Page 10 of Of Heathens & Havoc

Hell, he’ll take the fucking lead. He’ll be happy that I took matters into my own hands. He’ll probably even give me his blessing to get my own revenge, to finish what I started that day, take what I should have taken back then. He won’t care about her innocence after the games, just like she didn’t care about mine after Eternity was gone.

five

The Merciful

In my dream, I’m riding my bicycle up a hill, chasing Eternity. It’s a golden dream, one of those that comes through a cloudy, sunlit filter that softens the edges until you’re not sure if you’re asleep or if it’s a summer daydream brought on by boredom. I need to tell Eternity to put on a helmet, but she’s too far ahead. I call to her, and she laughs with her head thrown back, her long hair ribboning out behind her in the wind. No matter how furiously I pedal, I can’t quite catch up.

And then someone grabs me from behind.

I scream and struggle against strong hands.

“Shut up,” a deep voice growls in my ear.

I thrash out in my sleep, trying to wake up. I succeed just long enough to catch a trace of light from outside the blinds before someone drags a bag over my head and I’m plunged into darkness. I kick out, my feet tangling in the sheets, and then I’m dragged backwards off the bed. I scream again, the sound muffled and small inside the cloth covering my head.

“Let me go,” I yell, trying to sound commanding even though panic darts through me, needles piercing my veins in rapid succession.

“Shhh.”

I’m dragged to my feet, my arms yanked behind my back. “Move,” the voice commands, and he shoves me forward, gripping my wrists in both hands so I won’t fall. I’m forced to step forward or faceplant, so I take a step. He roughly steers me, and I hear my door click shut behind us a moment later, and Iknow we must be in the hall. He marches me forward again, and I whimper with fear.

“What’s happening?” I ask when we stop. My breath is coming in short, hiccupping gulps.

“Stairs,” he says.

I tentatively stretch one foot forward, not wanting to tumble down the stone steps of the girls’ dorm and break my neck. But the next moment, I’m airborne.

I let out a shriek, and then my belly slams onto his shoulder, and the breath whooshes out of me. I’m upside down, my head banging against a tight, muscular back as he descends the stairs at a quick pace. I flail around for a second, trying to keep my nightshirt from riding up and exposing my panties. His hand cracks across my bottom with a sting that makes me yelp.

“Stop squirming around, or I’ll spank your ass and give you something to really scream about,” he snaps. A sharp, shameful stab of heat buries itself between my thighs at the thought, and the familiarity of his voice hits me at the same moment.

I’d been too panicked to put my head on straight and think about who was carrying me, and now it’s too late. One of the three delinquents who murdered my best friend is taking me somewhere in the middle of the night, probably to do the same to me.

The thought brings a strange calm over me, and I stop struggling. I feel the night air hit my bare thighs as we step out of my dorm. He doesn’t put me down, just hurries through the darkness of the campus. I wonder if Eternity felt this way at the end.

Probably not.

She still trusted him, thought he was good.

We pass through another door, then descend another flight of stairs, my head throbbing with the amount of bloodpooling there. Suddenly he bends, and I’m flipped right side up. My back hits hard leather, and I sway precariously, disconcerted by the sudden position change before a strong hand plants firmly on my chest, pressing me back into a chair.

The bag is ripped from my head, and I’m left blinking up at the boy I sent away.

I glance around, expecting the others to appear, but it’s just the two of us.

No one to save me.

“What is this place?” I ask, hugging my arms around myself to stop the shaking, stop myself from taking a swing at him and making a run for it. We’re in some kind of underground room, a cave with wall sconces, a dirt floor, and a big square stone in the center. I remember it faintly from another lifetime, when the Quint snuck down under the church after mass one Sunday and found the crypt. I had nightmares for a month and insisted on sleeping in Saint’s bed with him, but I never told our parents.

“A little place I like to call the Heathen’s Den,” Heath says, smirking wickedly at me. He leans down, resting his hands on the arms of the chair, caging me in. My breath catches and my heart stops beating. “I could have taken you tomyden, but I didn’t figure you’d make it out of there with your innocence intact. “

He grins, that smile I remember from growing up with him, one that bathes his whole face in sunshine and sin. “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you, little rabbit? Or should I call youlamb?”

“What?” I whisper, my eyes captivated by his mouth as he flicks his tongue out to wet his lower lip. Hispiercedlower lip. I gulp, my knees trembling.

His gaze darkens, and he pushes off the chair, straightening to stand over me. He’s taller than he was atsixteen, his shoulders broader, hinting at the toned physique hidden under the black tee and ripped jeans. But he’s still wiry and thin like he was growing up, bursting with this electric kind of energy that got him in trouble so much at school. He could never sit still.

“I heard something funny today,” he says, prowling around the small room.

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