Dark Side of the Cloth by Brooklyn Cross

Yasmine wiped away her tears with the back of her arm as she worked. In all her time around the dead, she’d never gotten emotional over the bodies she attended to with her work. No matter how they came to her, she did her job and made them look their very best. But the sight of the six young girls before her made her soul ache for what was done to them. Four of the girls she’d seen around town over the last twelve years and distinctly remembered when they had disappeared. The parents’ mournful pleas on T.V. to have them returned, the side-eye glances and rumors about the fathers as if they were the ones to do something terrible to their own children.

It always brought up memories that she could never forget, memories that cut to the core of who she was. Yasmine rubbed the cheek of the girl closest to her. Her eyelids had been crudely sewn open with glass eyes replacing her once beautiful green ones. A fresh round of tears blurred her vision. She’d walked for days as a volunteer to find this girl, all of them hoping for the best and prepared for the worst, but nothing could have prepared her for this.

The girl had supposedly gotten lost on a family camping trip. The parents, while cooking dinner and getting the fire going, hadn’t noticed when she had wandered away from the campsite.

At the time, Yasmine’s greatest fear was the girl had drowned in the nearby stream, or an animal had taken her down, but it was a far worse kind of predator that had snatched her. All the time they’d walked and prayed, the young girl’s fate already had been sealed. She’d been brutalized and then frozen in time like some exotic miniature stature. It made her stomach sick, and she was once more digging up another dead girl like Raquel.

Yasmine had gone to the hospital to pick up the small bodies and overheard Sheriff Daniel’s deep voice speaking with the coroner. She should’ve announced her presence or walked away, but like a car wreck, she couldn’t seem to help herself from listening. She stood like a statue outside the slightly ajar door and listened to every gut-wrenching detail. Her stomach rolled with the coroner’s description of the physical abuse and their painful deaths. Her lunch had threatened to reappear as a wave of sorrow consumed her. What was done to these girls was beyond deplorable, and she couldn’t understand how someone could do anything so vile, and now her mind wouldn’t stop conjuring her sister tied to the bed, raped and frozen in time.

“It’s okay. No one will hurt you ever again,” she whispered. Yasmine gently wiped off the garish pink lipstick that had been applied to their sweet little faces.

She removed her glasses, trying without success to stop the tears. She leaned against the table, a strangled gasp escaping her lips as pain lanced through her heart. She struggled to breathe as memories of her sister refused to quiet and instead flooded her system as if it was just yesterday that she was found.

Fear suddenly clawed at her throat, and she took a few shaky inhales, trying not to hyperventilate. It had taken many years to stop the debilitating panic attacks, but one threatened to grip her now. Hot tears rolled freely down her cheeks as the emotion swallowed her, dragging her down into her personal hell.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Yasmine let out a scream as she whipped around. Heart beating wildly, she looked up into the eyes of the one person that could make her feel better and worse at the same time. Father O’Sullivan didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his much larger frame. It was what broke the dam in her soul. She sobbed into his black robes and was only mildly aware of his hand rubbing circles over her back as he whispered in her ear.

Yasmine gripped the coarse fabric in her fists as she buried her head. She had no concept of time. She could’ve stood like that for one minute or one hundred before she finally was spent. Her legs shook, and as much as she didn’t want to leave his hold, she needed to sit down, or she was liable to fall over.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Tissues appeared before her eyes as Dean guided her to a chair. Yasmine let him help her sit down and then wiped at her eyes before putting her glasses back on.

Dean knelt in front of her the same way he had at Mabel’s, and she immediately regretted her outburst.

“I must look like a complete wreck.” She wrung the tissue in her hands. Dean reached out and took her hands in his own, giving them a gentle squeeze. She slowly looked up into his eyes, which seemed to switch from honey to hazel with his moods. They captivated her. Truthfully everything about him captivated her, but he was forbidden. God help her, but that only seemed to spur her feelings on more.

“You’re beautiful. You could never be anything but.” Dean reached up, wiping the tears from her cheek. She couldn’t help the little shiver that traveled through her body at the simple touch. “Don’t ever apologize for caring. I love that you are so passionate.”

“What was done to them is terrible, but it’s—bringing up old memories. I’ll be fine. I just need a few moments to collect myself. Thank you for letting me cry all over you.”

She reached out and wiped at the large wet spot she had created on the front of his robes. “Look what I did.”

Dean grabbed her wrist and ever so slowly brought it to his lips. She was powerless to quiet the beating of her heart or the explosion that felt like a million hummingbirds fluttering in her stomach. His lush, oh so kissable lips gently touched over her racing pulse, her body as hot as if she was laying out in the midday summer sun. Wiggling in her seat, she needed to put some distance between them before she did something she’d regret. Standing too quickly, she stumbled over her own feet. Dean wrapped his arm around her waist and rose to his full height.

Another shuddering breath left her lips as she stared up into his eyes, all too aware of his fingertips as they skimmed up her ribcage and the heat pressing into her from his body. She was suddenly very hot and wet—it was as if she were melting in his grasp.

Yasmine opened her mouth and ran her tongue across her bottom lip. She didn’t even care that she looked like she was begging him to kiss her. She would throw away every moral she had for one night with this man. Dean cupped her face, his lips hovering just above hers. Yasmine closed her eyes, hardly able to believe this was happening. She clung to the front of his robes, or she would not have stayed vertical. She didn’t dare move, not wanting to scare him off. Her heart fluttered as Dean’s lips skimmed her own, an electrical shock racing through her body at the light touch.

She wanted to grab his head, deepen the kiss, and devourer the taste of him.

“I’m sorry, Yasmine, I just can’t,” Dean whispered in her ear, his voice warm and ragged.

It took a moment to register what he’d said, but as he took a small step back and opened her eyes to stare into his concerned ones. Like an ice-cold rain, humiliation washed over her and left her freezing in its wake. How could she have been so stupid to think a priest, a man of the cloth, would throw all that away just to kiss her?

It was a ridiculous thought that he felt the same way as she did—she recognized at that moment that her mind was building up his actions as more than what they were intended to be. Heat flushed her body and replaced the cold as shame took over.

“I…I…excuse me.” Yasmine darted for the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. She laid her head against the cool wood. Fresh tears trickled from her eyes as the torrent of emotions made her their victim once more.

The death of Raquel had changed her in ways that she couldn’t put into words. Her mother committing suicide, and going to her grave believing that Yasmine had been the cause of Raquel’s demise, was more emotionally traumatizing than she realized.

That was until one day she woke up and didn’t care if she lived or died.

She’d stared into the mirror and reflected on all she was and wasn’t. She had no friends except Mabel. Then, when she went to college, she kept her grades up and slept with men to try and feel anything because anything was better than the aching loneliness that had slowly blanketed her until she had become consumed by it.

Coming home for her father’s funeral had been a step to face her inner demons, and she thought she was failing at that until Father O’Sullivan came to town. She felt alive for the first time, her body burning with emotion and desire. The feelings were beyond her comprehension. But the joke was on her because he was a man that she couldn’t have. A man that she would never have. Once more, the world and God laughed in her face, but she didn’t understand what she’d done to earn their wrath.

What was wrong with her?