The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,63

sorry. I did my best,” Agnes said, throwing her matted mane away from her face. “Thanks for helping me.”

“Hey,” Cecilia called over, signaling Lucy not to push it. “Chill.”

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Lucy offered apologetically.

“It’s okay,” Agnes said, leaning her head on Lucy’s shoulder.

The physical contact took Lucy off guard. She hadn’t let a girlfriend close enough to touch her, let alone console her, for a long time. If ever. She reached out for Agnes and slipped her hands under her thick mane and around both sides of her face. “I’d never do you like that,” Lucy whispered.

Agnes kneeled down and brushed her fingers along both girls’ legs, feeling for bits of glass, which she picked out gently one by one from each of them. She wiped at the tiny cuts with the gauze from her wrappings. “Not exactly sanitary,” Agnes said, “but it’s the best I can do.”

Cecilia and Lucy scanned the room from floor to ceiling. Flaking paint, bubbling plaster, water damage, and mold creeping along the walls and ceiling signaled to them that Agnes was more than a little right.

Lucy looked down at the wraps around Agnes’s wrists and saw they were looking wet and stained not just with their blood but with Agnes’s own.

“We should probably change those,” Lucy said. “How are your arms?”

“They hurt.”

Lucy reached for Agnes’s forehead as she stood up, to get a sense of her temperature, and noticed her skin felt cool and clammy. She could feel that Agnes was getting increasingly unsteady on her feet by how tightly she was beginning to hold her arm. The November daylight was fading fast as the storm was waxing once again. Without even the cold white glow of the corner streetlamps, still silenced by the blackout, night was falling unchallenged.

Cecilia proceeded to light the votives stacked on the cabinet from her single taper and positioned them throughout the room, turning the walls into funhouse mirrors of flickering shadows.

Agnes appeared flushed and sweaty.

“Let me get a look at them,” Lucy said. “Cecilia, can you bring that candle closer?”

Lucy rubbed at her eyes, which were blurry now and watery from the dust and mildew. Agnes winced as Lucy untied the knotted fabric holding the wraps on. The black threads that cinched the wounds together were shiny in the light, and the edges of the cuts were still red, raw and oozing. Unhealed. It was in that stage where it wasn’t possible to tell if she was getting better or worse.

Lucy made an amateur but accurate diagnosis. “That’s not looking too good.”

“Don’t scare her,” Cecilia whispered harshly.

“Maybe you should leave?” Lucy pressed. “Go back to the hospital.”

“No!” Agnes shouted, mustering every bit of strength.

“She’s not going anywhere in this weather. Who even knows if there is a hospital left,” Cecilia said, taking charge. “Let’s just keep the wounds clean and dry for now.”

Agnes ambled over quickly, leaning slightly, arms limp at her sides and exposed to the dank air, as if navigating a balance beam in gym class.

“Don’t humor her. This is serious. Her wrists are infected,” Lucy said, grabbing Cecilia’s arm. “People die from this shit.”

“And they also die in tornados!” Cecilia shouted. “I’ll talk to her. Just give us a minute, okay?”

Lucy nodded.

“Do you smell something? Something sweet?” Agnes asked. “Is it roses? I smell roses.”

Now Cecilia was getting worried. Not that she could smell much of anything, but the only scent starting to come through was the stink of rot from Agnes’s arms.

“Maybe some late bloomers survived in the courtyard,” Cecilia said unconvincingly, since it had been far too cold lately.

“I don’t want to leave,” Agnes pleaded.

“Here? Or him?” Cecilia asked, turning the faucet on and gently cleansing Agnes’s wound.

“You don’t either. I can see it in your face. Lucy’s, too.”

“We’re all going to have to leave eventually,” CeCe said. “The storm can’t last forever. Nothing can.”

“Maybe not, but we need to worry about right now,” Lucy interjected. “That door is not going to hold much longer.”

CeCe wrapped Agnes’s arms quickly and tried to think.

The heavy bronze inlaid wooden portal they’d entered through suddenly began to shimmy on its rusted hinges. It was beautiful, solid, a work of art in and of itself—or had been once, until it was allowed to fall into such disrepair. With nothing to barricade it, the door would soon be useless against the encroaching winds. The flooding rain was already beginning to seep underneath.

They felt trapped.

“We need to keep going,” Cecilia said, a new urgency in her