Sister Anne decided she didn't like the way you were holding your spoon, you didn't eat.
I'd gone three days once without food because I'd laughed at something Lydia whispered to me during grace.
Without waiting for a response, I stepped forward, crunching broken ceramic under my boots.
My fingers trailed along the countertop, leaving lines in the dust. Each step brought back flashes.
The strict mealtimes. The harsh voices. The constant fear that sat in your stomach and never fully went away, even when you slept, even when you were being "good," because being good at St. Agnes just meant you hadn't been punished yet today.
"This way," I whispered.
I moved through the building, Cam's presence a comforting shadow behind me. My eyes darted to each room we passed.
The common room, where we'd gather for "group therapy" that was more like psychological warfare.
Sister Anne making us share our "sins" while Father Christopher sat in the corner taking notes.
The girls who cried got extra sessions. The girls who didn't cry got watched more closely. There was no right answer.
The small day infirmary, where I'd hidden more than once, faking illness to escape the day's torments.
The cot in the corner was still there, the thin mattress still covered in that plasticky sheet that stuck to your skin when you sweated.
I'd learned to fake a fever by pressing my face against the hot water pipe in the bathroom before going to see the nurse.
It worked twice before Sister Anne caught on and made me kneel on the spiked rug for "deception. "
The showers. I passed those fast. Didn't look. Didn't slow down. Some rooms hold memories that your body won't let you revisit, and the showers were one of them. My feet just moved faster, and my eyes stayed forward and that was that.
"You okay?" Cam's voice cut through my thoughts.
I paused, my hand resting on a door frame. "Define 'okay,'" I laughed bitterly. "I'm in the place that haunted my nightmares for years. But sure, I'm okay."
Cam's hand found the small of my back before tangling in my hair. "Do you need some pain?"
"Yes," I whimpered as he pulled my hair and crushed his lips on mine, biting my bottom lip until it bled, the metallic taste flooding my senses and pushing out the fear.
He pulled off me and slapped my ass so hard I was gonna bruise. "Thank you." I said with a smile, wiping the blood from my chin.
"I got you, baby girl."
I pressed on, each step feeling lighter. Cam always knew what I needed. Knew that pain was the barrier with which I protected my heart. The fragmented pieces of my soul. I led the way down the long hallway, barely sparing a glance at each room as we passed.
"Almost there," I muttered, more to myself than to Cam. "Just a little further."
I stopped at the end of the hall, my hand hovering over a painfully familiar door handle. My throat constricted, words barely escaping in a whisper. "This... this was my room."
Cam's eyes flickered with understanding. Without a word, he reached past me and pushed the door open.
The creak of rusted hinges felt like a scream in the silence.
I stepped inside, my legs trembling beneath me.
The room was a time capsule, preserved in all its miserable glory.
My old bed was pushed against the wall on the left, still neatly made as if waiting for my return.
A wave of nausea hit me as I remembered the nights spent curled up there, trying to muffle my sobs.
Trying to stay quiet because noise attracted attention and attention at St. Agnes was never the kind you wanted.
"Fuck," I breathed, my eyes drawn to a half-torn picture still clinging to the wall. It was Cam, younger and somehow more innocent, his cocky grin preserved in faded ink. I'd stolen that photo from our social worker's file the last time she came to visit, my own little act of rebellion.
"Well, well," Cam drawled, his eyes fixed on the picture. "Looks like I've always been irresistible."
I snorted, grateful for the moment of levity. "Don't flatter yourself, Axley. I just needed something to aim darts at."
But even as I joked, my mind wouldn’t slow.
This room held so many secrets, so much pain.
Across from me was Lydia's bed. She'd been my roommate for years, until she told me that Father Christopher had raped her and that something terrible was going to happen.
I'd brushed it off, not because I didn't believe her but because believing her meant accepting something so big and so dark that my brain literally couldn't hold it.
And then she just disappeared, and I never saw her again.
Graduated. Was what they told me. Only… how the fuck do you graduate from hell?