Page 58 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

Trinity

Thankfully, Miriam doesn’t drag me all the way by my ear. A few yards outside the dining hall, close to the small prayer room, she releases me.

With a flick of her arm, she consults her little watch and then glares at me for a second. Her eyes move to the prayer room. She points. “You stay in there until I come for you.”

When I don’t move, she grabs me by my collar and drags me bodily through that little arched door. I stumble when she shoves me inside and catch my knee on one of the chairs. Whimpering, I turn as she starts closing the door in my face.

She pauses when there’s little more than her face showing. “Best you pray to God that I’ve cooled down before I come back, else you won’t have a strip of hide left.”

She bangs the door in my face.

I cup my ear, massaging at my itchy, stretched skin where it meets my scalp with one hand and rubbing my knee where I bumped my leg with the other.

“Are you all right?”

No.

No, no, no, no, no!

Come on!

I spin on legs that feel like they’ve turned to rubber. A big shape unfolds from the small chancel and slowly turns to face me.

Reuben.

I swallow an angry sob and move back, fumbling behind me for the handle. After everything that’s happened today, the only logical conclusion is that I’m about to die.

Terror traps a broken scream in my throat when I don’t find the handle. When my fingertips brush blank wood. I don’t dare look around, because then he’ll pounce and do God knows what to me.

Maybe bash my head on the floor till my skull cracks open.

Fuck, he could probably crush my head between his hands if he wanted.

“Please.”

Wood.

Wood.

Brick.

“Don’t.”

Reuben ducks his head, and slowly replaces his rosary.

Brick.

Wood.

Brick.

Where thefuckis the door handle?

I have to risk it.

I glance around, all the while my skin crawling with invisible tarantulas.

He’s still standing by the pulpit. He hasn’t moved closer. My heart thumps in relief, but I don’t stop looking for the handle.

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