They called it The Convent of Saint Rosalia, but there were no saints here.
Not a single goddamn one.
From the outside, the place looked like your usual holy home with its layout of Gothic spires, stone angels weeping at every corner of the building, and ivy crawling up the walls.
Doves flew past the bell tower every morning, as if even they were trained to maintain the facade. The locals would always talk about how this place was a symbol of holiness, devotion, and the purity of the girls inside.
Purity? Pfft. That was a fucking joke because, take it from me, we weren't saints. We were stock.
"Stand straight! You're slouching again, Rose," hissed Sister Madeliene as she jabbed me in the ribs with her bony elbow.
"My apologies, Sister," I muttered, straightening up just enough to make her think I cared.
I didn't.
"'Stand straight, Rose!'" I mouthed dramatically in a mouse-like tone as soon as she turned her back.
I had ensured I added her signature crooked frown and flared nostrils. The girls around me tried not to laugh, but their shoulders were shaking under their thin white dresses like leaves in a breeze.
I didn't blame them. Laughter was the only currency we had left that didn't come with chains or contracts. And even that was taxed heavily by the so-called sisters.
I'd long stopped pretending I was like the other girls. I wasn't docile, obedient, and broken like they were. Some of them had been here since they were six. Others came in barely a year ago, frightened, trembling, and begging to go home.
Most of them adjusted. I didn't. I never would.
The white dresses they made us wear were too thin to be decent and too tight to be innocent. They claimed it symbolized purity, but I knew better. These were wrapping papers as we were gifts, after all. Virgins, tied with silk bows and waiting for rich, faceless buyers to rip us open.
Today was Selection Day.
We stood in a long hall lined with fake roses. All twenty-six of us were lined up like mannequins.
Say, flawless, silent, and scared girls. We didn't know who was coming, only that he was powerful, wealthy, and wanted a "breeder."
He didn't want a virgin wife or a lover. He wanted a virgin breeder. A womb with a heartbeat.
I rolled my eyes.
"Pray," commanded Sister Madeliene, and the girls bowed their heads.
I stayed up just a second longer, scanning the mirrored wall ahead. Of course, we couldn't see through it, but someone was watching us from behind that glass.
Like we were bloody meat market chic.
I bent my head and whispered, "Dear Saint Rosalia, patroness of virgins and unwilling wombs, deliver me from rich creeps and psychotic nuns. Amen."
"Rose," Madeliene snapped again. "What are you mumbling?"
"Just praying for deliverance, Sister."
***********
Let me tell you something about mothers: sometimes, the monsters don't hide under your bed. Sometimes, they push you into it and call it a sacrifice.
I'd been sixteen when my mother remarried. Her new husband had wandering hands and a temper. I warned her. She said I was being dramatic.
So, one night, I waited until he came stumbling in drunk, cornered me in the kitchen in his reeking boxer shorts, and I hit him over the head with a frying pan.
For the record, I only hit him twice. But he had to get multiple stitches and bandages that same night.
However, before then, I tied him to a chair using my old jump ropes and drew 'bastard' across his chest with my eyeliner as blood painted zig-zag stripes everywhere on his body.
The next morning, the police, or so they were disguised, came.
He yapped, and I got taken away.
Mom didn't even look me in the eye. She just signed the papers and said something about this place being "a holy sanctuary" where I'd be "safe."
Yeah. Safe, like how safe a cow is in a butcher's freezer.
************
"Number Six," called the voice.
My heart stopped at the announcement.
The intercom buzzed again. "Number Six. Step forward."
Madeliene's eyes shot daggers at me.
I knew my number. I was the sixth girl from the left. My stomach knotted as I stepped forward with bare feet cold against the floor. The mirrored wall in front of me blinked like someone was adjusting the light behind it.
I couldn't see him. But he could see me… whoever he was. I balled my hands into fists.
No fear, Rose. You already made it through one monster. This is just another.
"State your name," came the voice.
"Rose."
"Full name."
"Rose Verona Mercer."
Then, a pause ensued. I wished things would remain like this forever; paused and in static, so that I'd never get to the point of selection.
"She's the one from the Noxford file," someone whispered behind the glass.
It was a baritone male voice. I love those.
"She's too sharp," said another.
"You need to be sharp to survive childbirth," a third one muttered.
I grinned, baring my teeth mischievously. "Should I start the interview, or are we going straight to insemination?"
Madeliene hissed, "Silence!"
The panel of glass blinked again. Then, one could hear a click. The mirrored wall slid open just enough to reveal a glimpse of shadow and gold.
Someone stood there. He was tall, and I could almost feel the change in the ambiance at the taste of his demeanor behind the light.
I couldn't see him, but I could feel him. Did that even make any sense? How does one feel a fellow human?
There was something about his aura that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. My instincts had begun a dirge like they already were attending my funeral.
Fight or flight mode had been activated in full force all over my senses. But I stood still. I was stubborn like that.
He stepped a little nearer, and I saw the curve of a smirk in the half-light.
"Interesting," he commented softly.
Then the wall shut again.
*********
That night, the dormitory was buzzing as speculations flew around. Of course, one would expect gossip between us girls after the selection process.
"You saw him?" whispered Blythe, the girl in the bed beside mine.
She was seventeen, with big eyes and no backbone. "What did he look like?"
"I didn't see him. I just, I don't know… felt him."
Blythe shivered. "They say he's not human."
"Good," I facepalmed. "Humans suck."
"Rose…"
"He didn't pick me anyway."
"Are you sure?"
I turned over in bed, staring at the moon through the barred window rather than replying to her.
No, I wasn't sure.
But I'd learned how to lie to myself when it mattered.
Please, please, big, scary, psychotic man… do not pick me.