Page 10 of Absentia Mori

I really fucking wish she didn’t make my dick hard. This would be a whole lot easier for all of us if she was repulsive. But every filthy defiant insult that comes out of her mouth just makes me want to fuck her more.

“Listen,” I interrupt their reveries. “Let’s punish the bitch, have our fun, and get back on course. I’m sick of rotting in this fucking place.”

Fabien nods. “Agreed. Think of all the fun we’ll have on the outside.”

“So many people to kill,” Mordecai adds.

We plowed their poison fields, played along with their games, and swallowed our pride our whole lives. But they crossed a fucking line that can’t be erased. The high society of Melancholia is going to regret ever fucking with us. After we’re done with theirPoison Princess, they’ll never look at her the same.

Mordecai wants to kill her, but I think death is too easy. I want that vain bitch to suffocate in her own skin. To make her outsides match her insides.

“Did you get a copy of the key?” I ask.

Fabien fishes it out of his pocket and dangles it in the air like it’s our salvation. Maybe it is. “We start tonight. One at a time at first. I want her terror to build slowly. Her fear will consume her until she actually starts to lose her mind.”

“I want to go first.” Mordecai shuts his book with a loud snap.

Libra Thorn is going to scream for help tonight.

But it won’t come. Nobody cares. No one is coming to save her from us.

The tour was pointless and only an excuse for Raithe to taunt me some more. I can’t let them distract me. But I don’t remember any of them being this fucking hot back at Tenebrose. I guess I didn’t look long enough to notice.

I was too busy trying to get Riot’s attention. Even when we were kids, he was cruel to me. That’s when my addiction to toxic boys started. And when Maureen came to town,his firecracker, I was thought of even less.

Some sick twisted part of me is turned on by being the focus of Raithe, Fabien, and Mordecai’s wrath. I get under their skin just as badly as they do mine.

After forcing a bowl of that slop down, only to make my stomach stop growling, I take a long hot shower in this sorry excuse for what they call a bathroom. The one I have back at Tenebrose is big enough to fit me and an entire rugby team. I know because I did it once.

Fuck, I miss my life. How did I end up in this hell?

As the hot water rushes down my back, I grip the wall and close my eyes. Why can’t I fucking remember anything? My mind just keeps replaying the same images. Me, dancing on the table. Cocaine at my feet. Blurred faces laughing and guzzling bottles of booze. Loud music. Fuck. I’m dizzy. Drunk. Sloppy. And then nothing. Then I wake up here.

Who would dare to do this to me?To a Thorn.

Only someone with equal wealth and power could pull this off. Someone with enough nerve to kidnap the heir to the Thorn poison empire. They were smart to hide me in the one place no one would ever think to look.

Dr. Hall has to be in on it. She knows exactly who I am. I’m on every society page from here to Ever Graves. But no demands have been made. At least not to me. And now I’m starting to wonder if my father’s been given a ransom note. If he knows and just refuses to pay it. It will cause a scandal. And Gemini Thorn loves his status and reputation more than he loves his children.

I’m so fucked.

I dry off and put on a clean pair of cotton pants and a matching shirt, both in the lovely shade of vomit green. I groan as I step into a pair of slip-on tennis shoes. No fucking laces. Clever. I look around the room and notice there isn’t a single thing I can use as a weapon. No pens or nail clippers, or even a bobby pin. Everything is murder-proof.

I’ll have to get more creative.

I stare out the barred window for an hour. Nothing but forest and marshland surrounds the property. I remember coming up here drunk one Halloween to help teach one of the new initiatives a lesson. Riot made me lure the poor guy into the woods and act like I was going to fuck him.

As soon as he had his clothes off, a group of elder initiates jumped out and tied him to a tree. They made him watch as Isucked all their cocks. They laughed so hard. And then they left him there all night.

I felt special in that moment. Like I was lucky to be chosen. But looking back… I know now the joke was on me. Because they didn’t take me with them. They left me there to find my own way back. Riot said it was because the initiate didn’t cry. That I should think about how I could do better next time during my ten-mile hike back to Tenebrose.Fucking psycho.

I did whatever Riot and his coven asked of me without question. I let them fucking use me and humiliate me over and over again. And for what? So I could drink expensive Blackwell gin at their parties and sit next to them in class? If my twin brother, Aries, ever finds out half the shit I did for Nocturnus, he’ll disown me.

Fuck, I need a drink. The shame doesn’t destroy me as much when I’m drunk. I don’t want to think about the disgusting things I’ve done.

The sound of my door unlocking and bursting open startles me. I spin around and press my back against the window, the bars digging into my spine.

“Time for your medicine, little Doe.”

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