Chapter XXI. 2007
CHAPTER XXI
The bark tore at Camilla’s dress as she flailed against the solid arms that bound her, her nails breaking as she tried to keep herself from being dragged into the further dark of the woods.
But the arms were stronger than hers, and she was so, so dizzy.
She was bleeding, and she had the dim thought it would ruin her dress.
“Shhh.” A voice breathed into her ear. “It’s just me.”
If she’d not been so lightheaded, she would have whirled on Noah and slapped him as hard as she could.
“The fuck?” she shouted.
Again, he pressed his hand over her mouth. He darted a glance over her shoulder. “You have to stay quiet. Okay? I’m not supposed to be here, but we hadn’t heard from you, and Brianna was worried. Hey.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “You good?”
“I’m fine. You have to go. Grant went to get me punch. He’s coming right back. He’ll see you, and he’ll tell my dad, and then he’ll send me on Retreat, and I won’t be able to get to the tree.” She took a step away from him and stumbled.
“Are you drunk?”
She looked back at him, indignant. “No, I am not drunk at the Purity Ball. We flew in this morning, and I haven’t slept.”
Behind them, a branch cracked, and she stiffened. “You have to go. Now,” she whispered.
“Text us when you’re home. We’ll help however we can.” He paused to look back at her, his face twisted in concern, and then vanished.
She settled back onto the fallen tree where Grant left her.
If he noticed her torn dress or the blood, she would tell him she’d scraped herself.
She could not think of Noah or the sounds she’d heard.
She had to focus on Grant. On getting through these next few hours.
But the ground kept slipping out from under her. The world a shifting series of shadows.
Another branch cracked, and Grant emerged from the gloom.
“Here we are. Refreshment.” He offered her the glass, and she tipped her head back and drank greedily.
She was still swallowing when she felt his hand on her throat—a single finger tracing a line toward her collarbone.
“You have the most beautiful neck. It’s a shame it’s too visible. He won’t let me use it.”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There was only the dim sensation of movement as Grant slid his hand down her back, and her own heart beating, and the sky slipping itself inside out to show all the monsters hidden behind that thin skin that kept them contained.
She bent at the waist—a bruised flower in her dress.
“Such a shame,” he said, and then the world went hazy.
SOMEONE WAS CRYING again. She wondered if it was her.
Her eyes would not settle, the shapes around her blurring into a series of moving shadows and light. Her tongue lay dead in her mouth, but even if she could speak, how would she articulate what was happening?
There was a sharp line of pain on her inner thigh. The sensation of teeth. And that sound.
The wet sound of someone eating.
She struggled to lift her head, her vision snapping in and out of focus as she realized she was lying flat, her dress hiked up over her hips. She tried to push at it, to pull it down, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything other than try and make sense of what it was she was seeing.
She thought of her mother then. Of what she tried to tell Camilla earlier that evening.
Don’t.
Her mother had never wanted her to participate in the Purity Ball, had carried some fear of it she couldn’t trace, and now Camilla understood why.
Grant looked up at her from his place between her thighs, his mouth smeared with her blood. Her father knelt beside him, a Bible in one hand, the other on Grant’s shoulder. His own mouth bloodied. They looked at her. And they smiled.
Once more, the world went dark.