Page 4 of Of Angels & Absolution

“My fingers,” I say breathlessly. “Rubbing my panties.”

“Are they wet?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Does it feel like last night?”

“No,” I admit.

“Better?”

“Not as good,” I say, closing my eyes and praying I’ll expire before I have to see my brother’s face again.

“Find the spot where your pleasure is highest,” Father Salvatore. “Work your fingers around it.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Are you ready to slip your fingers inside your panties?” he asks, his rich, sinful voice strained.

An erotic charge shudders through me, and I picture him watching me do what he said, look at my throbbing, sinful flesh. I picture him on his knees the way we kneel for him at communion, tasting me the way the boys did last night. I’m panting so hard I feel lightheaded.

But then Saint shifts under me, and I can feel the hard ridge of his desire, impossibly thick. I feel the grimy fabric I’m rubbing into myself, the slickness I’ve revived in the dirty panties by drenching them with my own wetness. My shame is unbearable.

I close my eyes and draw a shaky breath. “No, Father.”

“Very well,” he says. “Work on that, lamb. I want you to do it again until you have found the relief you had last night. Then come back and see me.”

I hear a rustle, see movement through the screen, and then the sound of him exiting the booth echoes through the empty space around us.

“Good one,” Saint says, chuckling and shifting his hips again. “You’re so disgusting even a priest couldn’t stick around to hear your confession. Now rub your brother’s cum into thatdirty cunt like the whore you are and squirt like you did for us last time. I’m getting bored.”

Tears fill my eyes unbidden, and my breaths become ragged with sobs.

“I can’t,” I choke out. “I don’t know how.”

“You think I’m going to show you?” He scoffs and then dumps me into the seat, standing at the same time. I fall back on the bench, my head striking the wall, my skirt around my hips, my fingers still lodged between my thighs.

Saint shakes his head, his lip curling in disgust. “At least you’re pretty when you cry,” he says. “But know this, little sister. I’ll never stop finding reasons to make you shed those pretty tears until you leave this campus for good.”

With that, he turns and leaves the confessional, leaving me sobbing and alone. In the depths of my shame, I cling to the small seeds of hope he left.

He thinks I’m pretty.

He isn’t ready to replace me as the Hellhounds’ sacrifice just yet.

I still have a chance.

two

The Merciful

I slide into my seat in the lecture hall and shrug off the coat I wore against the nasty weather outside. Opening my phone, I scroll through the familiar tabs, news articles about Eternity’s disappearance that I’ve read so many times I have every word memorized. The only one I don’t open is the one about them finding her body. Even four years later, it makes me sick to think about it. My mind, of course, tries to go there the moment I tell it I don’t want to remember my best friend’s body being dragged from the river, headless and bloated.

That always brings me back to my other childhood best friends, the remainder of our group, The Quint. The three boys who now hate me for testifying against them, for telling the truth about that day. I didn’t see them decapitate her before throwing her body in the river. I didn’t even see her clothes, stained with blood and bodily fluids, that the police found on the bank. But I saw them go under the bridge with her. I saw them come out without her.

Are they planning to get rid of me like they did her, after they have their fun punishing and breaking me? She didn’t know better, didn’t know who they really are, what they’re capable of. I do. If I fight back, they might punish me even more savagely than they already have. I console myself with the knowledge that I can stop any time I want. I can walk away, or I can fight back in ways they don’t expect. They don’t know what I’m capable of, either. Not yet.

What if I have it all wrong, though? What if I had it wrong all along?

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