Page 74 of Their Will be Done

Shock dips me in ice.

My hands are on his chest, fingers digging into his muscles, but I slowly retract them and hug myself instead.

He lets out a long breath through his nose and then slowly scans my face like he’s looking for something.

I don’t know if he finds it, but a moment later he slips his rosary over my head and tucks it behind the open halves of my dress. Then he slowly starts buttoning me up again.

“Why?” The word warbles out before I can stop it.

“Why did I watch, or why didn’t I stop him?”

“Both!” The anger’s coming back, but I force myself to swallow it down.

“I watched because I like you. Because you were enjoying it. Because I wanted to see what you look like when you come.”

I should be flooded with horror or disgust. Instead, I stare at Reuben with morbid fascination.

I thought it washim. That’s the only reason I allowed—

“And I didn’t stop him, because I was pretending it was me in there, not him.”

His words spear into through me like a blunt knife.

“What?” I belt out, thumping his chest with my fist. “That makes no sense!”

He grumbles faintly as he steps back and lets me slip to the floor. I’m breathing so hard you’d swear I ran a fucking marathon. “That makes no fucking sense, Reuben!” I yell, bashing my other fist into him.

He catches my wrist before I can get off another blow and then closes his arms over me, crushing me to his massive chest. I let out a strangled yell, but fighting him is pointless.

“Can I kiss you now?” he asks.

That knife twists, scraping over my bones and shredding my heart. It takes every ounce of self-control I still have, but I manage a hoarse, “No. Never.” I clear my throat and force strength into my words. “Never,everagain.”

Then I shove at him with all my might.

And he lets me go.

I don’t look back when I leave, but I manage not to slam the door. I take two steps before the smell of his rosary hits my nose again.

I leave it hanging from his door handle, blinking back tears as I stalk back to my room.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Zach

My heart almost explodes from my chest when I spot Cass sitting on the couch. I wasn’t sure if he’d be here. A part of me wishes he wasn’t. A part of me can’t be more relieved to see him.

Cass looks up from the latest edition ofPussy Pounderas I slip into our lair through the narrow opening in the bookshelves. I can’t wait for the day we’ll have a space of our own with a proper fucking door. No, fuck that. No doors. Just an archway.

I know exactly where we’ll go when this shit’s taken care of.

Whenever I go into town on the weekends, I spend an hour or so at the local coffee shop. Their filter coffee tastes like the shit you scrape out of a gutter, but that’s not why I go there.

Their Wi-Fi, although spotty, opens up a new world. For an hour, I can escape this shitty school and the decades-long path my brothers and I have been trekking.

For those few precious minutes, I go house hunting. It started as a mental itch I had. We have a game we play. Can’t remember the last time we did, but since our answers are always the same, I have that shit committed to memory.

It’s called: what would you do, if you could do anything?

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