fourteen
The Merciful
I’m halfway across the small, tree-lined courtyard when the chatter around the fountain dies. I swallow hard, gripping my blazer tightly around me, even though it’s already hot at eight in the morning. Sneaking a glance, I’m relieved to see no one is looking at me. They don’t know, even though I took the mask off, which is against the rules of the game. No one knows what I did last night except the Hellhounds, and they’re not going to talk.
My relief is short lived as I realize there must be someone notable following me. A shiver of dread wracks my body, and I duck my head, stepping aside to let them pass. Maybe it’s not one of my former friends, a member of the Quint. Maybe it’s just a stranger, one who saw the most intimate, unholy places on my body displayed and made a laughingstock like a disobedient wife of old trapped in the stocks in the town square.
Or maybe it’s the stranger whose lips and teeth left the bruises along my shoulders and up the sides of my neck, who touched places on my body that even I’ve never touched, who abused the sacred place that only my future husband has the right to, stealing that privilege from the man I’ll one day marry. It’s not enough that I can lie, adding another sin to the crushing weight of guilt on my chest after last night’s sick game. Even if I never tell my husband, it’s too late. That gift is already gone, stolen from me, even if my husband never knows it was stolen from him.
How could I ever tell him? How could I confess to him that a perfect stranger, a man I’ve never seen in my life, not only robbed me of the gift of my purity that I should have given to him on our wedding night, but he shared it with a dozen other men?
He didn’t just rob me of my innocence, either. He stole it and then destroyed it when he didn’t treasure it, didn’t treat it as sacred. He treated it like it was worthless, therefore leaving me without worth. He ruined me.
He used me like a cheap harlot who was there for every man’s pleasure, took a part of me that was private and untouched, and put it on display for them to scorn or lust after, and he abused it until I was forced to submit to the temptation and give in to my base, sinful nature. They all know that I’m unclean.
If he speaks to me now, I think I’ll die.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I pray it’s not him. That it’s not Heath, who took my confession that wasn’t his to hear, a confession almost as shameful as the one I’ll have to share with a man someday, a man who will surely walk away and not want to marry me if I tell him. I pray it’s not Saint, that he won’t stop and humiliate me in front of everyone the way he humiliated me in private last night. I pray it’s not Angel, who belongs to the gang that threw bricks through our window when I sent their prince away for killing my friend, even though he belongs there.
They all belong there. They’re all heathens, savages capable of the deepest depravity. They proved that last night. There’s nothing they won’t do, no limit to their deviant desires. They think if they force me to participate, I’ll break. They expect me to run in shame, but I won’t. Not when they walk free after what they did. I won’t give up this easily, no matter how badly I want to. I will put all three of them back where they belong, for good this time, no matter what it takes. Because no matter how badly they ruin me, they can’t destroy me worse than they did her. She deserves justice, and if no one else will pursue it, I’ll do it alone.
“Well, well, well,” drawls a voice full of scorn and irony. “Did we find a lost little lamb?”
I stare at the cobblestones underfoot, praying fervently that they’re talking to another player from HAVOC. And then a pair of sleek oxblood loafers appear in my line of sight, pointed directly at me, the toes splayed slightly in that masculine stance of confidence that rich men take. I refuse to raise my eyes, to see which Hellhound it is. I know it’s not one of the three I know, and I don’t want to see the face of the man who touched me.
“Little lamb,” taunts another voice in a quiet sing-song from beside me.
“Are you lost?” whispers a voice from behind me. Warm breath stirs the hairs on the nape of my neck, and a cold chill of fear grips my body.
“Where’s your shepherd?”
“Take a vow of silence after your night of debauchery?” another mocking voice asks from my other side.
I want to shove my way through the circle of them and run, but my feet are frozen, like I’m the scared little rabbit Heath said I was, frozen in the hopes that I won’t be spotted even after my predators have closed in around me.
A pale hand appears, and I glimpse a horned skull on the back and an altered hourglass symbol tattooed on the thumb before he reaches under my chin, tipping it up. My gaze travels up, and up, and up, into the captivating grey eyes of the man who told me to bow on my first day. I cast my eyes around in a panic. I’m not surrounded by Hellhounds. I’m surrounded by Sinners.
There’s a boy on every side of me. The lone girl in the group stands with her arms crossed, the sleeves of her white shirt rolled up to reveal tattooed, muscular forearms. She snaps her gum between her blood red lips with dark liner, watching through kohl-rimmed, sullen grey eyes as the boys circle me like sharks scenting blood.
“I heard someone in a sheep mask left your room last night,” Bain says, leaning down to speak into my face, like he wants to make sure I can read his lips so I don’t miss a single word. “Was that you? Or your roommate?”
I try to step back, but the boy orbiting behind me shoves me back into Bain’s grip.
“So? Who was it?” he asks. “Who went to the game and enjoyed a little havoc of her own last night? Because if it’s your roommate, I’m going to need her name.”
“I don’t have a roommate,” I blurt.
A cold smile twists the corners of his lips into something vicious and terrifying. “So it was you,” he says. “I was hoping you’d been ruined and your brother would lift the ban.”
“What ban?”
One of the others chuckles darkly. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“No one on campus is allowed to speak to you,” he says. “Didn’t you wonder why you didn’t have any friends?”
I glance around the courtyard, where everyone is silent, watching the exchange. A few have drifted closer, but they drop their gazes without meeting mine.
My stomach knots, and I think of the girls I awkwardly tried to make conversation with in class. I assumed it was my social ineptitude that drove them away. After four years of living as a recluse and being homeschooled, I didn’t expect to make a lot of friends. It’s hard to trust people after everything that happened with the last group of friends I had, but I thought maybe I’d at least find someone to eat lunch with in the dining hall.
Now I know why I haven’t.
“If the ban is lifted, we’d be happy to be your friends,” says a Sinner who’s shorter but just as fierce looking, with black hair combed back to highlight his widow’s peak and devastating flint grey eyes. His words don’t match his voice, which holds an edge of threat like friendship has a very different meaning to boys with pretty faces and wicked souls.
“I have a question,” says another one of the boys, this one so heart-stoppingly beautiful that it’s hard to breathe when my eyes meet his dove-grey gaze. “Did you tell your brother you’d entered HAVOC? Were you allowed to wear a special sign so he knew not to fuck his sister?”
“Maybe they’re into that,” says another boy with a shrug.
“Or maybe she is,” Bain says, smirking down at me from his giant’s height. “Did you wear the mask the whole time, so he never knew he fucked his own sister?”
“What?” I ask, trying to step back.
“If it were me,” the girl says. “I’d have taken it off when he was mid-climax. I’d give my trust fund to see the look on his face for the cum shot.”
“You—are diabolical,” says one of her brothers, throwing his ropy arm around her shoulders and beaming down at her.
She grins back at him with her vampire lips and then resumes chomping her gum.
“If she was the sacrifice, then he’d have to fuck her,” says the Sinner with glasses.
“Oh, that’s true,” muses the beautiful one, stroking his chin and looking me up and down. “What a conundrum.”
“Do you think the Hellhounds’ precious Saint knew he was fucking his sister?” asks the mean one.
“What if he still doesn’t know?” asks the girl with a sly little smile.
“I heard the heathen fucked his sister too,” says another. “They ran a train on her and tossed her in the river afterwards. I heard her corpse was all full of cum when they found it.”
My heart punches up into my throat, and my knees threaten to buckle. Where did they hear that? Is it just disgusting gossip, or do they know something—something about her disappearance? Suddenly, I see them with new eyes. What if I’ve been looking for answers in the wrong place, the wrong fraternity?
“Did you like knowing your brother’s cock was among the twelve?” the beautiful Sinner whispers against my ear, sending a wave of hot shame through my body.
“Did you know it was him?” asks a voice from my other side. “Or did he keep his mask on, so you had no way of knowing which man fucking you was him? Did that make it better for you, you freaky little nympho?”
“What does the Bible say about incest?” asks yet another. They’re circling me so fast I can’t keep track of them, can’t breathe. I think I’m going to faint as one of them looks me up and down with the grey-eyed gaze of some silent majestic predator, a snow leopard on the prowl, before darting back into the blur of them moving around me in a dizzying pace.
“Were you the sacrifice?” Bain asks, gripping my hair and tugging my head back so I’m forced to look up at the tower of muscle and menace shrouded in black. He smells like clove cigarettes and motorcycle exhaust, the masculine scent making something dark and sinful join the fear churning in my belly.
I shake my head. I remember in the entry form that it said the sacrifice wasn’t disclosed to outsiders. I’m not sure why I feel any loyalty to the Hellhounds or any need to protect their sick game instead of shutting it down, but I won’t break my word. Not to mention that I have no idea how much this group knows, but it’s way too much. They’re already terrifying, and I don’t want to give them such shameful ammunition to use against me.
“One way to find out,” says the particularly mean-looking one with a horned skull tattoo on the side of his neck. “Walk for us.”
“What?” I ask, trying to turn his way. Before I can, Bain’s fingers tighten in my strawberry locks. I curse myself for leaving my hair down, but I needed to hide as much of the bruising on my neck as possible.
“Yes,” Bain says slowly, releasing me and stroking my cheek, sending a shiver of dread down my spine and a quaking through my thighs. “Walk for us, little lamb. If twelve men ran a train on you last night, I’m surprised you’re able to get out of bed at all.”
“Guess that rumor about Saint’s dick is a myth,” the girl says, looking delighted. “I bet those Hellhounds are really more like miniature Schnauzers.”
A couple guys laugh, but Bain’s keen interest stays locked on me. “Go on,” he says, a challenge in his voice. “Show me the real meaning of the walk of shame, little lamb.”
A dark murmur rolls through the crowd, and I stand there burning with a desire to leap into the fountain and drown myself so they’ll stop looking, knowing I’ve been marked by the Hellhounds for their depraved games. But before I can so much as move, my brother shoves the nearest Sinner, who goes flying, not having prepared for the blow. His head hits the stone rim of the fountain with a sound that makes my stomach lurch and my blood churn.
“Did you fucking touch my sister?” Saint thunders as Heath jumps on the guy with the skull tattoo on his neck. They hit the cobblestones, rolling around in a blur of fists, a stream of obscenities echoing around the courtyard from both of them.
“Maybe,” Bain says, smirking down at my brother. “Did you?”
Saint is close to six and a half feet tall and more muscular than the taller boy, putting him in the same weight class, but my throat still catches with fright at the thought of him fighting the giant Sinner.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Saint grits out. “I told you, Mercy is ours.”
“We’re just trying to figure out if she’s your sacrifice,” says the beautiful one, raking his fingers through his ebony hair and flipping it back in a gesture of casual arrogance. “And how much she enjoyed being fucked by her own brother.”
Angel takes a swing at him, and he just ducks out of the way before another Sinner jumps in to slam a fist into Angel’s face. Blood goes flying, and I cover my mouth, trying not to give away my reaction. My fingers are tingling so hard I can barely feel them.
“This is your last warning, Bain,” Saint says, not seeming affected by the bloody battle taking place around us as two more Hellhounds join in and the remaining Sinners rush to meet them with bloodthirsty delight in their stormy grey eyes. “If any one of you so much as lays a finger on her again, I will personally cut every one from your hands, nail them to the doors of all your rooms as a reminder, and shove the other three up your ass. Got it?”
“Fucking touch a Sincero, and your heads will be on spikes outside every business your shady-ass friends own by morning,” Bain growls back.
“Eh, come on,” the girl says, stepping over a Hellhound’s crumpled form that lies groaning on the blood-slicked stones. “The bitch may be hot, but she’s no Helen of Troy.”
“He’s right,” says the pretty brother, shrugging his torn blazer into place on his shoulders. “She’s not worth starting a gang war over.”
“We’re done,” Saint says, and Angel immediately shoves away from the Sinner he was fighting. Their mouths and noses are both swollen and bruised, dripping blood down the front of their uniforms.
Bain makes a circular gesture in the air with one long, pale finger. “Round up the others,” he says. “We’re done here.”
The fight breaks up, a couple bleeding boys carrying the one who was knocked out. Saint wrestles Heath away from a fight with two more Sinners, who join Bain and their sister.
Bain gives me a toothy grin. “Always a pleasure, Miss Soules. You’ll be seeing more of us before long.”
“Don’t count on it,” Saint growls, danger etched into every word he speaks, every line of his angular, masculine face, the way his muscles strain against his blazer as if his rage could burst the seams at any moment and spill out over his enemies.
Bain gives a menacing chuckle before turning as one with his group. They stroll off across the courtyard like it’s just another beautiful day and they didn’t just start a brawl in the middle of campus.
The crowd of onlookers goes back to their own dramas, except for a gaggle of girls who have surrounded Heath, batting their eyes in sympathy and cooing over his injuries.
“Get lost,” Saint says, throwing a possessive arm around Heath and making an impatient gesture at the girls. He strides out of the common area, dragging Heath, who turns around to wink and grin at the girls he’s leaving behind.
A flicker of irritation goes through me.
Angel throws a thick, muscular arm around my shoulders and swaggers out of the courtyard after my brother.
“Bruh, you’re such a cockblock,” Heath says, shoving Saint away. “I was about to get so much sympathy play…”
“Like you’ve ever needed an excuse for an orgy.”
“It’s not an excuse,” Heath protests. “My head hurts like a bitch. It’ll distract me from the pain.”
“We’ll get you to the infirmary,” Saint says. “I’m sure the nurse can give you something for the pain—and set your fucking nose again. How many times have you broken it now?”
“What was that about?” I ask, turning to Angel. “Why is Bain threatening y’all?”
Angel opens his mouth, but Saint cuts him off with a scoff, scowling over his shoulder at us. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
Angel gives me an apologetic shrug, and I know he was going to tell me. My brother was always the leader of the group, though, even when they called us Cinco de Mercy, and it looks like nothing’s changed.
Except that now I’m not part of the group, not privy to whatever information they have, the secrets they share with each other.
“What businesses was he talking about?” I press.
“My family’s,” Angel says, turning his head away to spit blood while we walk, like he’s not bothered by the thought of his head on a stake in front of the Downtown Diner, the local greasy spoon that his parents own.
At the mention of the diner, a wave of nostalgia hits me, and I can hardly breathe. A thousand summer days flash through my mind, sweltering afternoons when we rode our bikes there to cool off in the air-conditioned interior. Angel’s mom would bring us pie and ice cream, saying we brightened up the place with our boisterous energy. We’d run back and forth to the soda fountain, filling their giant, translucent red plastic cups with soda from the tap and racing to see who could finish first. I’d stifle my burps, embarrassed by the unladylike effect of the carbonation, but the boys let them out with relish, loud and proud. And yet, Eternity beat them with the most bone-chilling belch every single time.
And then the sweet memories end like a record scratch, with alarms going off and my parents running into the living room to find the window shattered and a brick on the floor with a note wrapped around it. They wouldn’t let me read it, even though I knew it was for me. The next night, Mom took me to my aunt’s “for a few days.”
She never came back.
Saint glares at Angel for answering my question, but Angel just hugs me closer to his side and shrugs again. “What? She knows my dad’s a businessman.”
A businessman and, though I was too na?ve to put it together when I was a kid, apparently a gang member.
“The Sinners,” I say. “Is that a gang?”
“It’s a family,” Angel says. “Julian Sincero’s kids.”
“Shut up,” Saint growls.
“If they’re going to fuck with her, shouldn’t she know?”
“No,” he snaps. “They won’t dare.”
For a few beats, we walk in silence, and even though I’m with the men who did such degrading things to me last night, for a moment, I’m comforted by their presence. Maybe it’s the memories, but for the first time in four years, I feel like I can relax and just be myself without looking over my shoulder every two steps.
But this isn’t the Quint. There’s no Eternity to fill that space, the unspoken, painful ache in the group. Without her, it’s all a sham.
“So, we’re heading to the infirmary?” Heath asks, a grin returning to his face. “The nurse did make me feel better last time.”
“Dude, she’s like twice your age,” Angel points out, turning away to snort some blood into the grass before continuing on.
“So?” Heath asks. “She’s hot. Plus, older women have all the moves. Maybe I’ll ask her to take my temperature rectally this time.”
“You got punched in the face,” Saint says. “You’re not sick.”
“She doesn’t have to know that,” Heath says with a wink.
Saint jerks his chin at Heath’s face. “Your nose is broken.”
“Sick people get broken noses,” Heath points out. “Do you think they put lube on those thermometers or just slide ‘em up in?”
“You’re disturbed,” Saint says, shaking his head at the gesture Heath makes to demonstrate.
“Don’t be jealous,” Heath says, laying his head on Saint’s shoulder. “You can tickle my prostate any time, big guy.”
“While you two are making eyes at each other, I’m going to walk Mercy to class,” Angel says. “Unless I’m needed to break up a fight over a certain heathen’s asshole.”
“Some things are worth fighting for,” Heath says, batting his eyes at Angel.
Saint gives us a grudging look, a frown creasing his brow. “Go,” he says after a pause. “And don’t go easy on the Sinners again if they fuck with you.”
Angel gives him a quick chin nod and then turns, leading me toward Father Salvatore’s class, since we missed my first class for the brawl.
“You’re not going to the nurse?” I ask, peeking up at Angel’s face. Blood rings his nostrils and is smeared on his chin, and his lower lip is split right in the center. His tongue darts out, checking on the split, and my pulse throbs.
I pull my gaze away, licking my lips and trying not to notice the flutter that goes through my belly as my mind replays the vision of his full lip with the slit oozing scarlet, his tongue dragging down over it, collecting the glistening droplet.
“Nah, I’m good,” Angel says. “You alright?”
“Fine,” I say, surprised that he’s asking. Guilt flares inside me at the knowledge that I put this boy behind bars too. He filled out first when the other guys were still scrawny pre-pubescent boys, but he was never violent, never even accidently hurt someone because he didn’t yet know his strength after his early growth spurt. He was always the one who would cuddle us during movies and smell our hair, like the big, sweet teddy bear he was.
Until he wasn’t.
I shiver at the knowledge that I’m being embraced by a murderer, a boy who turned on our friend and could turn on me just as easily. A boy who held open my legs last night so he could feast his eyes on my humiliation as I was violated by a stranger from his own inner circle.
“So… are the Hellhounds a gang?” I ask.
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Nah, it’s an organization here on campus. Don’t worry about it. We’re going to look out for you, M.”
Emm. My heart melts with a shiver of warmth at the nickname they used to use.
I want to punch my own face just to clear my head of these stupid fantasies.
“Like you did last night?” I demand, twisting around and ducking from under Angel’s arm. I plant my clogs on the ground and my fists on my hips, glaring up at him.
He stops walking and cocks a brow, looking impressed for half a second before the momentary glimmer disappears from his eyes. He tips his chin back and smirks down at me with that split lip that’s so damn distracting it’s going to send me straight to hell. “Is that what you want?” he asks, lowering his voice to a sultry purr that makes my thighs clench involuntarily.
“No,” I say, scowling up at him.
His smirk turns into a grin, and I’m sure he knows I’m lying, and he loves how easily he’s led me to sin. Blood beads on his lip when it stretches, making my stomach swoop sickeningly.
“You sure?” he murmurs, reaching up and stroking my cheek with his bloody knuckles. A tingle goes through me as the breeze chills the wetness he left on my cheek, and his eyes light on the smear with heated lust. “Because having twelve men looking out for you might be safer than just three.”
I swallow hard, refusing to let my body’s shameful reaction send me running. “Three?” I ask. “You, Heath, and Saint?”
“That’s right,” he says, reaching out to toy with the buttons on my white shirt. “We’re going to look after you, take care of you. In every way.”
His pale eyes are hooded, and the heat burning in them makes my mouth go dry. “What does that mean?” I whisper.
“Whatever you want it to mean,” he says, stepping in closer, shifting so he’s standing over me, just a breath of charged space between us. “You want me to take care of that ache between your thighs, lil mama?”
“What?” I breathe, raising my hands to push him away. When my palms flatten on his chest, though, all I can feel is how hard his muscles are straining, like he’s holding back from pouncing, and how hard his heart is beating, even harder than mine. It sends me spiraling into confusion, and I meet his gaze, only to be lost in the beauty of his jade green gaze.
“You want me to take you back to your room and look after you?” he asks, his neck arching as he bends down, sliding a hand under the curtain of my hair and pushing it back so he can whisper against my ear. “Let me take care of your pleasure, Emm. I’ve been hard since I woke up, thinking about the way you smelled last night.”
My eyes widen with shock at his words, and my cheeks flush as his lips skim up the sensitive shell of my ear, sending a cascade of shivers through me. My fingers grip the front of his blazer, holding myself steady as my knees go weak.
“I don’t need you to sacrifice anything for me,” he whispers, sliding his hand around the back of my neck, his rough finger on my bare skin sending another rush of tingling down to my toes, as if every cell in my body has transformed into a silver bell, each one chiming a clear yes.
“Let me go down on you,” he whispers. “The others don’t have to know.”
“Angel,” I breathe, pushing at his chest without conviction.
“Please,” he says, pulling back and giving me a smile so beguiling it must be straight from the devil himself. “I think I’ll die if I can’t taste you after last night.”
The most obscene image fills my mind, one I’m ashamed my imagination can conjure on its own. I’ve never watched dirty movies, never looked at porn, and yet, the images fill my mind automatically. I don’t even know how I know what he means, how I know what it would look like to see a man kneeling between my thighs, feasting on my flesh like a demon while I screamed for the torment to continue instead of end. I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to banish the intrusive thoughts.
Angel’s hand tightens, dragging me forward, and his other huge paw settles onto my lower back, bringing my body flush with his. The animal heat of his trembling muscles overwhelms me as his mouth crashes against mine. The slickness of his soft lips startles a cry from mine, and his tongue sweeps into my mouth, hungry and urgent, before I can even comprehend I’m having my first kiss.
A kiss he’s stealing from not only me but my future husband, just as my first touch was stolen last night. His tongue sweeps over mine in a hypnotic rhythm that commands mine to respond, and for a second, I explore his mouth. Our tongues slide over each other’s, battling in some primal, carnal dance that sets my soul on fire with every sultry, heavy beat of my heart.
A shameful sound climbs up my throat, vibrating across his tongue. My knees give out entirely, and the only thing holding me up is Angel’s strong arm around me as I sag into him, clinging to his blazer to hold myself up. In response, he growls into my mouth, crushing my body to his and rolling his hips against mine, so I can feel his hardness biting into my stomach. A flutter grips the tender flesh between my thighs, still sore and swollen from last night’s ministrations.
I imagine what it would feel like to have him kiss me this way on his knees, and a shameless moan rises from some hidden depth inside me, an animal sound I never imagined I was capable of reverberating through every inch of my body. With an answering moan, Angel’s tongue ravishes mine more hungrily. His grinds against my teeth, and I taste the rich salt of his blood blooming over my tongue like a delicacy. I feed him a whimper of shameless need in return, and he grinds harder against me. A shudder wracks my entire being, the ache clenching so hard inside me that it feels like it’s ripping my soul from my body.
“Excuse me,” says a stern voice, followed by a throat clearing.
I shrink from the kiss, hiding my face in Angel’s shirt, my head spinning.
“Mr. North,” says a voice that’s smoky and smooth and all too familiar. “Once again I find myself reminding you to keep your private affairs out of the public eye, and preferably off campus.”
“My bad, Father,” Angel says, his chest shaking with laughter. “I’ll try not to lead any more of your flock into temptation today.”
“Miss Soules,” Father Salvatore says curtly.
I wait, my heart pounding, but he doesn’t continue for a long moment.
“Look at me,” he says, his voice lowered and for some unknown reason, sending a current of familiar desire rippling through my blood.
I swallow hard and slowly turn my face to him, rolling my swollen lips between my teeth.
Father Salvatore’s gaze follows the movement, then lingers on my lips when I release them.
“Yes, Father?” I whisper, shrinking against Angel’s chest, hanging onto his tie like a lifeline, seeking comfort from the irrational terror tugging at the back of my mind.
“If you’d be so kind as to tear yourself from this young man’s amorous embrace and join me, I believe you have my class right now.”
“Right,” I say, unclenching my fingers from Angel’s tie.
He seems reluctant to let me go, but at last his hands fall from around me. I step back and smooth my hands down over my plaid skirt, grateful my knees have recovered enough to hold me. I sneak a glance at his face, but I can’t read his expression.
“This way,” Father Salvatore reminds me, gesturing to the building with a wry smile.
“Right,” I say, flustered by the intensity of what just happened. Is that what kissing is always like?
“Take care of her,” Angel calls as the Father holds the door for me.
As we walk down the hall, I’m acutely aware of my skirt brushing my thighs with each step, of the chill of air-conditioned air against the damp, fevered skin between them. I wonder if Father Salvatore can tell that my gait is a little loose, if he can guess that it’s from the uncomfortable pressure between my thighs. I can feel him behind me with each step I take, can feel his judgment, and I want to cry.
And then we reach the stairs, and my cheeks burn as I climb them in front of him. I wonder how far up my skirt he can see as I climb, and I tug at the sides of the garment, holding it down against my legs as I climb the endless staircase to the second floor. He’s probably not even looking. He’s a priest, after all.
Still, he’s a man too.
I wonder if he’s ever broken his vow of celibacy. I wonder if he ever felt this way before he took it, if he ever made a woman feel this way. The thought makes wetness prickle in my center again, and I close my eyes, praying for deliverance from this hell.
“Stay a moment after class,” he murmurs to me when we reach the door to his classroom. Then he slips inside and sits behind his desk, leaving me to sit through the entire hour with a racing pulse and a sheen of sweat over my skin that only serves to remind me again of the summer afternoons with my friends back when I had them. When I had someone to turn to with questions when my mind was as full of havoc as last night’s games.
If Eternity were here, I would tell her about the horrible things happening to me, the way my body says one thing and my upbringing says another, the irrational terror I feel when I look at the priest, knowing he can condemn me to burn in hell for all I’ve felt in the past few days, not to mention the past six years. My throat is so tight I want to tear it out just so it will stop aching. I curl my fingers around the cross I wear around my neck, squeezing until I feel it break the skin, feel blood oozing out between my fingers and into the engraved lettering on the back. I need punishment, pain for what I’ve done and felt and desired. I need this reminder.
SHAME.