Page 39 of Of Angels & Absolution

“The man who murdered her is out there, Saint,” I say, pressing a hand to his chest. He doesn’t yield, forcing me to look up at him from a position of supplication instead of facing him across the space of the stairs. I go on anyway. “If she was even killed. If she wasn’t, the one who knows it, who knows why it was made to look that way, is probably right here in Faulkner. And he doesn’t want us to find out. Don’t you want to know why?”

“No,” he growls. “If you’re smart, you won’t either.”

“You’re wrong,” I say. “You can force me to do all the sick things you and your perverted friends want, but you can’t change what I know. You can’t change who I am. I’m going to find out. I have to know what happened. Why don’t you, Saint? If you’re innocent, and you didn’t do it, why don’t you want me to know who did?”

His palms crack down on the railing on either side of me so suddenly I jump back, jostling against it. The sound echoes up and down the stairway, and I lean away from Saint, whose eyes blaze with fury now. “Because it doesn’t fucking matter,” he yells. “She’s gone, Mercy. She’s gone, and she’s never coming back. It doesn’t matter who did it, or why, or what you know. It won’t change anything. All it will do is make you disappear too. So let it go and walk the fuck away from this.”

I know I should be scared, that he’s bigger and meaner than the boy I knew, that he’s filled with rage and pain that could destroy me. But I know that rage and pain all too well, so I reach for him like someone reaching for a cornered, injured animal, and I cup his stubble-strewn cheek with my palm. “I’m not going anywhere,” I promise. “I won’t disappear on you again.”

He slaps my hand away, scowling down at me with a thunderous expression. “That’s not what I care about. I care about her, just like you did. More than you. I loved her, Mercy. But I won’t throw away my life on something I can’t change.”

“Then nothing will change,” I say. “And maybe for you, that’s okay. Maybe that’s good. You shouldn’t have to throw away your life. You have a life worth saving. Not everyone does.”

We stare at each other a second before he finally pushes off the railing and steps back, to the wall on the far side of the stairs. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you have a good life, Saint,” I say quietly, evenly.

He regards me with suspicion. “How so?”

“In every way,” I say, gesturing at him. “You have parents who love you, even if they’re tough on you. They want what’s best for you. They wantyou.They have expectations about your future, and they support you. You’ll be graduating next year, and you’ll probably go to an Ivy League grad school, because you can. You have football and the team and the Hellhounds. You have friends who really know you, and love you, and want you to be happy. Probably girlfriends.”

I break off, an unexpected stab of anguish sliding into me at the thought. My brother is a good-looking guy. He always was, even if I didn’t notice when we were kids, and he was just the brother who left his sweaty socks on the living room floor and wore the same shirt for three days in a row and put ranch on things that had no business being defiled that way. Now he’s gorgeous, and popular, and all the things that normal girls like Ronique want. Of course he wants them back.

“And let me guess,” he says. “Poor little Mercy has nothing, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for her.”

I draw back. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m stating facts. You have a lot to lose. I don’t.”

“Bullshit,” he growls. “You have your whole life to lose.”

I shrug. “If you don’t want to risk getting involved, I understand why. I don’t blame you or think less of you. But I have more reasons to push ahead than go back, even after what you told me tonight. And you have to understand that.”

“I don’t.”

“Then tell me one thing, besides my life itself, that I stand to lose. Because I don’t see it.”

“Your innocence.”

We stare at each other a long moment. “Then take it,” I say quietly.

“That’s what this is all about?” he asks with an incredulous laugh. “You’d go to these lengths to get some dick?I’d be impressed if I didn’t know the reason you have to go this far is because it’s your own fucking brother you’re trying to seduce.”

“I’m not,” I grit out. “I don’t even see how I still have my innocence, according to you. Because I don’t think I do. I think you’ve already taken it, brother or not.”

He swallows hard, and I see something flicker in the depths of those eyes, like a creature lurking far below the surface of a lake of fire. But then he smiles cruelly again. “Do you realize how pathetic you sound, saying your life isn’t worth living if you’re not my girlfriend.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No, but you’re jealous that I have girlfriends. I could see it all over your face the moment you said the word. You don’t like that I fuck other girls, but no guy will fuck you.”

“Angel would,” I mutter, my cheeks burning with shame as I stare at the stone steps between us.

Saint laughs. “No, he wouldn’t. Heath might, but he’d rip you to shreds and probably kill you if we let him. Is your greedy little pussy that desperate for dick?”

He prowls forward, this time moving in a sultry sway as he pins me to the railing again. I suck in a breath, preparing for the onslaught of desire and confusion when he pushes his thigh between mine like he did in the hallway that day. But he pulls back instead, letting out a silent breath of a laugh. “You think you can convince me to fuck my own sister by telling me you’ll kill yourself if I won’t fuck you? Because that’s what you’re doing if you keep digging.”

“And you don’t think it’s suspicious that it would cost another life to find the truth?” I demand, bending my head back to look up at him. “You don’t think that in itself makes it worth finding?”

“What’s the truth ever done for me?” he asks. “Or for you, for that matter?”

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