Page 30 of Seduce & Destroy

Quickly, I remembered my surroundings and noticed the room hadn’t entirely emptied out after Tilly’s funeral. Father watched keenly but made no move to help me or Logan in this situation. Neenan had inched closer but was pulled away into a hushed discussion with his father.

I took Kenna’s hand, and with her help I climbed onto the pew in my short heels and stepped over Logan’s cowering body. A small puddle of blood had formed below where I sat. At that moment, I noticed that Logan wasn’t complaining or groaning.

“Did you knock him out cold?” I said in a mix of disbelief and admiration.

She shrugged in response. Still hand in hand, she guided me off of the pew onto solid ground. I looked up at her through my lashes. It was like I was in a happy state of shock, outwardly I schooled my expression for the circumstance, but internally, I was screaming love for this girl.

I shook my head to rid myself of those thoughts. Too soon. It was too much. Too much of a fantasy, the miserable hope, which had kept me stagnant and captive and longing for the day Kenna would return to save me. To cure my chronic loneliness. It wasn’t rational, and it wasn’t as if she had done anything in particular to earn my trust, but this felt like a new leaf.

Take me away. I pleaded with my eyes that were still on hers.

She got the memo and pulled me out the door into the surrounding woods. We were far from Great Tenor and much further from the Ravencroft Estate. I didn’t say that though, and I didn’t care either.

The forest enveloped us whole. Faintly, I heard my name shouted but ignored it, blindly following my teenage phantom as she led me into darkness. Once the Church became out of sight and once the whimsical tune of distant songbirds replaced the voices of cadets, Kenna dropped my hand. And with it, my lethargic dreaming was erased from my mind so it could face reality.

This was a girl who had lied to me. And my final goodbye to the one girl I trusted had been ruined by a man.

I needed my best friend, and I would never see her again. I wanted to see Kenna in the image of my best friend so that she could be the grounded and trusted friend that I needed right now but she wasn’t. Nothing could replace the bright, beautiful girl that will be soon cocooned in the cold earth.

No. No. Stay. I began to whimper. Tilly. Breathe in. Oh, my Lord, Tilly and her husband. Breathe out. Her family, God, I’ll never see them again. Breathe in. And her face and her ideas. Breathe out. Companionship, gone with the wind. A drop fell onto my head, and I flinched so hard I almost stumbled.

And Logan! Jesus, who invited Logan. Calm. What does he want? Down. Was it not over? Calm. I need it to be over. Down. The ring. Breathe. Please. Please. Please. Just one day. “Laney?” A soft voice interjected. “In. Hold…two…three…four. Out.”

And Father. Oh my, why doesn’t he care? Calm. What did I do? The. I need. Fuck. I want. Down.

“Kenna,” I grabbed her arm, leaning all my weight on it. I felt lethargic all over again just not in a happy-go-lucky kinda way. A fresh scent clung to her like she had traversed a forest of pine trees and fallen into a pile of tea tree leaves. I focused on that, but I couldn’t help the barrage of conflicting emotion that was escalating my breathing at an alarming rate.

I need to stop. I want to stop. Let me stop. Please. “I’m going to faint.”

Barely audible, I heard, “I’ll catch you.” Before the world went dark.

Chapter 12

KENNA

She was only out for about ten seconds.

I caught her when she fell, and lowered her to the floor, her head on my lap.

Her heart beat out of her chest so hard that I think it must’ve hurt. I placed my hand on her heart so that I could register when it settled, but after a minute, it still hadn’t. After a brief panic, her eyes finally opened again.

“How long was I out for?”

“About ten seconds. But after, you had your eyes closed for a minute or so.”

“Yeah, I was trying not to throw up.”

My attempt at a smile came out sad. I could tell because her face morphed into a scene of embarrassment, but it wasn’t pity I was trying to convey, only worry.

Really, I only had one question on my mind.

“What did he do to you?” I wasn’t above violent retaliation. In fact, that man was lucky he got punched, if weapons were permitted in the Church, he’d have a matching hole in his head to his hand. When I caught sight of his hand on her, I was already seething but, the moment I noticed her protests, my anger boiled over into full-blown rage.

“It was a long time ago,” she tried to dismiss.

“Tell me.”

I wasn’t about to listen to any statute of limitations. In my eyes, justice didn’t have a time limit. If she thought this wasn’t a big deal, she was sorely mistaken. I conveyed this conviction in my face.

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