Chapter 23

ELIZABETH

“Miss Gilmore…” I stood up to greet her.

“If I don’t see my daughter in the next 5 minutes, I am calling the police”  She spat, her shaky hands holding her phone.

“Miss Gilmore please take a seat. We can discuss this before you see your daughter”

“No, the state she is in will determine if I will want to have this talk with you here or in a police station” She stepped closer to me, her eyes filled with rage.

Didn’t she know?. Her husband, Raven’s father had been here a few days prior. He was the one who was kept informed about how things were going.

“I will take you to her”

I stood up, my heart in my throat. I did not think I would have to face Raven soon. Her mother was furious, she appeared ready to attack. It terrified me to know she could attack me to see her child. If the police were to be informed….

“Raven is here?”

My head snapped to the voice. Claire was behind us, following us.

“Claire you can’t be here”

“You lied to me. You said you didn’t know where she was. Why is Raven still here?”

“You do not know where my child is?” Miss Gilmore’s voice deepened.

“I do. She is with our Charismatic Sisters. They are the ones who are handling her journey through her transformation.

The words were plastic. Lies you could smell from afar and her mother could tell. Maybe I did not put in effort because a part of me wanted Raven taken home. The sisters…they did what they had to do.

My gut curled and twisted with each step. It was night time, they would be just getting out of prayer by now. Yet, when I passed by the door of their mass room, nobody was there. Memories haunted me as I passed doors they kept people who needed help. It was dark here, the doors similar to those of a maximum prison.

I looked away.

Both the people behind me had become more quiet with each step. I did not dare look at their faces, I did not dare to stare at the closed rooms. I knew what was there in which condition and how they got in that condition.

Just as we turned, I hit head on something hard forcing me against the wall. It knocked the air out of my lungs. I looked up, still disoriented from the impact. Two nuns were holding on an unconscious girl.

I could not tell at first. Her hair was covering her face and the nuns, they were holding the stick-like scarred arms of a girl.

“Raven!” I heard a cry and I felt slow, the sounds came slow, I received the cry in slow motion.

I turned too slow, Miss Gilmore stepping up to the nuns and ripping the girl they were carrying from them. She knelt on the floor, her arms wrapped around the girl, one came up to her face and she shakily moved the long dirty hair out of the girl’s face. My heart stopped upon facial recognition.

Raven.

Her once soft cherry lips were now chapped, dry with a grayish color to them that scared the hell out of me. The bones on her face being all that was left to identify her. Her healthy skin now only in my memory, this Raven had all her flesh gone. Her eyes were closed and sunken into her skull.  Her skin pale white, did she even have blood?. There was a huge split on her skull and one that went down from her chin down to her collarbone. The skin split open.

“Open your eyes my baby, open your eyes” Miss Gilmore’s hands were stained with red substance.

Blood that was coming from the split open cut on Raven’s head. My eyes snapped to her chest and I fell over, an attempt to take a step send me to the concrete floor. I touched her wrist, checking for a pulse. My own heart was frantic.

“No, no you have to let her go” I went to touch the girl but her mother snapped her eyes towards me and I jumped back.

They were wide, full of so much rage.

“Miss Gilmore Raven needs to go to the hospital now!” I screeched looking up to the two nuns who were carrying Raven.

“Mother Superior has already called our church doctor. They got a bed ready. Let us get her there” One of the nuns tried to get through Miss Gilmore but the woman was begging Raven to open her eyes.

As a mother, she must have been in shock. The way she stared at Raven, wide eyes repeating the same words.

This woman was in shock.

“We need to take her” I nodded at the nuns “Hold her arms back, I must take Raven”

They followed my instructions, I had completely forgotten my position in this convent. They held Miss Gilmore, both gripping her arms and head while I took Raven out of her arms.

She was so light.

Too light.

I put my hands one under her neck, one under her legs and carried her. My eyes snapped up, just before I turned around. I saw her….

The woman who trained me.

Then I turned away. The strength I had, the speed in my walk to the Mission hospital. I had no idea how I got there, I knew the nurses placed her on the stretcher bed. I knew I saw them putting her on oxygen, I knew I turned to find Miss Gilmore running past me to her child. Eyes wild, frantic in her steps.

And I was certain I saw Claire staring at me like a child would at her monster.

Yet, my heart went with her…

Raven.

I staggered back, my hand falling onto my sunken belly. I looked down my eyes falling  at my blood stained chest where her head laid when I carried her. Flashbacks came back to me, it had been years….

Years of seeking his forgiveness. God had forgiven me. I forgave myself back then.

I did.

It happened.

I did…I did what I did. He forgave me. He did. I felt it….God forgave me. More Flashbacks haunted me. Memories blended together. New and old.

Until they all became Raven.

I knew then, that some part of me. This inner voice in my head. The one that knew how Raven was going to look at me now. The one that hated her for changing me, for bringing out this kind of person I was now. That part longed for something so unkind I loathed myself.

That part hoped when the doctor came back, they would announce Raven’s death.

☆ ☆ ☆
Ohw Elizabeth….

Short, I just wrote it to give you guys something.

I might be losing my ink

The reader who comments the most comments up to chapter 40 will decide how this book ends.