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Sister Joanne frowned. “What is?”
“No. No, no, no.”
I shoved at the blankets. Pain exploded through my side, but I barely felt it.
“Adriana, stop,” Sister Joanne ordered.
“My rosary. I had it. He gave it to me. I had it around my neck.”
Father Demitri caught the edge of the blanket before it slid from the bed, not touching me, only stopping the movement. “Calm down.”
“No. You don’t understand. He told me to never take it off.”
I looked at Father Demitri.
Sister Joanne’s voice reached my ears. “Adriana, calm down. I took the rosary off when I was washing your face and neck. There was too much blood.”
She reached into her pocket and produced my rosary.
Sister Marina’s voice cut through the silence. “What happened after he went to the police station?”
I forced my gaze away from the rosary.
“They came for him.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
My lips trembled. I shut my eyes. Sister Joanne muttered something under her breath that sounded like a prayer and a curse at the same time.
“They broke into our house.” My chest tightened until I could barely speak. “They shoved their way inside.”
No one spoke. I stared at the crucifix on the wall and saw only my father’s hand reaching through the blood.
“They killed him because he went to the police. Someone told them. Don’t ask me to go to the police, because there is no police!”
A sob tore out of me, ugly and raw. Anger held me up for another second. Then grief dragged me back under once more. Sister Joanne touched my shoulder again. This time, I didn’t pull away.
Sister Marina bowed her head, not in defeat, but in acknowledgement. She believed me. I saw it in her eyes.
Father Demitri said nothing. For a long moment, he only stood there at the edge of the bed, black cassock marked with dried blood. My blood, I realized. It stained him from chest to waist, stiffening the fabric in dark, ugly patches. He looked down at it as if noticing it for the first time. Then he looked at me. Something had changed in his face that didn’t look like pity or priestly concern. It was something colder, a darkness that should not have lived beneath a white collar.
“No police,” he agreed. The relief came so fast it almost hurt. “But I need to know everything.”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
I looked from him to Sister Marina, then to the shuttered windows. Outside, the rain had stopped. The silence beyond the convent walls seemed to lean in, listening. My father was dead. The last person in the world who belonged to me was gone, and the knowledge should have hollowed me out completely. It should have left me staring at the ceiling, certain there was nothing ahead but more violence and more darkness.
Instead, I looked at Father Demitri. And somewhere beneath my pain and fear, I understood why his presence calmed me. He looked like the sort of man evil would think twice about approaching.
7
DEMITRI
For once, even I had to admit Sister Marina was right.
