Page 42 of Their Will be Done

“Sorry—don’t—happening—shouldn’t—stop.”

I watch her as she tries to put on her yoga pants. When they’re halfway up her legs she turns away from me, surreptitiously wiping at the inside of her thigh as another sob wrangles its way out of her mouth.

“Hey.” I grab her elbow, but she twists her arm out of my grip. I frown, and this time I grab her waist and drag her up against me. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, her lips trembling. “I don’t know why that happened.”

I stick my hand between her legs, wiping at the slick wetness on her thighs. “This?” I ask roughly. “Are you embarrassed about this?”

She covers her face with her hands, shrinking in on herself like a wilting flower. I make an angry noise in the back of my throat. “You asked for this,” I tell her as I yank her yoga pants up the rest of the way. “Don’t play coy now.”

She rips her hands away and struggles in my arms, but I refuse to let her go. “It was supposed to hurt,” she says. “It wasn’t supposed to…why did it…what the fuck’s wrong with me?”

The last is a yell. She glares up at me before her face crumples and her mouth starts quivering again. “What’s wrong with me?” she whispers.

“Nothing, my girl.” I wipe away her tears with my thumbs as I cradle her face in my hands. “Absolutely nothing.”

I stare into amber eyes that demand more from me. But what the fuck am I supposed to say?

She wanted answers, I wanted release. We made a deal. How the fuck were we supposed to know it would turn out like this?

But now, staring into her eyes, I guess I had it wrong all along.

This wasn’t about her. It wasn’t about me. It was aboutus. All of us. The Brotherhood. The Ghosts. The Guardians.

It was about the basement.

She can’t believe what happened to us.

No one can be that cruel.

That perverted.

That sick.

It can’t be true.

But it is.

Trinity Malone couldn’t accept the truth so she tried catching me in a lie.

A slow, hard ache starts up in my ankles before spreading to my wrists.

I trace the bottom of her lip with my thumb. “I disobeyed them,” I tell her quietly.

She blinks, trapping a tear in her lashes. “What?”

“You wanted to know why my parents were punishing me.”

Her eyes widen ever so slightly.

“I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to. Saw something I shouldn’t have.”

My chest closes up. I take a deep breath, but it barely fills my lungs.

She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t push me for more. Perhaps she thinks I’ll tell her to leave if she does.

Those bright, amber eyes just watch. Not perversely curious, like the policemen who’d taken our statements after we’d finally escaped. Not pitiful, like so many of the parents in the foster homes we’d ended up in.

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