Page 43 of Of Heathens & Havoc

I bring the heavy textbook up with both hands, slamming it into the bottom of his jaw. His teeth snap together so loud I can hear the crack when they meet. He stumbles backwards, his free hand flying to his chin, his other hand tightening on the back of my neck. Dropping my book, I duck and twist at the sametime, doing a quick corkscrew under his hand to get myself free and end up facing him again.

“You bitch,” he snarls, baring his teeth and swiping for me as I toss my hair back, cursing myself for wearing it down.

I deliver a quick throat jab that leaves him gasping for breath and grabbing his neck with both hands, his eyes so wide I can see white all the way around the eerie silver discs of his irises.

“I told you not to touch me,” I remind him. I glance around again, making sure there are no more of them before swiping my books from the ground and straightening. “And when you can talk again, you can tell your brothers I’m no one’s obedient little lamb.”

I turn and hurry inside, where I see one of the Sisters sitting behind the front desk. She quickly slips her phone under an open Bible and gives me a guilty smile. I hurry past her and up the stairs, my heart hammering, my fingers tingling, the gnawing feeling inside me so strong I can almost hear it, like rats inside the walls of an old house.

When I reach my door, I stop, a scream of frustration nearly bursting out of me. I just wanted to go inside and kneel on the hard floor and pray until my knees are bruised, or take a cold shower, or anything to keep from exploding. Instead, I come face to face with a message that’s not nearly as easy to ignore as the paper shoved under my door the night Heath took me to the crypt to hear my own confession.

A scripture is painted on my door in dripping blood, the crooked letters making every hair on my body stand on end and my brain scream,RUN!

All sinners will be destroyed; there will be no future for the wicked.

I struggle to swallow, even my throat shaking. Reaching out, I carefully pluck the pin from the picture below the letters.Blood runs over the image, an old-fashioned polaroid, obscuring it partially. I smear it away with my thumb, my heart pounding. The image is as fresh as the blood, captured only this morning. In it, Angel is holding me to him, his mouth claiming mine.

My first kiss, immortalized in all its gory glory.

A chill wracks my body, and I glance up and down the hall wildly, sure I can feel someone watching.

I’m alone.

But someone could be watching from one of the other rooms, hidden from my view but able to witness my terror. I fumble my keys, thrusting them roughly into the lock with shaking fingers. My blood-slicked palm slides on the knob, and another wave of terror crashes over me before I get my grip and rush into my room, so relieved I could cry.

It’s short-lived.

The moment my back hits the door and my brain catches up with my eyes, I know I won’t be relaxing anytime soon. The mattress is flipped sheet-side down. The drawers have been yanked out and all the clothes have been dumped. Shoes and blazers and skirts lie haphazardly strewn across the floor, along with notebooks and papers. One of my books lies on the floor, the pages bent and torn from being trampled by careless feet. My whole room is trashed.

I lurch toward the bed, searching for Raphael. My mind is reeling as I paw through the clothes, then find a pile of blankets and pillows. I shake out the blanket, almost crying with relief when his tattered brown body flops out of the sheet. I cradle him to my chest and sink down beside the bed, pressing my back to the mattress and dropping my head back to say a silent prayer of thanks that he’s okay.

At last, I kick off my clogs and root around in my bag for my phone.

“Hey, Mercy,” Aunt Lucy says cheerfully on the other end. “How are classes? I hope I haven’t heard from you because you’ve been so busy with your new friends on campus.”

My voice shakes when I speak. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she says, her voice softening. “Do you need to come home? What happened?”

I squeeze my eyes closed and hold the phone to my ear. If I tell her, she’ll worry. If I tell her, Heath will send her my confession.

He has to be behind this. He and Angel and Saint are trying to scare me. It’s just a more intimate version of a brick through the window.

I can deal with those boys.

What choice do I have?

“I just… Haven’t made any friends,” I admit.

“Oh, honey,” Lucy says. “I’m so sorry. I was afraid I kept you too sheltered.”

“It’s not you,” I assure her. My aunt has done so much for me, given up so much, gotten me so much help. I can’t give her more to worry about, more guilt about things that aren’t her doing.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asks. “Do you need to come home this weekend?”

I think about it, about the comfy bubble of her home, all rounded corners and ambient lighting, the smell of essential oils and homemade cookies. I imagine sinking back into the life that kept me safe for so long, the two of us sitting side by side, crocheting while we watch romantic movies where the woman always dies at the end, crying into our hot cocoa with the little marshmallows she bought because she knew I loved them.

I shake the picture from my mind. I love my aunt, but I’m not like her. I can’t live my life in a soft haze of cushioned contentment. I need purpose.

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