The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,74
instead.”
“They were,” Sebastian answered. “Trying to get out.”
“But they gave up?” Cecilia asked.
“No, they gave in,” Sebastian said. “People came for years afterward, climbing down into the subway tunnel to see the underground chapel, to remember the men, to pray, hoping for miracles.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Agnes said.
“It was, and after a while, they raised the money to the build this church over it.”
“And those bones?” Cecilia asked.
“I’m not sure I want to know,” Agnes said.
“The bones are their bones. And the bones of those who believed in what they were doing. Holy, some say.”
“A cult?” Cecilia asked.
“Not the way we think of it,” Sebastian explained. “A cult of saints.”
“Couldn’t this just be a story your grandmother told you?” Lucy said nervously. “Like an old wives’ tale.”
“What we felt down there was real,” Agnes interrupted. “You know it.”
Sebastian was suddenly agitated. Frustrated that he might not be getting his point across.
“She was a benedetta,” he said defensively, pacing in front of them. “A healer of bodies and souls. A woman of faith. She never lied to me.”
Sebastian’s discomfort brought the conversation to a halt.
“It just seems really strange that they kept it open after such a tragic accident,” Agnes said.
Sebastian looked at her skeptically. “I didn’t say it was an accident.”
“They were killed? Why?” Cecilia asked incredulously.
“To stop them.”
“From?”
“Fulfilling their purpose.”
Between the events in the chapel and Sebastian’s story, it was all too much, especially for Lucy. “What does this have to do with you or us?”
“The saints whose legacies the subway workers were charged with perpetuating were Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes.”
Jesse raced back to his apartment from the hospital, infused with a sense of power. The kind of power that only comes with secret knowledge. His mind bubbled up with potential, like the hot thin soup in the final moments before the first single-celled organisms clumped up and set life on the road to infinity. For him, this was that big.
He slipped the manila envelope the doctor had given him under his arm, turned the key, and opened the door, looking quickly over his shoulder before slamming it shut behind him. He’d been trusted with secrets before, all the important stuff in blogger world. Who’s dating, who’s cheating, who’s stealing, who’s bi, who’s Botoxing, who’s broke. Not being a real journalist, he didn’t feel the least bit compelled to fact check, to seek out multiple sources, to remain neutral.
BYTE was his very own digitized high school diary, a pixelated revenge fantasy fueled by his wild mood swings, thin-skinned defensiveness, and tech savvy that had set him on the profitable path to mainstream seminotoriety. His business plan was simple: Who can resist obsessing over the pettiness and venality of a bunch of spoiled, privileged, and backstabbing New York City kids? Wisely, he didn’t rely on the public deciding on the breakout star; he chose one for them, Lucy, and cast himself as auteur—director, writer, and producer—of her life. And she played the role perfectly, until recently. She thought she could steal the whole damn show.
Jesse reviewed his notes and the girls’ files. There were a lot of holes, he thought, which led to a lot of questions. So much about it didn’t make sense. Lucy wasn’t anyone’s dupe, not even his. Why would she allow herself to be taken in by some schizo psychopath?
He uploaded a grainy headshot from their high school yearbook and began to write the item.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? the caption began, in boldface letters beneath the JPEG.
LULU Lost!
LUcky LUcy Ambrose is missing. The party princess has not been seen or heard from for three days and BYTE hears that the NYPD has been notified. Rumors of a kidnapping or worse are swirling, as an unnamed mental patient escaped from Perpetual Help Hospital on the same night Lucy was admitted and remains on the loose. In addition to Lucy, two other Brooklyn girls, who coincidentally were also admitted to the ER last weekend, have also been reported missing. The tornado rescue operation and cleanup has put a strain on the police. The Perpetual Help Hospital board has managed to keep the escape and possible kidnappings under wraps until now.
Jesse read and reread what he’d written several times and paused his finger above the enter key, debating for a moment about whether to post the story and share it with the world. He omitted CeCe’s and Agnes’s names for fear of being sued, knowing damn well that those details would probably get out eventually anyway.
“Send,” he said, pressing the