by T Gephart
“Surely there was something you could have done?” The question was completely redundant, but my mind was unable to reconcile that Rose was willingly left to die. “Taken her to the hospital under a fake name?”
“The minute she would have left these walls, someone would have seen her. One of his spies would have reported back. No,” her head shook in conviction, “it was the only way. He never knew she was with child, so Michael was safe as long as no one knew who his mother had been. We hoped a kind family would have adopted him, loved him in a way we knew Rose would have done had she survived. But our hands were tied.” Her face fell in defeat.
“A year or so later, the church declared the marriage annulled. Giving him the freedom to re marry.” Her eyes got wide as she continued. “There were rumors circulating that he’d killed her. That he’d found her with a man and he shot them both. We were positive he had concocted the story so he could save face, preferring to have people believe he was capable of killing her, rather than allowing her to leave him.”
“He never knew he had a son,” I whispered back.
“No, he had two other wives. The second, Ophelia, was also unable to get pregnant. She was found in her bathtub drowned with an empty bottle of pills lying beside her on the floor. It was ruled a suicide, but no one knows for sure and his current wife, Selena, finally gave him a daughter fourteen years ago.”
“We can’t keep this from him.”
“I promised his mother.” Sister Catherine shook her head, her hands trying to steady herself as she leveraged her weight off the lawn. “That woman suffered enough. There is no telling what will happen if he finds out and that is something I will refuse to be part of.”
It took her a few tries, rolling to the side before her legs were able to find purchase. “Sofia, please. Let this go.” Her hands gripped mine tightly.
“I can’t make promises I can’t keep.” My eyes locked on hers. “I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes slowly before reopening them and adjusting her robing. “We really should be getting inside.” Her back straightened as she tried to force a smile. “You’re not wearing a jacket and this chill will cut right through you.”
I blinked a few times wondering if I fell into a wormhole and imagined the whole conversation. And if not for the grass stains on Sister Catherine’s habit, I’d been convinced it never took place.
“You’re right.” I smiled back, taking a tentative step back toward to door. “It is cold out here.”
“I’ll be in my room if you need me.” Catherine waited until we were both safely inside. “I’m feeling a little light headed, so I’d like to lay down before dinner.”
“Would you like me to bring you something?” I asked nervously, Sister Catherine’s face still absent of any color. “Maybe a soda or a candy bar?”
“No, no, I’ll be fine.” She patted my hands gently and then excused herself, her feet moving slowly toward her bedroom.
Great.
Sister Catherine was the only person in this place who spoke to me and I was almost positive that door had slammed shut. Because I didn’t have enough people hating me, I had to alienate the one person who was literally risking their life for me. That’s not even taking into consideration she was a woman of the church. That alone was enough to send me rocking manically in the corner in a guilt-induced stupor. But what was my option? I wasn’t sure I could look into Michael’s eyes and not tell him what I knew.
My head was going to explode with the information. This whole time, Franco Santini’s son had been right under his nose and he’d never known. Hell, if he found out it would send a tidal wave of ramifications that I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Oh my God, poor Rose. She must have been terrified. She had lived in fear for months, hidden away here while she tried to bring her child into the world. She was right about one thing. If Franco had ever found out about Michael, he would have never let him go, pulling him so deep into his world there would be no humanity left.
It was such a cruel twist of fate that he ended up in that life anyway. It begged the question as to how hard can we really fight our DNA? Had the echoes in his blood of Franco’s brutality drawn him to the underworld? There was no way we would ever know. The only saving grace was that he didn’t have ties to anyone, no formal allegiances. All he had to do was leave and he would be free from it, from them, something that wouldn’t have been possible if his last name was Santini.
Look at what happened to me. I was living proof that blood ties were almost impossible to break.
I understood why Sister Catherine fought so long and hard to keep it buried. Even though deep down inside me I knew he deserved to know, once that lid was opened, nothing in his world would ever be the same.
Will you tell him? A voice whispered from deep inside of me.
“I don’t know.” I answered the empty room.
There was a large field.
In it tall pale blue cornflowers grew, their petals curling up toward the sun’s light. The thin green stems bent just slightly in the gentle breeze. It was beautiful, peaceful, and as I looked out into the horizon the endless landscape seemed to stretch eternally.
There was a woman, mid-twenties with long, wavy, dark hair walking through the cornflowers with slow steady steps. The white dress she wore was covered in a fine film of blue powder but she was laughing, clearly not minding the stain.
“Hello.” I smiled as she came closer, her brown eyes so bright they almost didn’t seem real. “I’m Sofia.” I held out my hand, waiting for her to take it.
“I know.” Her pale pink lips spread into a grin before she turned back to the horizon. “It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?”
I dropped my hand feeling a little stupid that I didn’t know who she was. “Yes, it is.”
She breathed in deep, her eyes closing as her chest expanded to maximum. “Such a beautiful day.”
I watched her, mesmerized as she pushed out the breath and threw her head back in a throaty laugh before continuing to walk forward.
“Where are you going?” I called out, her body moving faster through the sea of blue flowers taking her further and further away.
“Wherever I want to.” She laughed, her hair flowing behind her as she continued to run until I couldn’t see her anymore.
“Wait!” My body tried to surge forward, hoping I could catch her and at the very least ask her name. “Wait.”
But I didn’t move; my legs staying rooted in their spot despite me willing them to walk. It was then when I looked down hoping to see what was wrong with my feet that I saw that I was wearing the same white dress.
Except instead of the soft hew of blue smeared across the front, there was a deep shade of red.
And it was on my hands too.
“Quick, you must wake up!”
I wasn’t sure if I’d dreamt it or someone was in the room speaking to me. The landscape faded taking with it the cornflowers, the field and the sun. I returned to black, my eyes slowly sliding open as the light beside my bed turned on.
“You have to hide or they will find you.” This time the voice was more insistent, startling me awake.
“What?” My body shot up off the mattress as my brain suddenly kicked into gear. “What’s happening?”
“There’s no time.” One of the nuns—I think her name was Rachel?—tossed my clothes at me. “They will be here soon.”
“Who, who is coming?” I sat up, throwing jeans and a sweater over my pajamas. The urgency in her voice hinted that I didn’t have time to properly dress.
“Sister Catherine is sick, we had to call an ambulance.” She picked up my two bags I had purposely left packed and held them out toward me. “Please, you must go hide before they get here.”
“I can help,” I ignored the bags hurrying toward the doorway. “I’ve been trained in first aid.”
“No, you can’t.” She cut off my exit, dropping my bags in front of me and bracing her arms either side of th
e door. “They will find you and then we’ll all be in danger. Please, you can’t be here when they come. You must hide.”
I had no idea what was wrong with Sister Catherine but whatever it was I knew that every second counted. She needed me, and I owed her.
“Please, I’ll be quick. Just let me see her and then I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
Sister Rachel hesitated, her fingers turning white as they squeezed against the doorframe. “One minute, and then you have to go.”
She had barely moved to the side when I sped past her, my bare feet pounding against the floorboards as I raced into Sister Catherine’s room.
I gasped when I saw her and not because it was the first time I’d seen her without her habit.
She was lying in her bed, a simple white cotton nightgown poking out of the top of the heavy woolen blanket. Her long gray hair had been coiled on top of her head while her slender arms rested on her stomach. Her usual pale skin so colorless she looked like she was made of wax. Her eyes stayed closed while her chest expanded just enough to show she was still breathing.
“Oh no.” My knees fell beside her bed, my fingers reaching for her icy cold hands. “Please no.”
“Save him.”
“Please.”
“Save him.”
Wracked with guilt, my fingers gripped tighter, knowing I would do whatever it took to keep that promise as the life literally drained out of her in front of my very eyes.
“There is nothing you can do. Please.” Sister Rachel tugged at my arm. “She would want you to be safe.”
I nodded, words getting stuck in my throat as I raced back into the room and collected my bags. My eyes did a quick sweep of the room to make sure there was no other evidence left as I followed her back into the hall.
It wasn’t my own personal safety that I was worried about. Me, being here, was putting them all in danger.
“Quickly, this way.” She darted down the narrow hallway to the far end of the house and out a side door. “The ambulance will be here any minute.”
The cold wind slapped me in the face as we stepped outside. The crescent moon was hidden by heavy clouds and offered little light, the silvery glow making the yard ominous as we walked quickly across the grass.
“In here.” Sister Rachel pulled open a large metal black door of a large brick building that bordered the property from the other side.
I had assumed the windowless building was an old factory or storage facility, long forgotten by an unfavorable economy. But the old rusted metal sign bolted into the brick told me otherwise.
Three yellow triangles, each meeting at their points surround by a circle.
It was an old bomb shelter, one of the thousands that had been built during the Cold War.
“It locks from the inside.” Her fingers held the door, the wind trying to force it open. “Be safe.”
Her eyes said it all. She was just as scared as I was, the heavy metal door shutting between us with a loud thud, taking with it any light.
I fumbled in the dark with my bags, dropping them onto the concrete floor as my hand searched inside one and then the other for the cell I had hidden inside.
It was one of Michael’s burners, given to me under the strict instructions that I only use it in a case of life or death. My hand padded through the bag until I felt the hard surface, searching blindly for the on button, until the screen glowed.
The darkness ebbed just enough for me to see my surroundings, the phone carried in front of my face like a flashlight as I walked deeper into the building trying to find anything I could use.
There was nothing, the place had either been gutted or looted years ago without even a candlestick left. And with no idea of how long I would be in here, I slid the lock into place on the door and cut the power on the phone. As much as I hated being in the dark, I might need it again later.
The sirens came soon after. Their muted whine almost completely drowned out by the thick walls. I had no idea what was happening out there, but I was almost positive Sister Catherine wouldn’t survive.
I was sure it would be chalked up to natural causes, her age a contributing factor, but I knew that it had been the stress that pushed her over. Years and years of protecting a secret had finally taken its toll. Me, discovering it—with no idea on what I would do with the information—had probably shot so much fear into her world that she wasn’t able to recover from the tailspin.
My body shivered as it slowly sunk to the cold, hard floor, my cheeks getting wet. I hadn’t meant to cry, my eyes leaking before I had a chance to stop them. Not that it mattered in here; there was no one to see. No one I needed to be strong for.
The tears didn’t stop, streaming down my face as I sobbed silently. The weight of the responsibility was killing me. I wish I could end it, stop any more people getting hurt because of me.
And then I remembered the dream—the woman in the white dress running in the field. It felt so real, the heat of the sun on my face, the gentle sway of the cornflowers. I wanted to run, run like she had and be free of all of it. Throw my head back and laugh with complete abandon. But it wasn’t possible. That future had disappeared as quickly as the woman had. Or had I been the woman the whole time? It didn’t matter anymore. Moving away, making my father accountable wasn’t enough. I’d never be able to run far enough—never be free.
My stomach twisted as my head fell into my hands. There was only one way to guarantee the conclusion. To save us both.
My father and Michael’s father needed to die.
It was hard to breathe, the idea of killing someone I’d once loved, horrifying. I had planned to bring him to justice, of doing it the right way. Never had I imagined the alternative. Never had I thought . . . Killing my father? Killing Franco? But too much damage had been done—to Catherine, to Rose, to Michael and to me.
It was the only way.
A tremble rose from inside of me, a vibration so strong that I had to check that the floor underneath me hadn’t shifted. But there hadn’t been an earthquake, and what I felt was my resilience to survive. Not only to survive, but thrive.
Maybe I had been fighting too long for something that had always been inside of me. Maybe I had always been capable and I just needed the right motivation. My father had killed for greed, for power, for—who knew what else. But for me it was different. It was personal. The things I’d seen in the last few days had changed me, and my world was never going to be the same.
I used to believe I was naïve as a child, ignorant to my father’s life and what he did. But my real naivety was in my adult life. Things had never been black and white. And sometimes, murder was justified. Sometimes it was the only way out, and you just had to be strong.
I’d tried.
Believed there were other ways. But it all brought me back to here.
Here.
Where two men had ruined the lives of so many people, and I had the power to change that. To stop the cycle. To stop the pain.
I wouldn’t enjoy it, and my heart would still pray for forgiveness, but their blood would cleanse ours.
And I would do it.
And then finally we’d all be able to rest.
***
It was hours later.
I only knew because I occasionally checked the phone. With no reference of light, its bright digital display was my only connection to the outside world. Sleep impossible as I sat alone with my thoughts.
“Sofia?”
It was barely a whisper; the thump on the door confirming I hadn’t imagined it had been wind.
My legs bolted upright, sending my body vertical in a rush as I wrestled with the lock in the dark.
The door swung open, the morning light blinding me as my eyes fought to adjust. Sister Rachel didn’t speak, stepping inside the door and closing most of it so no one could see from the outside. She stood patiently as I fought against my falling eyelids.
“She’s gone,” she said when my vision finally returned.
<
br /> “I know.”
We both stood for a while, just looking at each other, neither of us really knowing what to say.
“You can’t come back yet. There are too many people . . .” She took a breath. “It’s too risky.”
“I think it’s better if I don’t come back.” I swallowed, not knowing if I could walk past Sister Catherine’s room and not be eaten from the inside out by the guilt. “Do you think you can get me some supplies? Just a few things so I can stay out of sight for a couple of days. Once the attention dies down, I’ll move on.”
Mentally I’d been preparing the list for hours. Water. Candles or a flashlight. Some food. Just the basics. Ditching most of my clothes and moving to one bag was also the plan—the lighter, the easier it was going to be to move.
“Where will you go?” Her eyes widened as she reached for me. “Please just wait a little longer and then come back, she would have wanted you safe with us.”
“None of you are safe if I come back.” I shook my head. “I’ll be fine, I know I will be.”
“And what about Michael?” She tilted her head to the side. “What will we tell him when he comes looking for you?”
Other than last night, this was the first real conversation Sister Rachel and I had had since I’d arrived. I had no idea what she’d been told but obviously she knew the key players.
“Tell him that it was time for me to go and that I didn’t need a hero.” I sighed imagining how infuriated he would be when she told him. “And that I will be okay.”
“Give me a list of what you need; I’ll do my best to get it together, but I really wish you would reconsider.”
