Chapter 2 – Camille #2
“I hope you were smart enough to finish that drink,” the priest whispered forebodingly into my ear.
The burn of the rope digging into my wrists caught me by surprise.
The ache of the tight knot was second only to the searing, bubbling nausea in my stomach.
He finished tying the rope and slipped the handkerchief over my eyes, securing it firmly.
Excited whispering and giggling broke the silence as the priest’s cold hand landed on my bare shoulder, turning me in one direction.
Before he could tell me where we were going, I knew it would be upstairs.
“Kick off your shoes and feel for the stairs,” he warned as I nearly tripped over the first one from his firm shove.
I took a second to follow his orders, carefully slipping my feet out of my warm flats and feeling the cold, polished wood of the stairs beneath my toes.
I fell into the habit of lifting my feet to meet each stair, moving slowly and cautiously as I couldn’t see them.
My eyes darted through the darkness beneath the handkerchief, searching for any hint of light without success.
It was too tight. We reached the top of the stairs and seemed to turn in multiple directions, causing me to lose track of my mental map of the house.
I heard footsteps behind me and assumed it was the guests following to witness the final task of the so-called ceremony, whatever that might be.
We stopped, and he removed his hand from my shoulder.
The metallic clink of a doorknob turning led me to assume we had arrived at a room.
I was pushed forward through the door the priest had opened seconds before.
It caught me off guard, and I gasped before stumbling forward.
I regained my balance on my bare feet before I could fall flat on my face, the unfamiliar chill of the wood floor heightening my senses.
The door shut behind me, and I heard it lock, followed by cheers of approval and chanting outside.
Terror. I was claustrophobic and horrified. This wasn’t a ceremony or a celebration. This was a ritual. And I was the lamb heading off to slaughter. Whatever room I had been thrown into, it wasn’t my own.
Someone’s soft, gentle hands on my face untied the handkerchief, grounding me from the full-blown panic attack that was enough to institutionalize me.
As the fabric fell away, my darkened vision adjusted to the dim lighting, focusing on Reed.
His eyes were blank, bereft of human emotion.
Despite the fact that he smelled like a distillery, I was so relieved to see him that I didn’t question it.
He was wearing the same outfit from church—slacks, now ironed, a white button-up shirt with all the buttons fastened, and a light green tie that matched his eyes.
The sports jacket hung in the corner of the room.
The room… It had to have been Reed’s room, but it didn’t have the same character I remembered.
Then again, it wasn’t as if I had been in there more than a handful of times.
The lights were off, but candles burned on each nightstand, the dresser, and the desk.
The fireplace was lit as well. The bed was made with burgundy silk sheets and a matching comforter with intricate gold embroidery.
The pillows were black, buttery soft, and filled with down feathers.
The curtains were drawn, but I could see the faint glow of moonlight filtering through the openings. The floor was polished wood, bare except for a fluffy white rug by the fireplace.
“Reed, what’s going on? What is this? Thank God someone here will tell me.” I spoke quickly as my nerves took control. My face burned, whether from embarrassment at being so indecently dressed in front of my older brother or from the horror of everything that had happened.
Reed was quiet. The words I spoke went through him, failing to bring life back into his stiff persona.
I could see my pleading face in his expressionless eyes.
My terror came back, flooding my senses like a newly broken dam.
Why wouldn’t he talk? Or at least offer reassurance?
He would’ve told me it’s okay by now if it was.
“What are they going to do to us?” I whispered, trying to get Reed to come back and be the older brother I knew growing up, who protected me and played with me despite his older friends picking on him for it.
“Can you untie my hands? I want to get out of here… I don’t like this feeling I have. I think we should leave.”
Reed’s hand grazed my cheek, coming up to stroke my hair back from my face. This would have comforted me under different circumstances. Now, it was troubling. I wanted to escape. Every instinct I had told me to run.
I flinched, and his other hand came up roughly to hold my face, his palm covering my cheek while his thumb grazed my lips. I tried again to squirm away, but he held me there, the hand in my hair turning into a grip. He leaned down, his lips inches away from my ear.
“You are so simple,” he whispered, his voice harsh. “How are you so clueless as to what’s going on?”
My heart plummeted to my feet. I couldn’t say anything, even if I wanted to. This had to be a nightmare, and I would wake up in my own bed and throw up.
“That speech about family and purity? You haven’t put it together because you’re that slow?
Or is it because you don’t want to?” Every word cut through my skin to the bone.
I could’ve died by a thousand cuts listening to it and only feel the pain of his voice.
“Do I need to spell it out? Or will it be easier to just do it? Do you know how hard it was keeping this secret from you for the last few months? Watching you prance out of the house to school, comforting you when you cried about prom, knowing as soon as you graduated I had to do this. You were innocently living a normal life as I lived with the realization of what I was told to do… what I was made to do?”
I wouldn’t let myself cry in front of him.
I couldn’t show weakness. The grip he had on my face softened, and his other hand left my hair to grip my shoulder with enough force that it hurt.
My breath was stuck in my throat, but that could have been heart palpitations causing my breathing to catch as well…
The rapid beat paused with a big skip before getting on track again.
His hand was much bigger and wrapped around my face perfectly.
“They are listening by the door, you know. Everyone knows the outcome of this, but you. Their preaching and blessings are all leading up to this. God’s Plan, the prophecy our parents told us?
It’s giving you to me. Brother and sister become man and wife.
You can’t escape this fate, Cami. You risk death, at best, by the hands of the angry mob outside—and eternal hell in the afterlife.
I pray to God you don’t want to risk finding out what they’ll do to you if you try to fight me off. ”
The icy look on his face was replaced by a mad thirst. The spark in his eyes intensified as he spoke. He was a predator stalking its prey.
It was coming together. My brother didn’t want to fight this.
He wanted to embrace it. And I didn’t have time to go through my memories and try to read if this was his goal all along or something he decided to come to terms with.
Did he only know of this in the last few months, or did he have an inkling for years?
I shook my head, my eyes stinging with tears as I failed to stop myself from crying in front of him. I tried to back away from the monster that appeared before me, wearing the face of someone I once trusted with my life. Reed closed in on me.
My knees buckled, causing my legs to give out in terror.
He caught my fall, cradling me with his left arm as his right went around my waist. The embrace caused him to graze my arms, which were still tied behind my back.
He forcefully kissed me on the lips as I tried to keep them closed, tried to find any way to escape and wake up to realize this was all a terrible dream.
I prayed for this to be a nightmare. Or a coma-induced Hell. I’d rather wake up in a hospital with tubes coming out of me than endure this reality.
He bit my lower lip in protest, and I gasped as he broke skin, my nerves on fire from the sting. I tasted blood as he continued to kiss me, eventually feeling it roll down my chin and onto the floor.
This couldn’t be happening.
He pulled away slightly, his face only inches away from mine.
I could feel his heavy breath lingering on my lips.
With his chilling smile, the one dimple on the corner of his lip branded itself on my brain.
I hated that arrogant look in his eyes. This was not my older brother.
I didn’t know who this was, or what demon was summoned to masquerade as my best friend to destroy my life.
He reached up to brush away my tears, a look of mock sympathy.
“Shhh. Don’t cry, I’ll make it pleasant.
” His face brightened as he dropped his voice to a whisper.
“Remember listening to all those other girls in this room? That same bed? How much they enjoyed it? With how often you had your ear against the wall, I believed you were imagining it was you.” He took a deep, shaky breath.
Unable to contain his exhilaration. “That got me off knowing you heard everything. That you know this isn’t my first time, but I’d have yours.
Knowing what I knew about our future, forbidden to tell you our family’s plans…
” His breath was hot on my ear as he leaned in.
“They thought you were too weak to learn about it beforehand, you know.”