Dark Devotion

Chapter 1

Elena

Early morning Rome

Hospitals always smelled like bleach and regret.

I adjusted my name tag and pushed through the double doors into the ward, already feeling the exhaustion press between my shoulders. Night shift had left behind chaos—charts incomplete, IVs tangled, nurses half-asleep and half-snarling. Typical.

But I didn’t mind. I liked order. I liked quiet. I liked being useful.

“Room 203 needs a new IV line,” Giulia muttered as she rushed past, clipboard clutched to her chest. “And the kid in 211 is crying again.”

“Got it,” I said, tying my hair back.

I moved quickly, efficiently, slipping into the rhythm I’d built over the last year. Patients called me kind. Colleagues called me a little too quiet. I didn’t care much what anyone thought. I had a plan: work, save, finish nursing school, and maybe—someday—move far enough from the city that the sirens didn’t echo in my dreams.

Simple. Safe. Small.

Just how I liked it.

The day moved fast—until the stillness caught me off guard.

I stepped out into the staff courtyard during my break, a paper cup of lukewarm tea in my hands. The air was crisp and smelled faintly of wet stone and exhaust. Rome was just waking—light spilling across cobblestones, street vendors wheeling carts into place, pigeons fussing at the edge of a fountain.

It was peaceful, for once.

Until it wasn’t.

I heard the voices first. Around the side alley.

“No, don’t—he said not to leave her here—”

“Do you want to die out here? Just go—”

A car door slammed. Tires screeched. Then silence.

I froze.

There were no footsteps. No other voices. Just the flutter of tension in my chest, like my heartbeat suddenly knew something I didn’t.

I turned toward the alley. Slowly. Carefully.

A child sat there—curled into herself beside a dumpster, teddy bear clutched in both arms. Her knees were scraped, her dress torn, and something dark smeared her cheek. Her eyes, impossibly wide, met mine.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t move.

Just stared.

My heart cracked.

I crouched low, careful not to startle her. “Hi there,” I said softly. “Are you hurt?”

No answer.

Her grip tightened on the bear.

I glanced around, but the alley was empty. No bags. No note. Just the faint smell of burnt rubber and something metallic.

Where were her parents? Who would leave a child here?

“Okay,” I whispered. “It’s alright. You’re safe now.”

Still no answer. But she didn’t run when I reached for her hand.

Her fingers were ice cold.

I brought her inside through the emergency entrance, wrapped in a spare blanket I kept in my locker. She clung to me the whole way, her tiny frame shivering against mine.

“She was abandoned,” I told the attending nurse at triage. “Out by the side alley. Alone.”

The nurse's brows furrowed. “No one saw who left her?”

“Not that I could tell.”

They led the girl to pediatrics, but she refused to leave my side. She wouldn’t talk. Wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t let go of that worn teddy bear. She just sat on the hospital bed, staring at the wall like it was a tunnel only she could see through.

“I think you’re her comfort right now,” one of the nurses whispered to me later. “You might have to stay close until Child Services arrives.”

I nodded.

Something about the girl unsettled me—not her, exactly, but the silence around her. It was too heavy. Too rehearsed. Like she'd already learned the world could be cruel.

Hours passed. I stayed by her side, talking gently, offering food, getting nothing in return but blank stares. I told her my name. Asked for hers. No answer.

But just once, when I turned to leave, her small voice whispered: “Don’t let him find me.”

I stopped.

“Who?”

Her lips sealed again. The only sound was the mechanical rhythm of the heart monitor nearby.

I didn’t ask again. But the back of my neck prickled with unease.

Later, I passed the security desk and noticed something strange.

A man in a dark coat had asked for her. Not by name—just as “a girl dropped off this morning.”

He didn’t leave his name. Didn’t l

eave a number. Just a message:

“Tell whoever found her… she wasn’t meant to be seen.”

And suddenly, the hospital didn’t feel so safe anymore.