Chapter 16 #2
He opened his eyes. “God the Father of mercies, I absolve you from your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I made the sign of the cross as he said the words. “Amen.”
“Go in peace.” He dropped his fists to the desk on either side of my hips.
“Thank you, Father.”
“Go,” he whispered.
“Magnus?” Uncertain, I sat motionless in the cage of his arms. His command said one thing, but his body language implied that if I twitched a muscle, he would be on me.
“This isn’t over. I can’t… I won’t be able to stop this.”
“What if—?”
“Go!”
At the bellow of his voice, my words shrank into the back of my throat, my limbs already springing into action.
I had to push him with all my strength because he wasn’t moving. The effort gave me a sliver of space between the desk and the brick wall of his body to make my escape.
I didn’t look back until I was through the door and in the hallway.
He stood where I’d left him, leaning forward with his fists on the desk, arms straight, head down, and chin pressed to his chest. But his eyes were on me, glowing like blue flames beneath the veil of his lashes.
I hesitated.
“Go, Tinsley.” Nothing moved but his lips, his voice low and guttural. “Run.”
I ran. Through the building, down the stairs, and straight to the grove, I didn’t stop until I reached the opossums’ hollow.
Jade and Willow weren’t there, but that had become more common in the past few days. They were venturing out and scavenging for their meals, returning only to sleep during the day.
My mind raced a mile a minute as I stood there catching my breath. Surrounded by the privacy of trees, I let my hand wander to my backside. The touch stung, making me hiss.
Twisting at the waist, I hiked up the skirt and inspected the damage. For as brutally as he’d whipped me, I’d expected lacerations and blood. But I didn’t see an open cut. No broken skin. No bleeding.
He’d welted me. Reddened my skin. It would hurt like a bitch to sit, but the marks would fade within a week.
He knew what he was doing. He knew, and he’d tried to protect me from it. From him.
His mastery with a strap hadn’t been learned with students at Sion Academy. No, he’d done this before. Like before before.
High school students didn’t arouse him. Inflicting pain did. I had a sneaking suspicion that rough sex was very much a part of his past and shaped the mystery that he was today.
I was captivated, enthralled, turned on like I’d never been before. But seducing him was no longer an option. I didn’t ever want to see that pained, guilt-ridden look on his face again.
I needed another plan because, dammit, I wasn’t going to marry the family of my mother’s choosing. Maybe I wouldn’t get married at all.
My mother had groomed Keaton the same way, pushing him into a relationship with Clara Blair. A Blair and Constantine marriage would’ve made my powerful mother all the more powerful. But Keaton had put a stop to that.
If he could do it, maybe I could, too. It gave me hope.
The evening was warm for November in Maine. I pulled my cardigan around me and curled up on the ground to wait for Jaden and Willow to return. It took me a long time to find a comfortable position without aggravating my welts.
Each flaring bite of pain made me think of him. And smile.
I rested my head on my folded arms, and within minutes, I fell asleep.
The sky rumbled, jolting me awake. Wind gusted through trees, cooling the air and spitting droplets of rain. The approaching storm had darkened the sky, but so had the late hour. It was past curfew.
It wasn’t the first time I’d fallen asleep out here and missed check-in. Oh, well.
I looked around for Jaden and Willow and felt a deep ache of disappointment. They hadn’t returned. What if they’d left for good? Without a goodbye? I couldn’t bear it.
On the way back to the residence hall, I winced through each step and resisted the urge to rub my butt. At the top of the stairs to my dorm, Daisy was waiting.
“I’m going to report you this time.” She crossed her arms, blocking my path.
“Good for you.” I shouldered past her.
“This is your last strike. He’ll suspend you this time.”
“Don’t care.”
A suspension would send me home for a few days. I would have to deal with the wrath of my mother, but it would be worth it just to see my siblings, sleep in my own bed, and spend the morning somewhere that wasn’t church.
But I wouldn’t get a suspension. Magnus was onto me and would never give me what I wanted.
I slipped into my dorm, and my attention instantly went to the shoebox on my bed. “Who’s been in my room?”
“No one,” Daisy shouted from her room.
This box didn’t magically appear on its own. I approached it cautiously, marking the worn edges and faded labels. It was an old box. Probably not a gift.
I set my phone on the desk and bent down, flipping off the lid.
For a moment, I didn’t understand. My brain took snapshots, trying to piece the images together. Gray, crust, wet, toes, blood, pink tails, Mickey Mouse ears.
My chest burned.
Opossums.
Mangled.
My heart raced.
Jaden and Willow.
Dead.
My throat caught fire.
“No.” I stumbled. Couldn’t feel my feet. “No, no, no, no!”
That couldn’t be them. It couldn’t. Why would anyone do that? Why were they in a box? Why were they here?
A scream rose from my chest and hit the air with all the mortal terror in my body.
“Who did this?” I screamed until my voice bled, and I started hyperventilating. “Who…fucking…did this?”
I grabbed the box and stormed into the hallway. Heads poked out of doorways, their faces smeary and distorted through my tears.
“You’re waking the entire floor,” Daisy whisper-shouted behind me. “Go back to your room.”
“Fuck you.” I shrieked and swung a finger toward all the girls in the hall. “Whoever did this…swear to God, I will find you. You’re so fucking dead.”
I hated their eyes on me. I hated their lack of sorrow and compassion. They didn’t understand. None of these people understood how fucking much this hurt.
Snapping the lid onto the box, I hugged it to my chest and charged toward the stairs.
“Tinsley.” Daisy held a phone to her ear and a hand outstretched, palm out, as if to stop me from leaving.
A torrent of sobs piled up in my throat as I ducked beneath her arm and ran down the stairs.
Miriam waited on the ground floor. Whether she was trying to stop me or talk to me, I didn’t wait to find out. I kept running, needing to be outside, away from this godforsaken place.
The agony was all-consuming, pouring from my eyes, my nose, my goddamn heart. I clutched the box tighter to my chest.
My fuzzy little babies.
Oh God, why? Why them?
When I burst through the doors, it was raining, falling in heavy, angry sheets. I wrapped my cardigan around the box, trying to protect it as I bolted into the storm.
I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t look around, didn’t slow, didn’t think. My feet splashed through the puddles. My hair stuck to my face, and I just ran.
Straight to the gate.
To him.
I needed Magnus.
He would fix this. Somehow, he would make it better.
Lightning lit up the sky. Thunder crashed. The ice-cold downpour seeped through my clothes and drenched my skin. My teeth chattered violently, and my loafers filled with water, slipping off my heels as I tore through the night.
A streetlamp rose above the arched gate, illuminating the only way out of this nightmare. When I reached the hinged barrier, I realized I’d left my phone behind.
My heart sank, but I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t have the emotional capacity for more pain. I was cold, soaked to the bone, and overwrought with grief.
It was the grief that pulled me to the ground.
Hugging the box to my chest, I collapsed to my knees, dropped my head to the gate, and cried.
When the pound of footsteps erupted, I had no intention of moving from this spot. The sound arrived fast, sprinting, but it wasn’t behind me. It came from the other side of the gate.
A single long-legged stride.
I felt the charge in the air, the intensity of his presence, before I lifted my head.
Dark jeans, light blue shirt, dark scruff on a squared jaw.
No collar.
I almost didn’t recognize him. Until I reached the final destination and fell into the mercurial eyes of the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
Drenched from head to toe, he stood like an undefeatable force in the raging, whipping rain.
He’d come for me.
“Magnus.” I held up the box, my voice like sandpaper. “I need you.”
He opened the gate.