Chapter 2 The Exorcism
August knew to trust his gut. Even before Lucas Blackwell had upended his carefully constructed life with his gorgeous coke bottle green eyes and shocking abilities, August had understood that trusting his gut was just an ambiguous phrase for a very scientifically explainable biological mechanism designed to keep humans alive.
Trusting that instinct had saved his life more than once.
But once they’d had children, that survival instinct had achieved a near god-like level. So when his cell phone rang, St. Agnes Prep flashing across the screen, August knew with nauseating certainty that his spawn had—yet again—done something worthy of the last name Mulvaney.
Maybe that was why he chose to answer as he did. “What did they do now?”
“Mr. Mulvaney?” a woman asked.
August rolled his eyes. “Yes, Sister Josephine. We have this phone call at least once a month. Did you not dial my cellphone number?”
She gave a barely there huff before steel edged her tone. “Yes, well, forgive me for being a bit flustered. I’m afraid your children were involved in a rather unusual incident…again.”
“And what kind of incident was it this time?” August asked, affect flat.
More often than not, the girls were simply conducting research that the other students weren’t adept enough to grasp.
Last month, they’d dissected a dead frog they’d found on the playground, carefully detailing each body system for their classmates before Sister Sarah tracked them down in the high-school bio lab and put a stop to the lesson.
The month before that it had been an extremely detailed game of cops and robbers on the schoolyard that had resulted in the girls hog-tying one of the boys in their class while screaming ACAB.
Lucas had laid that one at August’s feet like an offering, telling him he couldn’t—as a former FBI agent—even begin to explain their daughter’s hostility toward local law enforcement without giving away far too much of their personal history.
When Thomas had convinced them to enroll the children at St. Agnes Prep—which was now co-ed—he’d promised there would be safety in numbers, that they could have each other’s backs in a way August and his brothers never had.
Instead, in a twist none of them had anticipated but most certainly should have, the Mulvaney cousins had banded together to form a tiny cult with their classmates as acolytes and the Mulvaney offspring as their gods.
And his children were not benevolent gods.
They were clever, ruthless, and entirely too much like the men who’d raised them.
So perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised him when the headmistress of the school requested—no, demanded—that both August and Lucas come to the school immediately to get to the bottom of the ‘ritualistic’ incident involving the Mulvaney cousins.
August was starting to loathe the sound of his own last name.
“Define ritualistic,” Lucas said now that they were in the car together, navigating through traffic.
He sat in the passenger seat, already rubbing his temples in that way that meant he was getting a headache.
Or a vision. Or shielding too hard. The faint shimmer of tension always followed when Lucas’s psychic senses were overworked, like heat rising off asphalt.
“She refused to explain further,” August said grimly.
Lucas shot him a startled look. “Was someone hurt?”
August’s tone was frigid when he said, “Not yet,” through gritted teeth.
“So…they didn’t hurt anyone, right? She said nobody was hurt, right?” Lucas asked, sounding slightly more frantic with each word.
The tension bled from August as he took Lucas’s hand, threading their fingers together, squeezing until Lucas squeezed back. “Deep breaths, umnishka. They’re children.”
“Our children,” Lucas breathed.
“Yes, our children, who are shockingly well-adjusted considering their parents. They didn’t hurt anyone or kill anyone. They’re just highly intelligent children with active imaginations. Their cousins—”
“Jett and Jagger too?” Lucas groaned.
“You know the four of them are thick as thieves.”
“Atticus is totally gonna blame us for this,” Lucas said, slowly bumping his forehead against the passenger window again, then again, just as traffic slowed to a dead stop in the center of the mile long tunnel that ran under the river.
“What is happening now?” Lucas asked, his voice taking on that razor’s edge that let August know things could go downhill very quickly.
The tunnel around them was a ribcage of concrete and light, its walls sweating condensation in thin, steady lines that glistened under the jaundiced lamps.
The water wasn’t intrusion, just heat meeting cold stone.
Structural integrity intact, he noted absently.
No visible stress fractures, no spalling at the joints.
The car ahead idled red brake lights into the dimness, their glow smearing across the windshield like blood. A low hum of engines pulsed through the confined air, steady and suffocating.
Sound behaved differently underground, too compressed, every raspy cough of an engine or impatient tap of a horn rebounding until the air itself seemed to vibrate.
August studied the geometry of it: the slight curvature of the ceiling, the seam of expansion joints, the way sound shifted depending on which surface it struck.
Beside him, Lucas exhaled too sharply, knuckles white where they gripped his hand. The muscle in his jaw twitched once, twice. August glanced at the clock, calculating just how late they’d be before dismissing the thought to focus on what actually mattered.
His real equation was subtler, the rate of Lucas’s unraveling versus the tone of voice required to stop it. He shifted slightly toward him, voice even, deliberate. “We’re fine,” he said, as though stating a scientific fact, and watched the words settle between them. “You’re fine.”
“Who said I wasn’t?” Lucas bit back, his words snapping like a cord pulled too tightly.
“We’re okay,” August said again, softer.
Lucas wasn’t claustrophobic exactly. But after his time in that…
mental health facility…he didn’t do well with the feeling of being trapped.
He could handle an elevator, but if one was to get stuck between floors, there was a timer that appeared and if they weren’t rescued within that time, Lucas would start to forget just how strong he was.
That fear wasn’t rational, it was cellular. A memory imprinted in muscle and marrow, the ghost of fluorescent lights and locked doors. August could feel it radiating off him, sharp and cold as ozone before a storm.
It wasn’t just elevators, staircases with locked doors, a room that only locked from the outside.
It wasn’t the size of the container, it was his ability to free himself from it that mattered and the tunnel was rarely an issue even in heavy traffic.
But this wasn’t heavy traffic, it was a standstill.
August gave his hand one last squeeze then pulled up their GPS app, cursing under his breath when he realized that they were showing a forty minute wait.
August checked his phone, two bars. He shot a text to the family chat, hoping it went through.
August
@freckles, @jericho Stuck in the tunnel. If we’re not there by the end of the parent-teacher conference can you wait with kids?
Jericho responded first.
We’re stuck too. Texted Sister Josephine. Dad en route as our stand-in just in case.
August
Thanks, @dad.
“Jericho and Atticus are in here somewhere too. Dads going to get the kids. Everyone is safe. Okay?”
Lucas nodded, eyes darting around like he wasn’t sure he believed him despite his nod.
He needed to take his mind off this before he spiraled.
There were only two things Lucas cared about enough to distract him to the degree necessary to keep him from coming unglued.
One was their children, who were currently a massive source of stress, the other…
August glanced around at the people around him, some sat on the hoods of their cars, others sat bouncing to the beat of whatever music blasted through their speakers, enjoying the AC before an overhead speaker would demand they turn off their engines.
Some appeared to be dozing, taking advantage of their unanticipated break.
He and Lucas were hardly alone, but their windows were tinted enough to ride the line of barely legal. It would easily shield their…activities. August reached over, fingers adeptly opening his husband’s belt.
Lucas’s startled gaze darted to his, hand clamping around his wrist. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice a bit strangled.
“Interpretive dance,” August teased. When Lucas glowered at him, he smiled, leaning forward to give him a barely there kiss, before saying, “I’m giving my best student a handjob in the tunnel as a reward for doing so well in class today.”
“We can’t?” Lucas said, but it came more like a question than a definitive statement.
“I can fuck you in the school library but I can’t jerk you off in the car? You’re sending me mixed messages, Mr. Blackwell. I thought you liked my reward system.”
Lucas’s pupils blew wide at the sound of his last name on August’s tongue, the response reflexive after all this time. Still, he said, “I don’t think roleplay is going to work this time.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” August murmured, plunging his hand past the waistband of Lucas’s underwear, working him until he hardened beneath his touch. “Seems to be working just fine, no?”
Lucas shifted, legs falling open. “I-I’m not sure I can make it happen.”
August smirked, stroking him a bit faster in his dry grip. Lucas hissed at the pleasure-pain sensation, his head falling back, lids closing, jaw going slack.