Chapter 12 #2
“This is alcohol,” Riot said, holding up the bottle. “It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’ll clean the wounds and prevent infection.” He took a long drink from it himself—Cass watched his throat work as he swallowed—then held it out. “Pour some on your chest first.”
“Why did you come back?” Cass asked as he took the bottle.
Riot’s jaw tightened. “Just do it.”
Cass tipped the bottle, letting the clear liquid splash across one of the fresh wounds on his chest. The pain burned through him so intensely that he gasped, and Riot’s hands were on his shoulders, holding him still, keeping him from jerking away.
“I know.” Riot murmured. “I know it hurts. Keep going.”
By the time he’d gotten all the chest wounds, he was whimpering. The fever underneath everything seemed to be getting worse, too.
“Okay. That’s enough for now.” Riot redirected the bottle towards his face. “Drink some. It’ll help.”
The alcohol tasted like burning. Sharp and harsh and nothing like the gentle herbal teas he was used to. But it spread warmth through his stomach, chasing away some of the ice and ache that had settled there, and something about that warmth made his body relax.
“This makes my chest feel warm,” he heard himself say between hiccuping. “Like you do.”
The words were out before he could stop them. His face flushed hot with fresh shame. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t ever apologize for telling me the truth.” He pressed a pill into Cass’s palm. “For the pain. Take it.”
Cass swallowed it without question, chasing it with more of the burning alcohol. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Brother Cyrus’s safety lectures were trying to remind him about accepting medications from people in the Neutral Zone, but that voice seemed very far away right now.
When Riot started dabbing a cloth around the wounds on his chest, his touch was careful.
Those hands had been violent earlier—Cass saw the split knuckles and the dried blood.
But they were moving so gently now, treating him like something precious, and Cass didn’t understand.
He didn’t understand any of this. Why are you being kind to me?
I’m broken. I’m failing. I’m everything you should walk away from before I destroy your spirit.
“Brother Matthias says the pain is negative energy leaving my body.” He was desperate to fill the silence. “Making space for divine light to enter.”
Riot’s hands paused. “What do you think?”
The question caught Cass off guard. No one ever asked what he thought.
“I think...” He swallowed a sob. “I think it just hurts. But I’m probably not spiritually evolved enough to understand the deeper meaning.”
Riot didn’t respond. He just went back to cleaning and bandaging the wounds with those impossibly careful hands.
And even though Cass was still crying, still shaking, still terrified—something about Riot’s steady presence made it feel survivable.
Plus the alcohol was starting to hit him, making everything soft around the edges.
The pain was still there, but it felt further away, like it was happening to someone else, and that hollow ache in his belly—the one that had nothing to do with hunger—was getting stronger, pulsing and twisting and pushing even the pain in his hands further away.
When Riot finished with his chest and back, Cass started to stand so he could pull his robes back on. It was over. He could cover himself back up, hide the evidence—
Fresh blood ran down his legs.
He felt it happen—the warm, wet slide of it against his inner thighs—and his whole body went rigid with horror. Dark stains were blooming on his white linen pants, spreading to his robes, and impossible to hide.
No. No no no no no—
Riot’s gaze dropped. “What else?”
“Nothing.” Cass was backing away towards the bathroom, holding his hands out like he could stop a Berserker. “Nothing else.”
“Cass.” Riot stepped forward, matching his retreat. “Show me what he did to your legs.”
“It’s nothing serious.” He took another step back.
“Where?”
“On my thighs.” Cass’s voice came out as barely a whisper. “It’s the first time he’s ever done those areas. He said the earthly attachments were concentrated there.”
The new wounds were the most shameful part, because they proved that even eight years of negative energy releases hadn’t fixed what was wrong with him. Brother Matthias had to keep finding new places to open, new ways to let the divine light in, and still Cass couldn’t be fixed.
Riot went very, very still. Cass could hear his own breathing and the blood rushing in his ears and feel his pulse pounding in places he didn’t want to think about.
“What kind of tool does he use?”
The question made Cass’s stomach lurch. He’d never described it out loud before or had to put words to the thing that happened behind closed doors, in sacred silence.
“I don’t... I don’t like to watch.” His voice was shaking.
Everything was shaking. “It makes me feel sick. But it’s like a.
.. a hole punch, I think. It takes out a circle of skin.
And then there’s another tool that goes underneath and scrapes around the edges, so the release point stays open properly and the negative energy can escape. ”
The muscle along Riot’s jaw jumped and his golden eyes were no longer flat. They were empty. “How long has this been happening?”
“Since I was sixteen.” Cass wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “When I first started having compatibility issues with Honey. Brother Matthias said the negative energy was preventing me from developing proper spiritual connections.”
“And you believed him?”
Cass nodded. “Of course. He’s my spiritual guide. He’s helping me become worthy.”
There was that sound again—the growling.
It vibrated through Cass’s chest and made something low in his belly clench in response.
“I know I’m not very good at this,” he said desperately.
“But I’m trying. Brother Matthias says if I can just bring back one recruit, I might be allowed to come home.
I might finally be the partner Honey deserves. ”
“And if you can’t?”
The Chrysalis program. For Honey. Because of me.
“Not nice things,” he managed.
The silence that followed was so thick Cass could barely think through it. Riot’s eyes were fixed on the blood soaking through his robes, and that hungry expression was back—the one Cass didn’t understand, the one that made his stomach feel sick and wrong and hot all at once.
“I need to clean those wounds too,” Riot said. His voice was too calm. Too controlled.
“No.” The word burst out of Cass before he could stop it. He slapped his hands over his mouth and stumbled back towards the bathroom. “No, please, I can handle those myself. You don’t need to see—those are the worst ones—they’re about why I’m failing—”
“Princess.” Riot’s voice dropped low into a register that made Cass’s knees want to buckle.
Why is he looking at me like that? What does it mean?
“Please don’t make me. Please—”
“If you don’t take them off,” Riot growled, “I’m going to take them off for you.”
He didn’t move to take off his pants. He couldn’t.
Riot’s hands were on him before he could process it happening, closing around his waist, warm and firm, and then his pants were being pulled down in one smooth motion.
The cool air hit his bare thighs and Cass hung his head, hoping his hair would hide the fact he was still crying, still mouthing the word ‘please’, still being an overemotional failure…
“Sit.” Riot guided him backward toward the chair with controlled movements that left no room for argument. “I’ve got you.”
Cass collapsed into the chair more than sat.
His legs fell open, spread by the position, and the fresh wounds on his inner thighs were visible—angry red circles, still oozing blood, placed high on the sensitive skin.
They didn’t hurt anymore, probably thanks to the alcohol and the pill and Riot being close, but it hurt his heart to have them exposed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice cracking. “I’m sorry, I know—I know how bad it is—I’ve tried so hard to be better but nothing works—”
“It’s fine.” Riot knelt between his legs.
The touch was agony—not just the alcohol on raw flesh, fire spreading through sensitive nerve endings—but it was also something else.
Something that made Cass’s breath hitch for reasons that had nothing to do with pain.
Riot’s fingers brushed above the wounds, higher than they needed to.
It made him want to press his legs together to calm the fluttering low in his belly, but Riot was planted between his knees and he couldn’t close his legs.
“Can I have more of the alcohol?” He needed a distraction, even if that distraction tasted like bad fire. “Please?”
Riot handed him the bottle without looking up from his work. “Go slow.”
But slow was impossible. Cass drank deep, once, twice, three times, trying to chase the warm feeling that made the terror recede slightly. The alcohol hit his empty stomach and spread outward.
“Kid.” Riot pulled the bottle away after the fourth swallow, his fingers brushing Cass’s as he took it. “That’s going to hit you hard.”
Riot’s hand shifted, reaching for more antiseptic, and his knuckles brushed against the front of Cass’s underwear.
It was an accident. It had to be an accident. But Cass felt his whole body react—that swooping, dropping feeling in his lower belly paired with a heat under his skin. His body was doing something wrong, something the thigh wounds were supposed to prevent.
His eyes went wide with horror.
He could feel himself responding, twitching and hardening against the thin material of his undergarments. His hands flew down to cover himself, to hide what was happening, but it was too late—Riot’s eyes fixed on where Cass’s hands were pressed between his legs.
“Oh no,” Cass whispered, fresh panic cutting through the alcohol haze. “Don’t look. Please don’t look.”
“Cass—”
“I don’t think becoming enlightened is supposed to hurt this much,” he whispered. “I’m scared. I’m so scared, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”