The Devil who raised me

l

choes through the

ourth floorboard-that's when the crying starts. Not mine. Never mine. Katya's this time, two floors down where the older girls take th

th me. The splinters bite back, but I don't pul

li

usual drunken fumbling-this is deliber

thers under the door. Her fingernails scratch the

just-blood. A mangled sparrow, its wings bent backwards at impossible angles. M

ight braids framing a face that might've been pretty if not for the cruelty twisting i

in with sticky fingers. "Just like y

ldn't hurt any

fight. Instead, I focus on the distant *drip-drip* of a leaking pi

ng my head against the wall. "Freak." Her kn

ANG

s front door e

knocks at St. Cecilia's after midnight unles

, low and clipped. The matron shrieks, then cuts of

e first time in fifteen yea

s stop outsi

nob t

ows. No-two men flanking a third. The flankers are huge, knuckles

ll sharp angles and eerie stillness. His gaze slides over

nees bleeding. A de

strils

forward. "Boss, the

raises a finger

ose, I see the scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the unnatu

oward my fac

rom his pocket-real linen, monogrammed *AV*-and da

like he's known it foreve

n has her by the hair, a knife at her th

s thumb traces my cheekbone, leaving a

o my dress. I know exactly what he is. He comes to collect the gro

no

predator baring teeth. "Good

tosses him a knife-bone handle, serrated edge. T

it to me,

bulge. "No

yanks her head back,

voice drops to a

the blade, then at her. At the girl who's made my life hell for fifteen years. W

gers t

he knife and

till. His men exchange gla

rozen blue eyes. "I do

of si

ke shattering glass. When he looks down again, som

nge

ek. His skin smells like gunpowder and expensive cologne. "

s, Anna

m me, he snaps his finge

lashes. Ann

my eyes locked on his as war

filthy hair behind my ea