twenty #2
I know Heath doesn’t know because I’m a fucking caveman who doesn’t know how to express anything but anger, the way I was taught.
That was acceptable. Anything else was not.
Especially not the things I want to say to Heath.
Those would send me back to the priest with the wire and the boy pleading for mercy that never came.
Heath may be unhinged, but even he knows how to use his words.
If he told me he wanted to talk, I probably grunted at him or told him I was hitting the gym. That’s what men do.
Men don’t lace their fingers with their sleeping buddy in the dark, lie next to him, inhale the scent of him in the sheets when he’s gone. Hell , I don’t do that. That’s what makes it so damn confusing. I don’t like men in that way, don’t want them, don’t think about them.
I want women. I fuck women. I think about them all the time.
And I think about him.
Not men.
Just Heath.
And lately, not women.
Just Mercy.
My head jerks up, and I look around the waiting area, then turn to Angel, my heart punching in my chest. “Where’s Mercy?”
He stares back at me, blinking a few times before he too cranes his neck to search the crowd for her. He turns back to me with a frown. “She went after you,” he says. “You said you were with her.”
“I was.”
With her, under her, on top of her, inside her…
“Well, where the fuck is she?” he demands, leaning forward like he’s about to lunge from his chair.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “She left my room.”
His eyes narrow. “You let her walk home alone? At night?”
“I… She was pissed,” I say, hearing how fucking weak the excuse is even as it leaves my lips.
“We agreed to escort her whenever she left her dorm,” he says, his voice measured, careful, the fury vibrating under it making me wince.
“I know.”
“What did you do?”
I can’t meet his eyes. “I was with Ronique,” I mutter.
“You fucking idiot.” Angel isn’t shy with the insults, but I’ve never heard his voice so cold. Not towards me. He stands and calls to his cousins. “Maddy, Mav.”
They stand from where they were sitting against the wall with Maverick’s girl. He says something to her and points to Colt Darling, then saunters over with his brother.
“This asshole left my girlfriend on her own,” Angel says, not turning to me. “One of us is going to stay here with Heath, and since he’d rather it be him, I’m sending him with you.”
I bristle. “I don’t need a fucking escort.”
Angel levels me with his coldest snake eyes. “You’d better fucking pray she’s snug in her bed, fast asleep when you get there.” His nostrils flare, and he purses his lips. “If she is… You can kneel and worship her for me until I get there.”
“Can I—” Maverick starts, but Angel cuts him off.
“No,” he says. “Stand watch until you hear from me.”
“I’ll go too,” Annabel Lee says, standing gracefully from where she sat in a pool of black ruffles.
“The fuck you will,” Mad Dog growls.
“She’s my friend,” Annabel Lee protests, looking to me.
Even though she lives on campus, I don’t know her any better than Angel’s other cousins, so I just shrug. I’m in enough trouble. Mercy may be my sister, but she’s Angel’s girlfriend.
Mad Dog fixes his sister with his unnerving stare. “Sit your ass down.”
She glares, her jaw clenching, but she tucks her skirts and obeys.
“He’s just trying to protect you,” Manson tells her, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to rest his temple against hers. “Not that there’s anything to worry about. I’m sure Mercy’s fine.”
Mad Dog turns and strides out of the waiting room.
“You should go,” I say to Angel. “She’s your girlfriend.”
“And?”
“And she won’t want to see me,” I grit out, shame racing through my veins when I remember the way I treated her. The look on her face when she walked in and saw Ronique in my bed. The way it turned me on.
“That’s why you should go,” Angel says. “Besides, you don’t deserve to be here if Heath wakes up. You’ll just do the same thing to him that you do to her.”
“I didn’t see the messages,” I grit out, my hands fisting at my sides.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Now go make things right with her while you can.” He softens at last, just as I’m about to turn away. “I’ll text if we hear anything,” he says. “Keep your phone on this time. And text when you get to Mercy’s.”
I follow Maverick outside, and we climb into Mad Dog’s car, which is waiting at the front. A few minutes later, we’re back at Thorncrown. We hurry across campus toward the girls dorm. I think of what I’ll say to Mercy.
I think about the tears on her face when I said those things to her as I fucked her, the way she came with them still dripping down her cheeks. The way they tasted on my tongue.
My pace quickens.
I’ll tell her the truth. That it gets me off to see her cry, sick as that is. That I know in some way it gets her off too. That’s why she cums so hard when I fuck her, when I tell her what a dirty little whore she is.
I want her to be my whore. To show me how wet it makes her when I call her that.
I want to fuck her again, raw and dirty like I did in my room.
This time, I want to do it alone, with no audience.
We haven’t had nearly enough time together without anyone else there.
Time to sort things out, to come to an understanding.
She told me she loved me, but I couldn’t say it back. Not with the priest right there. I couldn’t lose face, look like a pussy. I didn’t want him to know I cared. And maybe I didn’t want her to know, either.
But she should know.
She should know she’s my whole world, that it kills me a little more each time I see her happy with another man. That I’m a selfish bastard, and I want her to be my girlfriend, not just my sister. I want her to be my everything. She already is. I just have to tell her.
I hurry up the steps of her dorm, already formulating the words I’ll say to her. My footsteps echo down the third-floor hallway as I increase my pace, almost running to her.
But when we reach the door to her room, it’s hanging open. Inside, the room has been ransacked, and there’s no sign of Mercy. I stand there for a long minute, my hands gripping the doorframe on both sides to keep me upright. She’s gone.
Mercy is gone.
I sway on my feet, not hearing the words that Angel’s cousins are saying behind me, not seeing anything except the disheveled bedsheets, the quilt and throws in a tangle like they’re not lovingly made with her own hands.
She would never leave her bed that way. That’s what I’m thinking.
She would never leave her cat, the grey cloud of Dr. Jekyll that’s now cowering in the furthest corner under her bed, staring out at me with round, frightened eyes instead of running to me like he usually does.
And then I see the little end of her bear, the bear I gave her a decade ago, tossed facedown on the floor halfway under her bed, and something inside me snaps.
I fall to my knees, calling out for a sister who is no longer here. For a sister I destroyed.
Breaking her destroyed me too, but losing her shattered me into a million pieces. I will never be whole, never rest, never fucking breathe, until she’s safe in my arms again.
I pray that it won’t be too late. But I’m afraid it already is.
Will Saint get a chance to reconcile with Mercy? Will she outwit the Disciples? And what happened to Eternity?