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Continuing forward, at lightning speed compared to how I was moving before, I can see the finish line in sight. Light finallybreaks through the darkness. It’s menial. Not bright. Crimson. It’s the beacon I’ve been hoping for. I’m almost free and once I am, I’m never coming back here again. Never again.

Never.

Ever.

The thick air burns my lungs. I try to breathe, but it feels like the walls of my lungs are closing in, just as they always do when a panic attack takes over. I’ve made it this far, yet my mind—that tricky, fickle bitch—can’t help but let the games linger. To manipulate me. To trick me. I can’t trust my mind. I’ve never been able to. It’s why I’ve always turned to drugs and alternate realities, whether written by others or my own. At least then I know that if I see something, it’s because of an outside source other than the internal one that taunts me daily, when I’m sober as can be… myself.

More red light drips past the door that will be the exit of the crawl space. My eager fingers curl around the small knob, anticipating the fresh air.

A tongue clicks from behind me as it flicks into my exposed center.

Harlan.

I try to move and fight the current of pleasure and pain the competing muscle of his tongue is inflicting on me. He nibbles and bites his way on and around my sex, but he pulls me back with his hand and it only deepens the angle he can dart his tongue inside of me.

If I only knew then what a can of worms I’d open, exposing him to darkness, I would have never engaged with him. Pastor’s son or not. He’s his father’s son above all, and knowing the damage his father has caused, it shouldn’t surprise me that his own flesh and blood can do much worse.

“Let. Me.” I begin to pant and grunt, but he snatches my waist into his hands. Pulling me back and deeper into his face. “Go!” I finish my plea.

“No,” he hisses, burying his face between my ass cheeks. His words linger, vibrating me to my core.

My eyes roll both in annoyance… and pleasure.

“What’s the use?” I drawl. “You aren’t going to let me come.”

“Yet.” Another flick of his tongue at my pussy before he tugs at my folds, kneading my sex in his teeth, hard enough that the likeliness of blood being drawn is very real, yet it only adds to how good it feels.

Deciding not to fight it, I lean into his mouth, rolling my hips as I try to work with the erratic tempo of his split tongue. Though the more I grind on his face, the more he holds back, until his face abandons my center. I gasp from the absence of his mouth. The neediness in my breath echoes throughout the crawlspace, reminding me how weak Harlan makes me. In stillness, I wait for a command, or for him to say anything, but neither come. Instead, my wet and pulsing sex becomes home for something sharp.

“Shh,” Harlan coos with sinister excitement laced within his breath. “You take it so well.”

It?

What’s it?

His dick?

Is he talking about his —

A ravenous moan breaks my own thought process as Harlan ups the tempo of whatever he’s fucking me with. It’s cold and sharp. The more he plunges it into me, I fear the pleasure is diluting my ability to think straight and fight him off.

My jaw tightens, my words gritted. “What are you doing to me?”

“Edging you, like you’ve edged me.” Harlan seals his vague words with another violent thrust inside me. This one, harsher than the others but it gets me one step closer to finishing with whatever weapon he’s chosen to punish me with.

“You’re close aren’t you?” he taunts.

Yes.

“Yeah, you are. I can feel you trembling. What a whore, begging to come on scraps.”

“Scraps?” I pant.

“Scraps,” he echoes.

I inhale and the putrid scent I’ve been able to ignore is back, whipping at my nostrils with a vengeance. The word scraps lingering in my psyche elevates the odor to a vomit inducing level.

“Fucking scraps, that’s all I’ve given you and here you are, on all fours like a fucking beggar. Just begging for what big brother will give you.”