I tighten my grip on my duffel bag and readjust the strap of my backpack before following. Our footsteps echo hollowly until we reach the wooden stairs. “Roommate?” I call out after him. “So we don’t get our own rooms?”
“Duh,” he says dryly.
Holy crap, I’m just trying to make conversation. I didn’t ask to be here any more than he did. And I know he’s not here by choice, because no one would be here by choice. This is the place bad souls go to await sentencing.
Damp. Dark. Dismal.
Jasper turns into a hallway leading off the landing. Almost immediately, he takes another turn. Then another. A minute later, I stop trying to keep track of where we’re headed.
Flickering sodium lights cast an ugly yellow glare over the doorways and somber portraits we pass.
Holy crap, it’s cold. Two weeks until summer break, and it could be the middle of winter.
I’m wearing a black cardigan, a vest, and jeans with the hems turned up so I don’t step on them. The thin wool covering my arms could have been tissue paper for all the protection it’s offering me. I’m tempted to let down my mass of black curls, if only for some extra warmth around my neck.
What I know about Saint Amos could barely fill a serviette. It’s an all-boys, faith-orientated prep school specializing in training new priests. But I didn’t come here for their theological program—I’m here because it’s the only place where even a remnant of my previous life still exists.
His name is Father Gabriel. Technically, he’s all the family I have left. If it weren’t for him, I’d still be a ward of the state. Enrolling at Saint Amos wasn’t my first choice, but I’m starting to realize orphans don’t get a say in how their lives are run.
Luckily I’m used to having all my major life decisions made for me.
“So how long have you been here?”
“Too long,” Jasper replies stiffly.
What did I do to piss him off? Is this because he has to share a room with me? I glance at the multitude of doorways we’ve passed in this stretch of hallway alone. It’s impossible that every room in this place is occupied. So why do I have to share with a boy?
I should make an effort to be friends, especially if I’m going to be living with this kid. “I’m sorry if I kept you waiting,” I say.
He lets out a sigh and gives a half-hearted shrug without looking back at me.
On this level, we pass several stained glass windows, none of which look as if they can be opened. Most are random arrangements of colored glass, but the larger ones form crude images.
Doves flying toward rays of heavenly light.
Various saints and angels.
People tilling the soil under a watchful eye. Literally, an eye in the sky—lead strips for lashes and everything.
“Place used to be a Catholic orphanage,” the kid says.
“It’s…” I want to say beautiful, but that would be an outright lie. “Impressive.”
We take another set of stairs, putting us on the fourth floor. Wooden doors crowd the walls of the passage. Small cards slipped behind tiny brass frames centered below each doorway’s arch bear the room’s number.
Jasper leads me to room 113.
He opens it and steps inside.
“You don’t lock doors around here?”
He turns and gives me a dead-eyed stare. “You got something to hide?”
I laugh as I enter the room, but I cut it off a second later.
It looks more like a prison cell than a bedroom. Even the small window is meshed with a steel frame as if to stop anyone from climbing out and jumping. Two cots—one against each wall—fill most of the space. What’s left is crowded out by a double-door closet and a desk with a set of drawers on each side of the gap where the chair fits in.
Jasper points at one of the beds. “That’s mine.”
“You sure?” I mumble to myself. The beds look identical. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d told me no one lived in this room.
“That’s yours,” he says, pointing at the left-hand closet door. “Stay out of my side.”
“Why, you got something to hide?”
He turns angry eyes on me, and I bite down on my lip.
It’s been a long day. Hell, it’s been a long month.
My duffel bag and backpack thump to the floor. This place reeks of mothballs and stale air but if I can open the window that might help.
The window is sealed shut.
Jasper grabs something out of his drawer. “I got class,” he says before walking out.
I rush over to the door and poke my head out in the hall. “Hey!”
My voice booms back at me. Jasper swings around, but he doesn’t stop walking.
“Where do I go?”
Jasper shrugs. “Only told me to show you the room!” he yells back before disappearing around the corner.
“Mother of God,” I mutter to myself as I step back into the room. I stare out the doorway, and shiver when a damp breeze slips inside. “Surprised no one gets pneumonia.” I push the door closed and let out another sigh as I sink onto the corner of my bed.
It groans theatrically under my weight, and I roll my eyes.
This is what happens when the only thing going through your head for days at a time is the mantra, what else could possibly go wrong?
I challenged the Universe, and it came at me swinging.
Chapter Two
Trinity
I’m glad everything I own fits into two bags. There’s barely enough space on my side of the closet to hang the few dresses and jeans I have. Even the four cubbyholes on my side of the cabinet are barely large enough to fit a pair of shoes.
I take my fat, leather-bound bible and perch reluctantly on the creaky bed with it my lap. I trace my fingers over the gold title embossed on the cover. Then I flip it open and take out the photo nestled between the first few pages.
My father’s stern eyes stare out at me from a decade past. He looks dashing in his full clerical vestments, despite his no-nonsense expression. I wish I had a photo of mom too—even better, the three of us together—but my parents considered photos a form of vanity, much like having more than three sets of clothes to rotate out during any given week.
Or makeup.
Or jewelry.
If they knew they would die months before my eighteen birthday, would things have been different? Would we have spent less time in church and more time in the park, or going to the beach, or playing ball in the backyard?
Nope.
I open the first drawer and put the bible inside, shoving it as far back as I can.
I have no intention of reading it. I only brought it along because Mother treasured it so. I didn’t even know about the photo until I accidentally dropped the book on its spine while I was collecting my things from home a week ago.
Twenty-seven days.
Not even a month since they’ve been gone, and it already feels like a lifetime ago. I only remember bits and pieces since then, and most of those I try to forget.
Fuck you.
I kick the drawer closed with my ballerina pump.
“First day and you’re already destroying school property?”
I’m on my feet in a second and whirl around to face the door. There’s a guy in the doorway, leaning with his shoulder against the jamb.