Chapter 37
I’m not safe.
I’m not safe.
I’m never safe.
I’ll never be safe again.
I had been cleaning for so long that my hands no longer felt like my own.
The blood was already gone from the parish, and the shovel covered the splotches in the snow.
But I still felt it.
I knew it was gone, but I couldn’t stop seeing the pools of red every time I blinked.
I scrubbed the hallway the longest.
How much time had passed?
I dipped the brush back into the bleach and continued scrubbing the floor until the pale wood grain lost some of its color. My hands were red and irritated, but I did it again and again.
My mind was spiraling in a loop, the same phrase escaping my lips like an omen I had ignored far too long.
“I am not safe. There is no safe for me. I will never be safe again.”
The fire outside died down now, the sheet of cinders, and the wolf’s body transitioned to ash and spirit. The smell was awful…singed fur, blood, and cooked meat. It made me vomit.
“I am not safe. There is no safe for me. I will never be safe again.”
Despite the weakness wracking my body, I was still on my knees, scrubbing and washing, trying to cleanse the earth of the very memory of the evil that lingered. If I stopped, I would remember the way it had looked on my pillow.
The way its face contorted in pained lines and the black void of its missing eyesocket. The wolf faced the ceiling like it had died, looking to heaven for help it didn’t receive.
How awful to die like that.
Boom.
The back door slammed open, and I jolted.
The sound cracked through the house like a gunshot, and I waited to feel the bullets.
For half a second, I thought they had come back.
Kaito.
Finish the job and put me on the pike.
Crash.
Through the reflection in the cabinets, I saw a figure staggering, and when I looked back, the body collided with the wall, despite its efforts to keep upright.
“Jed?”
No answer.
I couldn’t leave him.
Despite what Kaito wanted me to believe, I had to ask him myself.
I owed it to him.
I owed him the truth.
Running into the hallway, I heard a soft grunt of pain.
“Junshin!”
He fell forward, his body physically giving way like a bridge unfolding. It wasn’t a slow descent to the ground, and I had zero time to get to him.
The crash was violent.
He simply collapsed into the room when he saw me enter. It was like someone cut his strings, and there was nothing to anchor him. The sound of his body hitting the floor was sickening and caused dishes to fall to the floor and shatter.
“Jedidiah?” I said, carefully walking around the broken glass shards littered around him.
As I got closer, I could see…
Blood.
No.
I cleaned for so long. The house was immaculate. It couldn’t be from the wolf.
But that meant…
“Jed!”
I dropped beside him, ignoring the bite of the glass. He looked worse than I had ever seen him.
His shirt was barely hanging on his shoulders. All the buttons were torn off the neckline, leaving gaping holes. The fabric was ripped down the front of him, exposing his chest and abs. His belt was undone, broken, and hanging by a few threads of the ruined loops.
Dirt streaked along his side like he’d been dragged. It was hard to assess the damage with so much thick mud coating his body.
His face was free of debris, but what I saw made me wish it were hidden as well.
God.
One of his beautiful eyes was nearly swollen shut.
Purple and black bruises bloomed across his cheeks, and his lips were split, wet with fresh blood.
I tried to be careful as I continued my examination.
Another cut was at his brow, and the wound crusted in his hairline with a deeper gash on his skull.
The most sickening discovery of all was his pants.
They were barely on his body, and what was keeping his modesty was coated in his blood.
“No…oh, Jedidiah. No…” I cried softly, and he put his hand on my knee.
This simple gesture made him shake and groan in pain. His beautiful hands were scraped raw, but not from punching.
The blood caked under his nails told a different story. A different type of fighting, like he tried to claw his way out of hell.
“Jed,” I whispered. “I am so sorry…this is all my fault.”
He blinked at me slowly, but his eyes were unfocused, looking through me.
“Baby. I am here.”
It took him a moment to focus, and I tried to smile for comfort. He needed to know he was safe.
I’m not safe.
No one is.
Not with Kaito alive.
And waiting.
Jedidiah seemed to realize he was on the floor, and he tried to push himself up. His arms shook violently, and he fell back down with a cry of pain.
He couldn’t move.
I slid my arm beneath his shoulders and helped him sit upright, but when he put pressure on his bottom, he winced.
What did they do to you, my love?
He sucked in a sharp breath the second his weight shifted and forced himself to his feet.
He caught his reflection in the cabinet glass, and before I could speak, he slammed his fist forward.
“No!”
I didn’t want to see this.
I knew what happened.
I knew this feeling, and my stomach lurched at the realization.
It wasn’t just bruises and dislocated ribs.
They broke his soul, too.
“Don’t,” he muttered, his voice as shattered as the glass.
“Jed, I need to help yo—”
“I said don’t.”
The word made me wince along with him. He wasn’t just angry. He was terrified and ashamed. I stayed where I stood, lowering my hands and obeying his wishes.
His breathing was uneven, rattled, and wet. His whole body trembled on his feet like wood splintering and slowly breaking apart.
“They fucking drugged me…I need some aspirin.”
The words were scraped out of him, and I shook my head.
“Jed, you need a hospital.”
“No. No hospitals. I will not let this town see me fall. I will not be fucking prey.”
“Who did this to you?”
I knew the answer, but I needed to hear.
He swallowed and finally met my eyes.
“Kaito and his dipshit shadows.”
The name felt like a blade sliding under my ribs, and I felt the hatred grow there, festering and bleeding me dry.
“Jed, we can go somewhere farther. They won’t know you. Please, I have to help you…You’re bleeding and…”
My heart felt cold as he looked down at his body and saw something more horrific than blood on his pants.
He roared again, ripping the material the rest of the way off his body, not bothering to shield himself from me. The hem of his underwear was ripped, just like the rest of his clothes, but at least this one thing managed to stay somewhat intact.
He needed to be covered right now.
He needed a shred of his humanity to remain.
“I should have known better,” he continued, staring at his hands and the stains left on them.
“I knew something was wrong…I was drunk, but my body was weightless. My head—” He winced, pressing his fingers to his temple.
“Everything started slipping so fast, I didn’t see it coming… until it was already too late.”
His jaw clenched, and I waited for him to continue.
“I tried to leave. Tried to fight the bastards. But my fucking body shut down.”
I couldn’t speak, I held his gaze and listened.
“I couldn’t stand up. They dragged me to the other side of the club…where the lights are out.”
I felt my pulse in my throat.
“The two assholes held me down…and Kaito showed up.”
He was shaking harder now as he continued to speak. I could see it in his shoulders and the way his words came out too fast.
He’s reliving it.
“They were laughing at me.”
His voice was so fractured.
“I told them to let me go, hell, I begged, but I couldn’t speak from the goddamn drug! I don’t know what they gave me, but I started to lose my senses. I couldn’t see anything eventually, and their fucking cackles faded in my head. But…I always felt it.”
He swallowed harder.
“It was like…tug of war. I was nothing but a fucking carcass yanked back and forth by Mortiferals…at least…until I broke apart and I wasn’t useful to them anymore…”
My vision blurred, and bile rose to my throat.
“I tried to swing at them,” he said. “My arm didn’t—” He shook his head violently. “It didn’t work. My body wouldn’t listen, and I couldn’t form my words…eventually, I stopped talking altogether. Fighting just made my body shut down even more. There was…no escape.”
Tears burned my eyes, and I let them fall.
“They pinned me down.”
His hands curled into fists around a shard of glass, fresh blood seeping through the cracks and dripping on the ground.
“I was aware of it all,” he whispered.
Drip.
“I felt everything.”
Drip.
His voice went smaller, reminding me of a small child.
“I felt myself…burn.”
Drip.
The room seemed to close in, and I couldn’t help but focus on the dripping.
“They held my arms behind my back and flipped me on my fucking stomach.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, the part of the story growing more and more painful. His breath hitched, and he let out a broken sound.
“I…prayed for them to stop…I prayed for God to hear me.”
Oh, my sweet angel.
“They didn’t stop…they told me to…I should have prayed harder.”
Silence swallowed us, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. He was quiet for so long, shaking alone, against the wall.
“They took turns with my body.” When he spoke again, I barely heard the sound. His tone died.
I felt the moment this man’s soul shattered.
His words were flat, a dead finality that pained me the most. It was like he had left his body to survive these next moments. A piece of his soul floated away with each sentence.
My hands started shaking along with his, my body reliving my own fire from those monsters.
“They—” His throat closed, and he choked, spitting blood on the floor.
He tried again, but he didn’t use euphemisms or soften the blow.
“They…raped…me.”
The word hung in the air like smoke choking us both.
I felt something inside me collapse as he stared at the floor.
“I couldn’t fight them off.”
“You were drugged.” It was the first time I spoke, but I couldn’t listen to him blame himself.
“I’m a man, Sayuri.”
He finally looked at me, and the man I saw was so fragile. The shame and deep rotting disgust filled his eyes.
“I felt it,” he said hoarsely. “I remember all of it. I remember their fucking hands, their mouths and their…”
His jaw trembled before he forced it still with his fist.
“They said...that you belonged to them.”
The wolf.
This was what Kaito meant.
What they did to Jed was…my fault. A violent surge of rage shot through me so hard my vision went white, and I staggered on my feet.
He wasn’t looking at me like he needed my anger. He expected disgust, but all I felt was guilt, rage, and pain.
“I should’ve fought harder,” he choked.
“No.”
“I should’ve died before letting them—”
“Stop it. You didn’t let them do anything. They forced you. They took this from you. It was not given. They raped you, Jedidiah. That doesn’t make you less of a man. It makes them monsters.”
My voice broke when he started to cry.
His body wavered as he dragged a hand down his face, smearing blood across his skin.
“But I couldn’t stop them,” he whispered again.
That sentence.
I had said that sentence once.
I moved slowly and carefully toward him.
I cupped his face, blinded by my own tears.
He flinched but didn’t pull away. It was the smallest movement he had ever made, yet it was the thing to ruin me.
“It’s me,” I whispered. “It’s me, baby. You are safe. I’m here. It’s over.”
His breathing stuttered, but I wondered how much truth was in my words.
“I feel disgusting,” he admitted on a sob.
The vulnerability in that confession was worse than the bruises.
At least those would heal.
“I can’t—” His voice cracked. “I can still feel them! All over me! I can’t stop burning, Sayuri. I can’t breathe!”
My heart caved inward like a crater forming as I held him to my chest, sliding down the wall and holding him in my arms.
His body shook violently.
“I am a priest. A man of God and I…” he said, almost to himself. “I’m supposed to be stronger than that.”
“You survived an attack, Jed. This isn’t your fault.” I whispered.
It’s mine.
“I was powerless.”
“Yes.”
The word slipped out before I could soften it, and his wildly haunted eyes snapped to mine.
I held his gaze.
“You were powerless,” I repeated gently. “That doesn’t make you weak. It makes them monsters. You had no way to defend yourself.”
His breath hitched, but I continued.
“They overpowered you. They drugged you. They restrained you.”
His eyes filled with more tears that spilled over, but his face was void of emotion.
“You did not choose this. It is not your fault.”
I leaned down and softly kissed the tears as they slid down his bruised cheek.
“How can I protect you…when I can’t protect myself….”
The man in my arms completely unraveled from the inside out. It wasn’t loud.
He didn’t scream or shout or punch anything else. His forehead pressed into my chest, and his body folded in on itself while his hands gripped my shirt like he was afraid I would recoil from his side.
I didn’t.
I wrapped my arms around him tighter and held him while he felt everything he couldn’t control. I stayed there while he gasped from the sobs, like every inhale hurt. I didn’t leave his side while the shame tried to swallow him whole.
I wouldn’t let it.
As the man I loved shattered in my arms from my dragons, I felt something ignite inside me. Under the fear, horror, and the guilt that this had been a message to me. A new emotion burned inside my skin, alive and damning.
The rage was my new anchor.
I chose revengeance so many times, but my sword was pointed at the wrong person.
I made a deal with the devil when I should have staked him in the heart from the beginning.
Kaito was wrong. I didn’t belong to him. I will ensure Jujiro’s safety. I will not fail my son, nor will I choose to ruin a broken man.
There was another option I had been too scared to say out loud.
A beast can growl, stalk, and hunt…
But in the end, they bleed like their prey.