Lust (Saints & Sinners #1)

Chapter 3

3

brAD

“I f you’re not gonna get into why you called this meeting, will you at least stop pacing?” Cody says. “You’re making my anxiety flare up, and it’s been bad enough lately.”

I halt, steadying my breathing. Deep, measured breaths. “Better?” I ask.

“No. You’re making me even more anxious that way. Just keep pacing.”

As I resume my back and forth, my mind’s all over the place. I’m a fucking wreck since my interaction with Luke this morning at breakfast.

“What the hell is going on?” Seth asks, trying to get it out of me after I finished rubbing one out in a restroom stall and grabbed him when he got out of his next class.

“We need to have a meeting. Later. With Cody.”

“You can’t give me more than that?”

“It’s about Luke Waters, and I just want to wait, okay? Back off, and we’ll talk about it later.”

That whole discussion in the kitchen fucked with my head.

That Luke remembered what Seth did to him.

Then how he started to take off his fucking shirt…and I about lost my fucking mind…well, my load, really.

Yesterday in the showers, after our fight on the field, my physical reaction to him was intense but only showed with a semi. This time it was overwhelming.

And excruciating.

Something’s wrong. Very wrong.

Which is why I called the meeting at the old church this evening.

I check my phone. We said eight, and it’s 7:56 now. Seth is punctual. He’ll be here soon.

Cody, sitting at an old desk—one of many around this cellar—folds his arms, nestling his face in them like a pillow. Despite what we’ve done to straighten the cellar out, it’s still just a bunch of junk—old boards and furniture—that we’ve rearranged so we can have our meetings.

A familiar sound comes from upstairs, and a few moments later Seth comes through the door at the top of the stairs. “So what the hell is this about?” He heads down, slinging his backpack around to his front.

I spit it out. “Luke knows what you did yesterday.”

“What?” Seth reaches the bottom of the steps and sets his backpack on the floor.

“Wait, what did Seth do yesterday?” Cody asks, pushing to his feet.

“Don’t make this a huge thing,” Seth says. “Sometimes they feel like something was a bit off, or like something happened in the conversation they can’t remember. That’s not weird. It’s happened before. You both know this.”

“He said he thought you might have hypnotized him.”

“The fuck?” Cody says. “Seth, you used your fucking powers on him? You didn’t tell me that.” He sounds hurt, and I’m not surprised since they tell each other pretty much everything.

“I didn’t want to worry you while you were still recovering,” Seth tells him, referring to the spell we performed last weekend here in the church cellar, during which Cody received a name: Luke Waters. The one the Guides warned us about.

Seth goes on, “And Mr. Bright Idea over here was about to get into a fistfight with the guy.”

“I was getting the ball rolling,” I say, “to make his stay here hell enough for him to want to leave.”

After discovering Luke was the one we needed to get rid of, we agreed we would fuck with him enough to get him to drop out. I would start being an ass to him, and Seth and Cody would use their powers gradually to make his stay as unpleasant as possible.

I’m quickly realizing it won’t be that simple.

“It was a little over-the-top,” Seth says, “and you nearly provoked him into a fight that might’ve gotten you both expelled.”

“Maybe that would have been for the best,” I say.

“You don’t mean that, Brad,” Cody says. “We want to save him, not ruin his chances of getting an education. He needs to leave here on good terms so he can enroll somewhere else. And just because he’s gone doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. We need your powers here at St. Lawrence.”

“No, I didn’t really want that,” I say. “I just…”

I hesitate. It’s difficult to get into this next part.

How fixated I was on him on the field. Studying him as he flicked his nearly black bangs off his forehead. The pink in his cheeks when he really got going.

Then…what it felt like being near him. What touching him did to me.

Luke brought out something in me, and in a moment, all I wanted to do was keep him safe from harm. In a way I’ve never experienced before.

“Yesterday was the limit with my power,” Seth says. “If you had gotten into a fight, I wouldn’t have been able to get you out of it. I had to push on him twice . It didn’t take like it normally does. I wonder how I fucked it up.”

Which brings me to the shit that’s been on my mind. “I don’t think you did anything wrong. There’s something messed up about this guy.”

Cody studies me. “Something else happened, didn’t it?”

Heat surges to my cheeks. “Are you reading me right now?”

“When did I get this inexhaustible power all of a sudden? I’m still fucking zapped from last weekend.”

“Stop changing the subject,” Seth snaps at me. “What happened with Luke?”

“I—I—just know there’s something wrong.”

“Say it,” Cody presses. “You were fucking him, and something weird happened. It’s not like we need to guess what it could be with you.”

Seth grimaces. “When the hell did you have time to fuck him?”

I roll my eyes. I get why this is their assumption, and it’s related, but damn, I wish my power wasn’t seduction—though really, only right now. I definitely enjoy it most of the time.

“We didn’t fuck. I already felt something on the field with him. I think it’s what made me lose control. And after, when we were in the showers, I was giving him shit, he pushed me, and I felt this jolt move through me. It was intense. I had to use my amulet to keep myself from having a raging hard-on, but even that didn’t get me down all the way.”

“I did see that,” Seth says.

“And this morning, I bumped into him in the kitchen, and fuck, I was like a stone as soon as I saw him. I was playing it off fine, but it wasn’t just that. I wanted to fuck him like a goddamn animal—like wild, obsessive thoughts, the kind you get when you’re thirteen. And then he started to take his shirt off—”

“In the kitchen?” Cody asks.

“He got ketchup on it.”

Cody and Seth exchange a confused glance.

“This isn’t the part of the story that matters. Anyway, him taking his shirt off was too much for me, and out of desperation, I grabbed his wrist to stop him, and holy fucking hell—I haven’t done any hard drugs, but if that’s what it feels like, I don’t understand how anybody’s ever able to get clean. I thought I was about to cream right through my pants.”

Cody’s face twists up. “It was hot until you said cream .”

“Cody, be serious,” Seth says. “Go on, Brad. Then what happened?”

“I got the hell out of there and had to bust one out in the restroom. Then I ran into you and called the meeting.”

Seth bites his bottom lip, his gaze wandering before he shakes his head. “Brad, you’re attracted to this guy? That’s what this is about?”

I sigh. “ This is why I didn’t tell you this morning. I knew you’d blow it off. This isn’t like when I fuck around with other guys. Something else happened there. He did something to me. Is doing something to me.”

“And he must’ve fucked with your powers too,” Cody tells Seth.

“Seems like it,” Seth says.

“What if he’s not just a victim?” Cody muses. “What if he’s part of the reason it enters our world?”

“Technically, we’re the reason,” I say, guilt rising within me.

“No,” Cody says. “Something dark sensed us that night, and because of the vision, we assumed that what we did unleashes it, but what if that’s not the case?”

He’s referring to a spell we did one night—when we fucked with our powers in a way we shouldn’t have and felt something evil drawn to us, as though using us to find its way into our world.

“It didn’t come into our world that night,” Cody says. “And you remember how Luke appeared in my vision. What if it meant his power is connected to the genesis of that evil being?”

“Based on what you described,” Seth says, “that would make sense. Maybe that’s why the Guides warned us about him.”

“That’s all speculation, though,” I say. “We don’t have much to go on, but I was thinking…” I hesitate, knowing how this would go over before I get the words out. “Cody could go under again.”

Cody’s cheeks flush, his eyes watering.

Seth steps up to me. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Cody’s trembling and shaking his head as his gaze wanders. “No, no. I can’t do that again.”

“Of course you’re not fucking doing that. Brad’s out of his goddamn mind.” Even though he’s talking to Cody, Seth’s eyes are on me like he’s trying to make a point—or about to hit me.

“It’s only a fucking suggestion,” I tell him. “I’m not forcing his hand. But you both know we need more information.”

Cody turns away from us, still shaking.

“Cody?” Seth hurries to him, but before he can reach him, Cody steps away. “It’s okay, Cody. We’re not gonna make you do that.”

“I would,” he whispers. “It was just so hard last time.”

“I know it was,” I say, trying to soothe him.

Channeling’s always been painful for Cody. He describes it like nails drilling into him. Last time, after finishing writing down the name he received from the Guides, he thrashed about, screaming at the top of his lungs. And even once he calmed down, he was shaken up. Much worse than the other times.

“It’s just, it’s all been so vague,” I say.

“Cody, tell him why that’s not happening,” Seth says.

The fuck does that mean?

Cody takes a few breaths, regaining his composure. “Brad, I’ve been having panic attacks since that night. And not the kind where I can use my amulet to shake it off. These have been too intense. Something happened last time, and it scared me.”

“So that’s not an option,” Seth adds, like he needs to make that clear to me.

“I wish you had told me, Cody.”

He nods. “I didn’t want to worry you. Seth only knows because he’s been there when some have happened.”

Of course; they’re roommates, so that’d be a hard thing to hide.

If I’d known it was worse than usual, I wouldn’t have even brought it up.

“You’re right,” I say. “That’s too much to ask of you, Cody. I just feel like there’s more to all this, especially now that it’s clear this guy can fuck with our powers. The Guides didn’t warn us about that.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Seth says. “The plan is still the same: we get this guy to leave, and everything goes back to normal.”

Oh, how fucking easy for Seth to say that shit, but executing this plan is a whole other story. “Now that we know he can affect our powers, I don’t think this is something to drag out. We need to throw everything we can at him. From all angles. We must make his staying at St. Lawrence unbearable. And as we all know from what we read in his background check, he’s legacy. Dad went here, but Dad isn’t around anymore. And the fact that he didn’t get in freshman year and still came back means he’s determined because he has some kind of dream about attending St. Lawrence.”

“Guy should have stayed at Emory,” Seth says. “But you’re right. You think you can keep your raging hard-ons to a minimum around this guy?”

“I don’t know about that. Maybe I’ll find a way to use them to my advantage.”

“How will you—”

“Not sure yet. Working on it.”

“We’re in this together,” Cody adds. “We’ll figure it out. You guys tee him up, and when I’m better, I’ll lay into him. Luke Waters maybe has a few more good weeks at St. Lawrence.”

A surge of guilt hits me. What the hell are we doing to this poor guy?

But unfortunately, it’s our only recourse.

I will tear down this whole goddamn school to get Luke Waters as far away from it as possible, as soon as possible.