The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,38
conversation for the moment.
“Anybody know what time it is?” CeCe asked.
“No idea,” Lucy said. “Very late. Or early.”
“Whichever, I can’t sit anymore,” CeCe said.
“Let’s check this place out,” Lucy suggested.
“Sebastian said to wait here,” Agnes reminded them.
“Suit yourself.” Lucy grabbed a handful of long tapers that had been left in a small pile on the floor near the votive stand. She offered one to Agnes. Agnes took it. They each lit theirs, fitted it with a foil bobeche, and walked slowly from the side altar at the back down the center aisle of the Church, wax dripping down the side with each step and hardening as it hit their knuckles. The light was just enough to guide them, for them to be able to see one another, but not so much as to draw attention from the world outside, if there was even a world left. The flames blew sideways despite their best efforts to shield them, useless against the stiff breeze that had managed to make its way through the broken windowpanes.
There was little to see. Lucy, Agnes, and Cecilia placed their tapers in the candleholders at the foot of the altar. CeCe lit a cigarette off the flaming stalk and inhaled.
“It’s like an end-stage cancer patient, you know.” Cecilia observed the surroundings, exhaling billows of smoke upward as she spoke. “A shell of something that was once so alive.”
“With a Do Not Resuscitate order,” Lucy nodded, waving the smoke away.
Streams of rainwater dropping through the damaged roof got Cecilia’s attention. She grabbed a few rusted holy water buckets stacked up next to the marble altar rail and handed them to Lucy and Agnes to place under the leaks.
Agnes chafed a little at the analogy, her own brush with death still fresh in her mind. “It’s not something to joke about.”
“No offense, but you get my point, right?” Cecilia groused. “This place was dying way before the developers bought it.”
“When you needed shelter from the storm, you came here. You get my point, right?” Agnes said.
“No need to get all self-righteous,” Lucy sniped. “Agnes is right. We all know why we’re here, whether we want to admit it to one another or not.”
“Speak for yourself,” CeCe said. “Why are you here?”
The tiff brought them right back to the earlier conversation they’d been dancing around. Sebastian argued that they were there by choice, but were they? The chaplets said otherwise.
“Same reason you are,” Lucy said tersely. “Not a lot of other options right now.”
“Is that right? You don’t look like much of a couch surfer to me,” CeCe observed.
“Spoiler alert,” Lucy said. “That’s because I don’t sleep around.”
“Sucks to be you,” CeCe shot back.
“Slide to unlock, huh?” Lucy cracked, swiping her imaginary touch screen sarcastically with unfettered ease.
Agnes eyed Cecilia sympathetically and shook her head.
The voices were getting louder as the argument descended ever deeper into pettiness. The vaulted ceiling captured the cacophony and ricocheted it back to them, amplifying the angst until their own voices became so echo-delayed and distorted they could barely understand one another.
“What are you looking at?” Lucy barked at Agnes, her irritation overcoming whatever sympathy she initially had for the girl. “You’ve been staring at me since you got here.”
“Nothing,” Agnes replied sheepishly. “You just look familiar.”
“Yeah, you do,” Cecilia concurred. “In fact, I think I know you.”
“Believe me,” Lucy assured her. “You don’t know me.”
“I mean, I know of you.”
Lucy was mortified, the blood draining from her face like an underage clubhopper busted for flashing a fake ID. She braced for attack.
“Usually so meticulously groomed, well-dressed, and imperious-looking.” Cecilia scrutinized her. “Mascot of the rich and shameless.”
Lucy stood her ground, taking the punishment like a shock absorber. Glaring silently back at CeCe. A little mocking was nothing new to her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, aren’t I allowed to look you directly in the eye?”
“Wow,” Lucy chided in faux disbelief. “I never knew you could make toxic friends so fast.”
“Friends already?” Cecilia sniffed. “Maybe in your world.”
“Hard to believe that such a skinny slut can stand up straight with such a big chip on her shoulder.”
“I haven’t gotten any complaints,” CeCe huffed. “What’s your excuse?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lucy hissed. “I have guys lining up, for your information.”
“Photographers don’t count,” CeCe countered. “They’re paid to line up for you.”
“I don’t need to pay for my dates,” Lucy bristled. “And they don’t pay me, either.”
“No, you use each other for the photo, sell the rights, and split. You don’t date. You fund-raise.”
“I’m proud to sign my checks