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I want to remind her that I am who I am now because of her.

Shit, I should thank her… and thank her I fucking will.

This is all her fault. She shouldn’t have come back here.

Not tonight.

Not last night andallthe nights before. All of which she’ll deny, but time stamped videos don’t lie.

She’s the one who foolishly fell into my trap. So fucking easily. All I had to do was dangle the bait in front of her and she came crawling—cunt dripping and all—like the needy fucking whore she is. All so she can kneel at big brother’s cock. If only it were that easy. Tonight, she’s my victim. Tonight, she’s my prey. Tonight, she will have no choice but to succumb to my undying need to punish her.

When she wakes, I’ll give her a crash course on what happens when the church boy sells his soul to the devil.

Fifteen

“I told you to stay away!”My stepfather shouts, as his angry hands latch onto my ankles. The contact alone is enough to make me want to vomit. I hate when he touches me. I hate when he’s near me. I. Hate. Him.

“You get over here right now,” he mutters, still yanking at my limbs.

Still insistent that I need to be punished… again.

He grumbles some more, this time with an array of colorful obscenities. I bet none of his congregants would ever believe he is capable of saying such filth, but I can’t focus on what he’s saying—the stench is too overpowering.

“Fight me all you want, but you’re not going to find what you’re looking for in there. You good for nothing—” I somehow manage to wiggle my foot just enough that it loosens his grip on one of my ankles, and I kick at him. “Bitch!” he yells, trying to grab at me again. I use this as my opportunity to try to submerge myself deeper into the trenches of the decay and rot I feared would be hidden here.

I sneak a quick inhale through my mouth, hoping to spare my nostrils the burden of taking in the potent aroma that lay thick all around me.

My bent knees glide forward and every hair on my body raises, as a cool, slimy texture slithers onto myskin. Coiling its way around my leg, causing a lump so harsh to form in my throat, it feels like I’ve swallowed glass.

A boisterous rumble, angrier than I’ve ever heard from him before, erupts. The force he applies to my limbs, pulling me back to him—to where I don’t want to be—matches his tone.

“Get. Over. Here.”

“No!” I shriek. “No. No. No.” My breathing becomes as erratic as my heart, beating a mile a minute. “Just let me go! Let me see for myself!” I beg.

But it all falls on deaf ears. He’s already made up his mind.

“I know you burn like a sinner, but I wonder—” his voice trails, the belt buckle clinking as it comes undone and falls to the ground. “Hmmm,” he groans, “hmm, I wonder if I can fuck the sinner out of you.”

“I’m sorry,” I cry, pinching my eyelids shut. “I didn’t mean to find out.”

My pleas are too late.

“Shh pecadora, this will only hurt if you fight me. Don’t worry, He isn’t watching. This is your fault, though. You’ve steered too far off the narrow path. But don’t you worry, after I use my God given parts to exercise the demon out of you, He’ll care again, and He’ll watch over you.”

“I don’t want Him or you. You sick fuck!”

“I know, but it’s why I have to do this.”

I gasp, startling myself awake, but my eyelids remain shut, afraid that the nightmare will follow. Air burns my lungs upon inhaling. A dryness I can’t explain settling over my lips, trickling its way into my mouth. It increases with every staggered inhale I take as it's exacerbated by the cool, slimy sensation taking hold of my airways.

“Araceli.” Harlan coos my name, encouraging yet sadistic. His deep baritone forms a blanket over my body, summoning goosebumps to rise to the surface of my skin. They continue to prickle my flesh, making me painfully aware that something isphysically choking me—or trying to—and it’s not Harlan’s hands.

I open my eyes, and a dizzying rush consumes my head. I take in not only Harlan’s broad frame hovering mine, straddling me, but the abundance of scales—slimy fucking scales—taunting me.

As quick as I opened my eyes, I’m already pinching them shut, or at least I try to, but Harlan clicks his snake-like tongue—that I’m now wondering if he had modified to mess with me, since he knows I don’t like snakes—before laying a not so gentle tap to my cheek.

“Eyes up here,” he commands, and as tempting as the directive is, especially coming from Harlan of all people, I don’t obey. Instead, I grant myself the vapid veil of serenity my eyelids provide me when shut. That way I can pretend there isn’t a snake making its rounds on my décolletage, and that my stepbrother hasn’t fallen farther than even I’m willing to go to help him.