Page 28 of Of Heathens & Havoc

“You filled out the entry form, didn’t you?” Heath taunts. “You haven’t stopped play. In fact, I don’t think you’re supposed to be saying anything at all. Sheep don’t talk.”

The Master gives a slight, disapproving shake of his head, and Heath lowers his Ghostface mask in chagrin.

“I believe God has chosen this lamb as our sacrifice,” the Master says. “Does anyone disagree?”

One by one, we each select a flower from the stone and place it upon her body, showing our agreement as he begins to speak over her. When we’re all done, we turn to her, waiting for her to refuse. If she truly doesn’t want what’s coming, she’ll be excused. Sometimes they get cold feet at the last second. But she lies there, not speaking to end the game, her chest rising and falling rapidly as her breath hitches. She’s shaking, but she perseveres.

“Then let us bathe in the blood of the lamb,” the Master says, sealing her fate for the night.

“And frolic in divine HAVOC,” we answer.

There’s no going back now. A current of excitement races through the group, and a primal charge goes through me, making my cock stiffen again. The others begin touching her and placing more flowers on her body. I take the cincture tying her hands and pull her arms over her head, noticing how they shake under my touch. I stroke her slender fingers with my callousedones, running my thumb over her delicate wrist to feel her racing pulse. I close my eyes and suck in a slow breath, trying to focus on the Master’s words of devotion.

He reminds us that this body is sacred, not just a sexual object, dehumanized by the lamb head covering hers. She’s a vessel that will absorb our most depraved desires and absolve us of all we’ve done before this night. She will wash our sins away in her sacred waters even as we unleash our sin upon her to cleanse ourselves and the world of its contaminating effects on our lives and others.

While he speaks and we honor the body of our virgin, one of the newer Hellhounds discreetly leads the other lambs away, into a holding room where they’ll wait to be escorted home once we’re sated. The game is over.

The sacrifice has begun.

twelve

The Merciful

I whimper in protest, but I’m too weak to fight, afraid my legs will be unable to hold me after the power of the shaking that went through me for a good five minutes. The Hellhound who left with the other lambs returns, and the plague doctor finishes his strange blessing over me, something about how I’m one with the goddess, and something about a fertility rite.

I’m too scared to listen until suddenly I’m jerked in one direction by the sleeve of my nightgown. At the same time, someone grabs the neck of it and rips it open. Buttons fly, and I scream, shocked back to the present and knocked from my panic. They descend on me like wild dogs, tearing away strips of the frilly white garment. I scream again, bucking my hips and trying to twist free of Saint’s grip on my wrists.

This cannot be happening. I can’t endure this. It seemed so unreal when I signed the entry form, when I agreed to play the game to the end and try to win.

If I’d realized what winning entailed…

Except I did know. It was on the form.

Still, it hadn’t seemed real. I’d been sure I could escape.

Now, there’s nothing in the world that could be worse than this, no amount of confession and penance and absolution that could wash away the sins they’re about to inflict upon my body. Not even finding the truth about Eternity is worth what they’re about to do to me. Maybe selfishness is my sin, because in this moment, I choose my life over the girl who’s already dead.

“Let me go,” I scream, wrenching my hands from Saint’s as the shreds of my nightgown drift to the floor in tatters, liketorn snowflakes. I sit up, swinging my hands and catching one of the Hellhounds and sending his wolf mask flying. “I don’t know the safe word, but I’m saying it. I want out. Let me out!”

I turn to the plague doctor, who seems to be the leader of the group. I pray he’s a senior and I’ll never see him around campus. As much as I want to see his face, to know what he’s thinking as he absorbs my words and deliberates my fate, I’m glad I haven’t seen anyone. The only Hellhounds I know are Saint, Heath, and Angel.

But I want him to see me, to see my face and look in my eyes and know that I’m not playing, that this isn’t part of the game. I reach up, trying to shove the sheep mask over my head, but I can’t get it off. It’s huge and unwieldy, and there must be a buckle, but I can’t find it in my panic.

“Please,” I scream, clawing and tearing at the neck of the mask, fighting for breath. Suddenly, I can’t breathe, and I’m sure I’m going to pass out, and I’m going to wake up destroyed by what they’ve done to me. I’m sobbing and shaking and struggling to breathe, and the world shrinks around me, and the cave is crushing in on me like a tomb. I pitch forward, and my stomach drops as I feel myself falling. The floor comes up at my face too fast to stop myself. The giant mask protects my head from the blow, bouncing off the packed dirt.

“She’s panicking,” a voice says from far away, and it’s familiar, but I can’t think about where I’ve heard it before, who it belongs to. All I can think about is breathing.

Strong arms lift me, and my bottom is dropped back onto the stone. I swing my bound hands back and forth, trying to fend off the strong grip holding me. He only holds tighter, snatching my wrists and pinning them down on my scraped and dirty knees. I throw my shoulders back, but someone catches me from behind. He fumbles at my neck, and I scream, knowing they’re going to choke off the last of my air.

Instead, the lamb head is yanked over mine. It rolls across the dirt floor as my strawberry blonde hair tumbles down around my bare shoulders. I suck in one huge lungful of air after another, my body still quaking with terror.

The hands that gripped my wrists snap open, and the Hellhound leaps to his feet, stumbling backwards. “What the fuck?” he bellows, ripping off his mask and hurling it to the floor, revealing the face of my brother.

“Who the fuck did this?” he rages, sweeping a murderous glare over the group. The corded muscles of his forearms strain with how tightly his fists are clenched, and he prowls a step forward, his body tensed in a menacing stance.

“What’s going on?” asks another Hellhound.

“This is my fucking sister,” Saint yells, his voice loud enough to make me wince in the small space of the cave. “If any of you so much as touch her, I’ll cut off every single one of your fingers and nail them to your door as a warning to everyone else.”

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