Chapter Text
Sister Beatrice had decided to stay longer in the cathedral that night. At 23, her world was mostly defined by all these stone walls, by the silence, the lines of her habit, that served almost as an armor for her guilt. Beatrice couldn’t say she was happy, and she couldn’t say she didn’t feel lonely. But she had a purpose, and serving something bigger than herself had finally given an end to all of her shame. She came to the Convent to bury her sins, to become pure, to become nothing. And in this empty nave, she felt like nothing. Which was the point.
She decided to take the long way back to the convent’s residential wing, through the deserted garden cloister. The scent of damp earth and night blooming jasmine was nice. She likes smelling it from time to time, and she especially liked how the world looked when the only light was a yellowish moon behind the skeins of clouds.
Beatrice couldn’t have predicted it. How he materialized from the black mouth of an alcove, his shape detaching itself from the stone. She thought at first he was a postulant doing penance, before the smell of cheap whiskey and unwashed skin hit her. She couldn’t even let her brain catch up to what was happening when his hand, rough and hot, clamped over her mouth from behind, crushing her lips against her own teeth.
“Quiet,” his voice slithered into her ear. She flinched.
The world upended. Thought shattered into prismatic shards of terror. No. No. God, please,. Her prayer was a silent scream, lost in the pressure of his palm. He dragged her, her heels scraping against ancient flagstones, into behind a utility room off the cloister.
He threw her forward. Beatrice stumbled and her hands slapped against cold concrete. Before she could scramble up, a weight fell on her back, driving the air from her lungs in a bruised gasp. His hands were everywhere, yanking, tearing. The sound of her veil ripping was to her perhaps the loudest she had ever heard. The coif followed, and her hair fell loose. He wrestled the heavy wool tunic over her head, the scapular, the belt. He didn’t just take her clothes; he tore away her shield. The heavy wool tunic, the scapular, the veil, they were the only things holding her together, the only things that made her Sister Beatrice. As they were ripped away, the cold air hit her skin like a burn. She wasn't a nun anymore. In the dirt, shivering and exposed, she was just meat.
“Look at you,” he sneered, a dark shape looming over her. He fumbled with his trousers. His foot connected with her side, not hard yet, a warning. “Roll over.”
Beatrice couldn’t move. She couldn’t move; she was trembling way too much. He cursed, and his hand fisted in her hair and wrenched her onto her back. The concrete was icy and abrasive against her skin. In the yellow moonlight, she saw his face - ruddy, sneering, eyes blank with entitlement and drink. And she saw him, freed from his clothing, thick and erect. A cold, foreign dread, deeper than fear, pooled in her stomach. There was a part of her brain telling her to scream, to get up, but her jaw and legs felt so shaky she could barely do anything.
He lowered himself, his knees pinning her thighs apart. The weight of him was immense, crushing, blocking out the moonlight.
Beatrice was scared. Tears leaked hot and fast from her eyes as he screamed in her ear, commanding her to take her underwear off. And the worst part, the part that would haunt her later, was that she obeyed. Terrified of the violence, her own hands, shaking, traitorous, of course they were, reached down. She sobbed as she slid the cotton down her legs, doing his work for him.
And he bit her. Not a love bite, he let his teeth down on the tender curve of her breast. She cried out, almost an animal sound of pain. As the ache radiated through her, he positioned himself. She felt the blunt, terrifying pressure at her entrance, a place no one, no one, had ever touched, not even herself.
And there was a voice in the back of her mind telling her to run, to get up or scream. But she no longer belonged to her body; Beatrice felt as if she was somewhere else. Especially in the moment…
He pushed.
A sound tore from her throat, a raw, ragged thing that was less a scream and more the visceral noise of something ripping. And it was. He was too big, she was too small, too dry, too terrified. Her body resisted, and he grunted, shoved harder, and there was a terrible, wet, tearing sensation as he breached her.
She cried out. And for a terrifying second, Beatrice’s mind realized that she was about to lose her purity. She cried more, until its concept evaporated under the physical torment. It didn’t feel like it was about guilt anymore. It was about survival, and the body’s screaming certainty that this would end it.
He began to move. Each thrust was worse than the last one. The initial tear burned, and he bit her breast again. He then held her face, one grimy hand covering her mouth and nose, pressing her head back against the unyielding floor. She couldn’t breathe. Spots danced in her vision. Her hips were ground into the concrete, the skin of her back and shoulders scraping raw.
A noise escaped her, a choked, guttural moan forced out by the rhythm of his assault and the struggle for air. He heard it.
She waited for the thunder. She waited for the walls to shake, for an angel, for a hand to strike him down. But the cathedral remained silent. The shadows didn't move. She was screaming for her Father, and the doors remained shut. The man shifted his hand from her face to her throat, squeezing just enough to terrify, and used the other to probe between her buttocks.
She felt a slick finger, slick with her own blood or his sweat, she didn’t know, press behind her. She tensed, feeling even more terrified. For a second, she was no longer Beatrice. She was watching herself from afar. And this girl, this poor girl, who looked terrified, only showed more fear. No, not there, please…
He pushed inside her, and the pain was so absolute it turned the world white. Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find the image of the Virgin Mary she prayed to every morning, but all she could see was the black grime of the floor. A vessel being broken open. She tried to recite a Hail Mary in her mind, to drown out the wet, awful sounds of what he was doing to her, but the words shattered before they could form.
She stopped screaming. Her mind couldn't stay in her body anymore; it was too full of fire, too full of him. Beatrice fixed her eyes on a small crack in the concrete floor. She stared at it until her vision blurred, trying to pour her entire soul into that tiny fissure, trying to crawl inside the stone where he couldn't touch her. But the pain kept dragging her back.
In the fractured haze, her brain brings her to a memory she hadn’t let herself touch in years. She tries to stay in its softness, even with all the shame. At sixteen, she had laid in her bed and sinned in the quiet of her mind, dreaming of a touch that wasn't like this. In those secret, shameful daydreams, it was a woman. It was soft hands cupping her face, a whisper of love, a question asked and an answer given freely. She had joined the Order to scourge that want from her soul, to keep herself sealed and sacred. She had denied herself the soft touch so she could remain pure for the Divine. And this was the cruelest joke of all: she had saved herself from love, only to be broken by hate.
He spent himself inside her with a final, grinding thrust and a hoarse shout. The feeling of it, hot and alien, triggered a visceral convulsion of disgust. And she could only lay broken, weeping silently, a thin trickle of blood and semen on her inner thighs. She thought it was over, feeling so much pain she could barely think clearly.
Then his boot connected with her side.
He kicked her, and she heard the crack before she felt it, it was a sickening, wet snap that reverberated through her entire skeleton. The pain felt like an explosion, blasting away the last vestiges of coherent thought. She screamed then, a true, air-ripping scream. He kicked again. Another crack, this one lower. Broken ribs, at least two on her right side. Breathing became even more impossible.
“Get up,” he snarled. “On your hands and knees. Now.”
She couldn’t. The pain in her side was gnawing at her lung, but he hauled her up by her hair. She shrieked as the movement jarred her shattered ribs. And she had no time to think of anything else when he forced her onto all fours. The position was torturous; it pulled at the breaks with every shuddering breath, putting pressure on her torn body. She swayed because her arms were trembling so violently.
“Stay there,” he commanded, kneeling behind her again. He was hard once more. How long had it been? Beatrice might have lost her consciousness at some point, it all feels like it just happened. And so she had been given no break once he pushed into her from behind. She collapsed forward with a wail, but he caught her under her stomach, yanking her back up. “I said stay!”
He held her there, in that agonizing position, with her back arched, broken ribs screaming, arms quivering with the effort of keeping her torso from falling and driving the bone shards deeper. He took his time, moving with slow, deep, deliberate thrusts, each one reopening the tears, spreading the burning.
“So tight,” he grunted, one hand digging into her hip, the other snaking around to her mouth. His fingers, stained with her blood and sweat from where he’d touched her, forced their way between her lips. She gagged on the taste of salt, iron, and dirt, on the tangible proof of her own defilement. He fucked her like that, with his pace calculated to prolong her suffering in the cruellest possible position.
Her arms gave out. They had to. With a final, broken whimper, her elbows buckled. He didn’t catch her. Her chest hit the concrete, and the world went white. A silent scream filled her skull as the broken ends of her ribs ground together. He followed her down, his weight on her back, and finished with his face pressed against her torn shoulder, his final thrusts driving her broken body against the floor.
When he stood, he looked down at her. She was a puddle of pain, barely conscious, her breaths shallow, wet hiccups that stabbed her with each inhalation. A warm, shameful flood spread beneath her, and she only later would realize that her bladder had let go. The hot urine pooled around her hips, mixing with the blood and dust.
He made a sound of disgust, and his boot swung one last time, connecting with her already ravaged hip. Then, he was gone. Beatrice did not even hear him leave, but once silence rushed back in, she laid in the dark.
In the wet of her own voided body, listening to the silence of the cathedral. She had come here to bury her sins, to become nothing.
She looked at the blood on her thighs, and realized with a terrifying clarity that her prayer had been answered. She was finally nothing. God had looked away, and left her in the dust.
The night air was crisp, almost cold, as Ava made her way down the alley that served as her shortcut home. Her feet ached from the double shift, and she could still smell the stale beer and lime wedges clinging to her shirt. Four in the morning walks had become routine-the city at this hour belonged to people like her, the bartenders and night shift workers, the insomniacs and the lost.
She was humming something off-key, some pop song that had been playing on repeat at the bar, when she saw the shape.
At first, she thought it was just trash bags. Someone had dumped something. But then the shape moved-barely, just a tremor-and Ava's heart seized in her chest.
"Oh my God."
She ran forward, her exhaustion forgotten. It was a woman, curled on her side against the grimy brick wall. Even in the dim orange glow of the streetlight at the alley's mouth, Ava could see she was in bad shape. Her clothing was torn, dark fabric that might have been a dress or robe under her, and there was blood. Too much blood. She was mostly naked.
"Hey, hey, I'm here," Ava said, her voice shaking as she dropped to her knees a few feet away. She didn't want to startle her or step into the fluids on the floor. "Can you hear me?"
The woman's eyes were open, staring at nothing. They were dark, rimmed with red, and utterly empty. Her breathing was shallow, rapid. Shock, Ava's mind supplied. She's in shock.
Ava pulled out her phone with trembling hands, her thumb stabbing at the emergency call button.
"911, what's your emergency?"
"I need an ambulance right now. Corner of Fifth and Brennan, in the alley. There's a woman, she's-" Ava's voice cracked. She took in the scene more fully now: the torn clothing, the way the woman was lying, the wetness on the ground beneath her, the glint of a silver cross around her neck catching the light. "She's been hurt. Badly. I think-I think she was attacked. Please hurry."
The dispatcher's voice was calm, professional, walking her through questions. Was the woman breathing? Yes. Was she conscious? Technically, but not responsive. Was Ava safe? Was the attacker still present?
Ava's eyes darted around the alley. Empty. Just her and this broken woman.
"He's gone," Ava said. "Please, just send someone."
"They're on their way. Stay on the line with me."
But Ava couldn't just crouch there with a phone to her ear while this woman lay suffering. She set the phone down on speaker and carefully moved a bit closer.
"Hey," she said softly. "My name's Ava. Help is coming, okay? You're going to be okay." It felt like a lie, but she had to say something. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just here until the ambulance gets here."
The woman's eyes flickered, finally focusing on Ava's face. For a moment, there was a recognition of another human presence, and then-terror. Pure, animal terror.
She tried to scramble back, but her body barely responded. A broken whimper escaped her throat, and she curled tighter into herself, her arms wrapping protectively around her torso.
"No, no, it's okay," Ava said quickly, holding up both hands. "I'm not going to touch you. I promise. I'm just here. You're safe now."
Safe. What a useless word. How could this woman ever feel safe again?
Ava stayed frozen in her crouched position, several feet away, her hands still raised. She kept talking, keeping her voice low and steady, the way she'd once heard someone talk to a frightened dog.
"The ambulance is coming. They'll be here any minute. You don't have to do anything. Just breathe, okay? Can you breathe with me?"
She took an exaggerated breath in, then out. The woman's eyes were still locked on her, wide and glassy, but Ava thought she saw her chest rise and fall a bit more steadily.
"That's good. That's really good." Ava swallowed hard. She wanted to reach out, to take this woman's hand, to do something, but she knew that would only make it worse. "My name's Ava Silva. I'm a bartender at Jack's, about four blocks from here. I was just walking home. I'm so glad I found you."
Was that the right thing to say? Ava had no idea. She'd never done this before. She'd broken up bar fights and called cabs for drunk patrons, but this-this was so far beyond her experience it was terrifying.
The woman's lips moved. Ava leaned in slightly, straining to hear.
"...don't..."
"Don't what?" Ava asked gently. "I won't do anything you don't want. I promise."
"Don't... touch..."
"I won't touch you," Ava confirmed immediately. "Not unless you want me to. I'm just going to sit right here."
She settled onto the dirty ground, ignoring the dampness seeping into her jeans, and kept her distance. Two, three feet. Enough space. She kept talking-about nothing, about everything. About the drunk guy at the bar who'd tried to tip her with a lottery ticket. About the stray cat that hung around the dumpster behind Jack's. Anything to fill the silence, to let this woman know she wasn't alone.
In the distance, sirens wailed.
"Hear that?" Ava said, and she couldn't keep the relief out of her voice. "That's them. They're almost here."
The woman's breathing quickened again, panic rising. Her eyes darted toward the mouth of the alley.
"It's okay, they're here to help," Ava said quickly. "They're going to take care of you. Get you to a hospital."
Red and blue lights strobed across the alley walls. Ava stood and waved toward the street. "Here! We're here!"
Two paramedics rushed in, a man and a woman, carrying their kits. They took in the scene with practiced, professional efficiency.
"Ma'am, can you hear me?" the female paramedic said, kneeling down but maintaining distance. "My name's Sarah. We're here to help you."
The woman on the ground didn't respond. Her eyes found Ava's face again, and there was something desperate in them.
"What's her name?" Sarah asked Ava.
"I don't know. I just found her."
The male paramedic was already assessing from a distance, his eyes taking in the torn clothing, the blood, the way she was curled in on herself. His expression darkened.
"We need to get her on the stretcher," he said quietly to his partner. "Get her to the ER."
Sarah nodded and turned back to the woman. "Okay, we're going to help you up now. We'll be as gentle as we can."
But when Sarah reached out, the woman recoiled violently, a sharp cry of pain and fear tearing from her throat. She tried to pull away, her body screaming in protest at the movement.
"It's okay, it's okay!" Sarah pulled back immediately. "We're not going to hurt you."
But the woman was shaking her head frantically now, tears finally breaking through and streaming down her face. She was gasping for breath, her eyes wild.
Ava stepped forward without thinking. "Wait. Let me try."
Sarah glanced at her partner, uncertain.
"She knows you," the male paramedic observed. "Or at least, you're not as threatening as we are."
Ava knelt down again, her heart hammering. "Hey. It's Ava, remember? I'm just Ava." She kept her hands visible, open. "They need to get you to the hospital. But I know you're scared. I know everything hurts."
The woman's eyes locked onto hers. There was a question in them, or maybe a plea.
"I can help," Ava offered, her voice barely above a whisper. "If you want. I can help you get to the stretcher. But only if you want me to."
A long moment of silence. Then, the smallest nod.
Ava's breath caught. "Okay. Okay, I'm going to move closer now." She inched forward slowly, telegraphing every movement. When she was within reach, she extended one hand, palm up. "Can I take your hand?"
Another tiny nod.
Ava's fingers closed gently around the woman's hand. It was ice cold, trembling. She could feel the bones, delicate and fragile. "I've got you. We're going to sit you up first, just a little bit. It's going to hurt, and I'm so sorry, but we have to do this."
The woman's grip tightened on Ava's hand, and Ava took that as permission.
"On three," Sarah said, moving into position to support the woman's other side but not touching yet. "One, two, three."
Ava helped pull the woman upright, supporting her weight as best she could. The cry that tore from the woman's throat was agonizing to hear-a sound of pure suffering. She doubled over, clutching at her ribs.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Ava murmured, her own eyes stinging. "Just breathe. You're doing so good."
The woman was gasping, tears flowing freely now. But she was upright. That was something.
"We need to get her on the stretcher," the male paramedic said, bringing it closer.
Ava could see more now, and she wished she couldn't. The blood on the woman's thighs. The bruising visible even in the low light, how the right side of her face was swollen and dirty from the concrete floor. The way she held herself, protecting her torso. And that cross, still gleaming at her throat-a nun, Ava realized with a sickening lurch. This was a nun.
"Okay," Ava said, forcing her voice to remain steady. "We're going to stand now. I'm going to help you. Is that okay?"
The woman didn't nod this time, but she didn't pull away either. Ava took that as permission.
"Sarah's going to support your other side," Ava explained. "We're going to lift you together, very slowly. Just hold onto me."
The process was excruciating. Every tiny movement brought fresh sounds of pain. The woman's legs could barely support her weight. Ava could feel how badly she was shaking, feel the warmth of fresh blood soaking through what remained of her clothing. When they finally got her the three steps to the stretcher, lowering her down was another fresh hell.
The woman cried out again, a broken, desperate sound, and her hand clamped down on Ava's with crushing force.
"You're okay, you're okay," Ava kept repeating, though it was so obviously not true. "The worst part's over. You're on the stretcher now."
Sarah was already working, checking vitals, placing a blanket over the woman's shaking form with careful gentleness. The male paramedic was calling ahead to the hospital, his voice low and grim.
"Trauma team on standby. Female, mid-twenties, probable sexual assault, visible injuries including possible broken ribs, significant blood loss..."
The words felt clinical and wrong. This wasn't a list of injuries. This was a person whose world had been destroyed.
"Are you coming with us?" Sarah asked Ava as they prepared to wheel the stretcher out.
Ava looked down at the woman-at her hand still gripping Ava's, at her eyes silently begging her not to leave.
"Yeah," Ava said, her voice rough. "Yeah, I'm coming."
The ambulance ride was a blur of movement and sound. Sarah and her partner worked efficiently, starting an IV, checking for internal injuries, speaking in that same calm, professional tone. But Ava only had eyes for the woman on the stretcher.
She'd managed to position herself near the woman's head, crouched awkwardly in the limited space, their hands still linked. The woman's eyes were squeezed shut now, her jaw clenched against the pain as the ambulance bounced over uneven streets.
"We're almost there," Ava said quietly. "Just a few more minutes."
Sarah was cleaning and assessing some of the visible wounds, her expression growing darker. When she got to the woman's chest, even through the torn fabric, the bruising was evident and extensive. Bite marks. Ava felt rage surge through her, hot and violent, and had to force it down. This woman didn't need her anger right now.
"Has she said anything?" Sarah asked Ava.
"Just asked me not to touch her. Before." Ava stroked her thumb across the back of the woman's hand, a small, gentle motion. "What's your name?" she tried again. "Can you tell me your name?"
The woman's eyes opened. Her lips moved.
"...Beatrice."
It was barely a whisper, but Ava heard it.
"Beatrice," Ava repeated, and something in her chest tightened. A name. This woman had a name, a life, an identity beyond what had been done to her. "That's a beautiful name. I'm so glad I found you, Beatrice."
Beatrice's eyes were swimming with fresh tears, and this time Ava recognized them not as pain but as something else. Gratitude, maybe. Or just the relief of not being alone.
"You're going to be okay," Ava said, and this time she let herself believe it might be true. Not today, maybe not for a long time, but someday. "I've got you. I'm not going anywhere."
The ambulance pulled into the hospital bay, and everything accelerated. Doors flew open, voices called out, more people in scrubs appeared. They were pulling the stretcher out, wheeling Beatrice toward the emergency entrance.
Ava tried to follow, but a nurse stopped her at the door.
"Are you family?"
"No, I-I just found her. But she-"
She looked back at Beatrice, who was already being swarmed by the trauma team. Beatrice's eyes found hers across the chaos, terrified and pleading.
"Please," Ava said to the nurse. "She's scared. She only trusts me right now. I know I'm nobody, but please."
The nurse looked between them, then at Sarah, who had followed them in.
"Rape victim," Sarah said quietly to the nurse. "Won't let anyone touch her except this one."
The nurse's expression shifted. "Okay. But you stay out of the way and you do exactly what we say."
"Yes. Anything."
They let Ava through, and she hurried to Beatrice's side, reclaiming her hand. "I'm here. I'm right here."
A doctor appeared, a woman with kind eyes and graying hair. "Beatrice, my name is Dr. Morrison. We're going to take care of you. You're safe here."
But Beatrice wasn't looking at the doctor. She was looking at Ava.
And Ava realized, with a weight that settled in her bones, that she couldn't leave. Not now. Not until Beatrice was ready to let her go.
"I'm not going anywhere," Ava promised again. "I'll stay as long as you need me."
It was a promise she meant with everything in her.