twelve
The Merciful
I whimper in protest, but I’m too weak to fight, afraid my legs will be unable to hold me after the power of the shaking that went through me for a good five minutes. The Hellhound who left with the other lambs returns, and the plague doctor finishes his strange blessing over me, something about how I’m one with the goddess, and something about a fertility rite.
I’m too scared to listen until suddenly I’m jerked in one direction by the sleeve of my nightgown. At the same time, someone grabs the neck of it and rips it open. Buttons fly, and I scream, shocked back to the present and knocked from my panic. They descend on me like wild dogs, tearing away strips of the frilly white garment. I scream again, bucking my hips and trying to twist free of Saint’s grip on my wrists.
This cannot be happening. I can’t endure this. It seemed so unreal when I signed the entry form, when I agreed to play the game to the end and try to win.
If I’d realized what winning entailed…
Except I did know. It was on the form.
Still, it hadn’t seemed real. I’d been sure I could escape.
Now, there’s nothing in the world that could be worse than this, no amount of confession and penance and absolution that could wash away the sins they’re about to inflict upon my body. Not even finding the truth about Eternity is worth what they’re about to do to me. Maybe selfishness is my sin, because in this moment, I choose my life over the girl who’s already dead.
“Let me go,” I scream, wrenching my hands from Saint’s as the shreds of my nightgown drift to the floor in tatters, like torn snowflakes. I sit up, swinging my hands and catching one of the Hellhounds and sending his wolf mask flying. “I don’t know the safe word, but I’m saying it. I want out. Let me out!”
I turn to the plague doctor, who seems to be the leader of the group. I pray he’s a senior and I’ll never see him around campus. As much as I want to see his face, to know what he’s thinking as he absorbs my words and deliberates my fate, I’m glad I haven’t seen anyone. The only Hellhounds I know are Saint, Heath, and Angel.
But I want him to see me, to see my face and look in my eyes and know that I’m not playing, that this isn’t part of the game. I reach up, trying to shove the sheep mask over my head, but I can’t get it off. It’s huge and unwieldy, and there must be a buckle, but I can’t find it in my panic.
“Please,” I scream, clawing and tearing at the neck of the mask, fighting for breath. Suddenly, I can’t breathe, and I’m sure I’m going to pass out, and I’m going to wake up destroyed by what they’ve done to me. I’m sobbing and shaking and struggling to breathe, and the world shrinks around me, and the cave is crushing in on me like a tomb. I pitch forward, and my stomach drops as I feel myself falling. The floor comes up at my face too fast to stop myself. The giant mask protects my head from the blow, bouncing off the packed dirt.
“She’s panicking,” a voice says from far away, and it’s familiar, but I can’t think about where I’ve heard it before, who it belongs to. All I can think about is breathing.
Strong arms lift me, and my bottom is dropped back onto the stone. I swing my bound hands back and forth, trying to fend off the strong grip holding me. He only holds tighter, snatching my wrists and pinning them down on my scraped and dirty knees. I throw my shoulders back, but someone catches me from behind. He fumbles at my neck, and I scream, knowing they’re going to choke off the last of my air.
Instead, the lamb head is yanked over mine. It rolls across the dirt floor as my strawberry blonde hair tumbles down around my bare shoulders. I suck in one huge lungful of air after another, my body still quaking with terror.
The hands that gripped my wrists snap open, and the Hellhound leaps to his feet, stumbling backwards. “What the fuck?” he bellows, ripping off his mask and hurling it to the floor, revealing the face of my brother.
“Who the fuck did this?” he rages, sweeping a murderous glare over the group. The corded muscles of his forearms strain with how tightly his fists are clenched, and he prowls a step forward, his body tensed in a menacing stance.
“What’s going on?” asks another Hellhound.
“This is my fucking sister,” Saint yells, his voice loud enough to make me wince in the small space of the cave. “If any of you so much as touch her, I’ll cut off every single one of your fingers and nail them to your door as a warning to everyone else.”
He slowly turns, glaring at each member of the group in turn. They shift uncomfortably, nodding and dropping their gazes.
“But she’s already been named the sacrifice,” one of them ventures at last.
Saint glowers at him until he shuffles backwards a step.
My brother lowers his voice to a growl. “No one touches Mercy.”
He waits, as if he thinks someone will contradict him. I stare up at him, this boy who used to be my closest friend, the one who made me feel safe and wanted, who included me when he went out with friends, even though they were a few years older, and kissed it better when I fell down and scraped my elbows. He looks like a stranger, his form that of a man instead of a boy, with his wild hair tumbling around his broad, muscular shoulders and a shadow of a beard darkening his jaw. But I know the boy who picked me up every time I fell is still there. I know by the defiant clench of his jaw and his unflinching glare, the one he gave anyone who had an unkind word to say to me growing up.
When no one speaks, he turns to me, his burning gaze skating over my bare skin. A flicker of heat flares in them when they rake over my clenched thighs and scraped knees. Then the muscle in his jaw ticks, his nostrils flare, and he rips off his black robe like it personally offended him. He gathers it up into a thick ring of fabric, then stops and looks at me like he’s trying to decide my fate.
My thighs are slick, my flesh swollen and aching, a dart of pain throbbing through my clit with each heartbeat. I find myself holding my breath, waiting for something I can’t name in my dizzying state of panic.
“Please,” I whisper, a shiver racing through me, making my nipples stiffen painfully inside the thin cotton bralette I wore to bed.
His eyes catch on the points, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps. Then he crouches in front of me. “I’m going to put this over your head,” he murmurs gently. “Don’t freak out on me, okay, little sister?”
I nod, my throat too tight to speak, as he eases the fabric over my head, then drops it over my shoulders. A shudder of pleasure wracks my body at the warmth and protection provided by the oversized, colorless garment. I shove my arms into the sleaves with eagerness bordering on desperation, hugging it to myself and breathing in the dark, dangerous scent that doesn’t match the boy I knew. It’s the smell of a man, spicy and a little wild, like crushed pine needles and rain and something just slightly animalistic.
Without a word, Saint bends, scoops me into his arms, and carries me out of the room. His strong arms cradle me as he ascends the stairs and steps into the church. Despite everything, or because of the horror of the night, my arms cling to his neck as if he’s my savior instead of the man carrying me from a sacrificial altar where he meant to violate me in the most primal, damning ways.
I have to force myself not to bury my face in his neck, breathe in that scent that’s so intoxicatingly masculine. Instead, I focus on the tattoos inked on both his arms, disappearing under the sleeves of his t-shirt. I can’t make them out clearly in the moonlight, and my fingertips trace over the unfamiliar lines and the bulging veins in his forearms, as if to memorize the new map of my brother. He’s not just my brother now, though. He’s a man.
My heart is buoyed by the thought that he protected me, that this brave man stood up for me even after everything that happened between us. Now that he rescued me from the Hellhounds, I’m afraid he’ll only grow to more godlike proportions in mind.
Which is not just blasphemy but heartbreaking, considering he seems to hate me now.
He turns his head, his mouth pressing into the juncture between my neck and shoulder. My skin is raw from the other man’s bites, making it so sensitive I have to bite down on my lip not to cry out. “If you don’t stop that, I’m going to forget you’re my little sister,” Saint murmurs, sending a flush of heat over my skin.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, yanking my fingers away and tucking them between my knees. The tender place at the juncture of my thighs throbs with at the familiar pose, the one I find myself in more nights than I want to admit, trapping my hands so they won’t wander to the places that need them so badly.
A few minutes later, Saint steps into my room and flips on the light. He glances around, and a scowl takes over his face before he kicks the door closed behind us. “You have not changed.”
He dumps me unceremoniously onto the blanket I crocheted, kicking a few of my ruffled pillows through the gauzy dust ruffle under my bed. He catches sight of Raphael and pauses for a second, then lets out a scoff that says bringing a teddy bear to college makes me too pathetic to be worth a comment. I want to grab the bear he gave me and shove it under the blankets, hide it from his scorn, but I can’t endure another cruel taunt.
When he turns to go, I curl into the fetal position and press a fist to my mouth, determined not to be more pathetic than I’ve already been tonight. Still, the thought of being alone to sort through the night’s trauma is too much. I don’t care if it’s an estranged brother who hates me. I just want some human company after being stripped of my humanity so thoroughly by the Hellhounds, turned into a faceless animal for them to torment and inflict their sick fantasies upon.
When Saint walks away, I choke on the sob barreling up through me. He pauses at the door, dropping his head forward against the wooden surface, his fingers already closed around the knob. His long hair swings forward around his face, but I can’t see it anyway. All I can see is his back—and the resignation in his posture as he slowly turns.
My heart tears in two. I don’t want to be an obligation to him, a burden.
“You can go,” I say, my voice shaking as I draw a long, slow breath, trying to get myself under control.
He crosses the room in three long strides, grabs me by the throat, and lifts me up, pushing me back on the pillows. He pulls one knee up onto the bed, leaning over me, his fingers tight around my throat. His fiery eyes burn into mine with a fierceness that makes me shy away and drop my gaze, but he lifts my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. They soften when he sees the tears swimming between my lids.
“So fucking innocent,” he murmurs, his hand stroking back down from my chin to my throat, gentle this time.
“Please,” I whisper, my fingers wrapping around his wrist. I don’t know what I’m asking for, just that I need him tonight.
“If I stay, I’ll be damning us both,” he says, his voice husky with truth. “I’m already gone, but you…” He runs his thumb over my lower lip, staring at my mouth with a hunger that makes my flushed thighs quake. “There’s still a chance for you, little lamb.”
I grip him tighter, my pulse fluttering at his touch. “Stay,” I whisper, searching his amber eyes. “Please. Saint… I’m sorry.”
His mouth tightens into a cruel line, and his fingers flex around my throat. “You’re sorry?” he asks incredulously.
“I am,” I cry, a tear spilling down my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Saint. What can I do to make it up to you?”
“You sent us to fucking juvie, Mercy. You told the judge we killed Eternity.”
“I didn’t,” I protest. “I only told the truth.”
“Then tell me the truth right now,” he says, leaning closer, his fiery eyes burning into mine with white-hot hatred. “Why’d you ask me to stay?”
“I wanted—I just want—” I break off, a hiccup of a sob coming up. “I just want to be with you. Like it used to be.”
“You want me to kiss it better?” he asks, skimming his nose lightly over mine, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.
“What?” I breathe, my voice gone, my mind trying to navigate the confusing tumble of emotions in my heart and the throbbing in my body, like every blood cell has developed its own heartbeat.
His warm breath whispers against my cheek, curling through me like smoke and sin. “You don’t want me to spread your creamy thighs and kiss your bare, wet cunt until you beg for mercy?”
“No,” I whisper, staring up at him with wide eyes, my brother who is a stranger now, an experienced man who does these unspeakable things, while I’m still a child in comparison.
He leans back and slides his hand back up to my chin again, lifting it and forcing me to look into his eyes. “Lying is a sin, Mercy Soules.”
I swallow hard, unable to hold his gaze. My lids flutter closed.
“You’d let me,” he says. “You want me to. That’s why you asked me to stay. You want me to lick and suck and fuck your raw cunt with my tongue until you squirt all over my face like you did earlier.”
I gasp, my lips falling open and my whole body flushing with heat at his filthy words—and the naked truth of them.
Before I can answer, his lips press together in a hard line again. “Too bad I don’t eat garbage.”
“What?” I gasp in confusion, my heart still hammering and my mind reeling from his words.
“Your cunt’s dirty, sloppy trash,” he says, standing from the bed. “I wouldn’t fuck it if you were the last woman on earth.”
“Saint,” I cry, reaching for him.
He steps away and shakes his hair back. “You’re my sister, for fuck’s sake. What the hell is wrong with you, Mercy? I thought you were innocent, but you’re obviously a used up, filthy whore who’s so desperate you’d beg your own brother to eat your worn out pussy.”
“I didn’t,” I protest, a sob wracking my body.
“Since you told me the truth, I’ll return the favor,” he says, his eyes raking down my body in one harsh sweep. “A pig wouldn’t eat that slop between your legs.”
He strides to the door, yanks it open, and steps out. Then he turns back, his lively eyes now cold and flat, unaffected by the tears streaming down my cheeks. “Go home.”
Then he closes the door, leaving me alone with only my threadbare teddy bear for comfort.