Page 21 of Drag You Down (Bloody Desires #2)

LEVI

T here’s an unfamiliar weight around my waist, an unfamiliar heat at my back, and I tense the second I wake enough to remember where I am.

Who I’m with.

I slept with the Devil, and his blood still lingers beneath my nails.

I more than slept with him. I took pleasure from his body and allowed him to take pleasure from mine in turn, and it was wrong.

My heart pounds, and the need to get out from beneath the arm draped over my stomach gets more and more urgent until the idea of staying there is panic-inducing. I slip free of his embrace, and while he stirs, he doesn’t fully wake.

I hold my breath as soon as I’ve gotten out of bed, watching him.

Part of me aches to slide back under the covers and linger within the sphere of his warmth, but I know better.

I’ve already sinned to the point where I’m not sure even Father Zachariah can absolve me of the consequences of my actions.

What have I done?

I blink back tears, quickly grabbing my clothes and fleeing to the other room to get dressed. My ass is sore from the spanking, but it isn’t a sharp pain the way the whippings are. It’s spread out, warm, and makes me feel something I don’t want to admit.

Because whatever that feeling is, it isn’t guilt.

Something brushes against my ankles, and I yelp before I realize it’s Gabriel’s cat. Ichabod trills at me, the sound surprising me, and I whisper, “Shh.” I can’t have him making noise and waking Gabriel up.

I get dressed, looking down at my hands. They’re still covered in blood. I can’t leave like this, but every second I linger is another second in which Gabriel might wake up and stop me from going home.

I hurry to the kitchen to scrub my hands, and I mourn the loss of the blood as the stain on my skin fades until there’s no sign of it. I can still see it under my fingernails, but I have to get out of here.

Drying my hands on a cloth, I turn, only to see Ichabod sitting in the doorway. It sends a shiver through me. I don’t mind cats, but this one seems to see me.

I squeeze past him, as though he’s taking up so much more space than he is, then carefully head to the door. After I put my shoes on, I quietly slip out of the apartment, and I don’t breathe fully until the door closes behind me.

Then I flee, hurrying down the hallway and out of the building.

I try not to think about the fact that Gabriel could follow me at any given point; he knows where I live, and he knows how to get to me.

I have to hope that he’ll finally take the hint and leave me alone, but I know better. He’s going to dog my heels until he finds a new obsession…

And the idea of him finding a new obsession hurts somehow, strangely, like a stab to the heart. It makes no sense, obviously. I don’t want him focused on me. I don’t want the constant temptation I’d given into only hours earlier.

I can’t handle it.

I can’t handle what I could become.

I’m already a sinner — everyone is — but it feels worse right now.

I’ll need to confess to Father Zachariah.

I don’t know if I can.

I’m not sure if it’s late at night or extremely early in the morning. All I know is that I need to get home, and I’m not entirely positive how I’m going to make that happen. I have no idea where I am. I have very little money. The streets aren’t exactly quiet, but they aren’t bustling, either.

I take a deep breath, trying to gather myself. God will provide a way home. He always provides.

I’ve never been out in the city this late at night. I thought the darkness would press in on me, but New Bristol’s sinful nightlife keeps the streets illuminated.

I am surprisingly grateful for that.

Wherever Gabriel took me, though, it’s a nicer part of the city than I usually walk in. The storefronts I walk past are for luxury brands, and the cars that go by look shiny and new.

I’m tempted to hail a cab, but I have only a few dollars in my pocket, nowhere near enough to pay for the fare.

A bus stop up ahead has an old, faded map on display next to the large advertising screen. I can’t make out much, but I do learn that I’m near the finance district.

I think it’s too late — too early? — for the buses to be running, which means I’ll have to continue by foot.

That’s across the bridge from home. It’ll take me at least two hours to walk home, I realize with dismay. And that’s only if I don’t get lost.

I look back towards Gabriel’s luxury condo building, and once again I’m tempted to return to the warmth of his bed.

I shake the feeling off and start walking south. I just need to follow this road to the bridge. I can do that.

Maybe there’s a payphone somewhere so I can call Father Zachariah—but of course the city removed its payphones years ago. Would a bar that’s still open at this hour allow me to use their phone?

I walk past a bar that’s still open, and I hear the rowdy sounds of drunk people. A man and a woman stumble out the door, laughing and pawing at each other.

I’m not sure what to think.

Only a few weeks earlier, I’d have scorned them, but now I’m afraid to judge.

Jesus wouldn’t have judged them.

He’d walked among the downtrodden and encouraged others to empathize with them.

I’m no Jesus, but I can do better than others.

Father Zachariah would judge.

What does that mean for them, for me?

Discomfort gnaws at me, and I avert my eyes in shame.

I keep walking, and my feet begin to ache. I know if I stop, though, it’ll be impossible to keep walking. I’ll lose the small bit of momentum that I have.

I don’t know how long it takes me to reach the bridge, but I breathe a sigh of relief when I reach it. It didn’t seem so long and imposing in the car—what little I can remember of the ride—but now it stretches out across the river, seemingly endless. Cars still zip by despite the late hour.

When I’m on the other side, I need to… I need to…

But I won’t know where to go once I’m there, either. I’ll need to find another map or landmark or ask for directions. I’ll need to call Father Zachariah to pick me up and admit to him what happened and explain why I’m wandering the night like this.

I’ll need to tell him about the blood underneath my nails.

I sob and wrap my arms around myself.

“Rough night?” a rough, feminine voice asks.

My head jerks up, and I look up at her. My tears make it difficult to see her clearly. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I wasn’t trying to disturb you.”

She’s a young woman, with pale skin and black hair pulled back into two braids. She’s wearing a short, tight shirt that barely covers her top, and her shorts don’t even go midway down her thighs.

Between her fingers is a cigarette.

“Disturb me?” The woman looks around. “I was just enjoying the view.” She points to a nearby railing. “Have you ever seen the city reflected on the river at night? It’s pretty neat.”

I shake my head, wiping at my eyes. I’m reluctant to stand beside her. What sins has she inflicted upon herself? Will she taint me by proxy?

Or am I already beyond salvation?

I go to her and peer out at the river, wrinkling my nose as the stench of cigarette smoke fills my nostrils. “It’s pretty,” I say.

And it is, though I can’t properly appreciate it as my mind drifts to Gabriel.

None of us are free from sin.

I judge and judge, but now I’m one who deserves all of this in turn.

“Do you have a phone?” I ask her.

She gives me a strange look. “Yeah.”

I hesitate, then venture. “Could I maybe use it? Just to make a quick call.”

“What happened to your phone?” she asks, her hand going to her pocket.

The question takes me aback. “My phone?” I repeat, only to remember that everyone I see carries one. “I lost it.”

“Lost it? Where?” she asks, her voice even more suspicious now.

I bite my lip. “I don’t have one,” I finally say. “And I’m lost.”

In so many ways, I’m lost, and I don’t know how I’m going to find my way home again.

Her expression softens. “You don’t have a phone at all? Damn. I can call 9-1-1? Although that’s if you trust the cops. Last time I dealt with them, I got a nasty strip search.” She gives me a once over. “They probably won’t fondle you as much as they did me.”

I shiver, shaking my head quickly. “No!” I say. “No. No cops.”

Father Zachariah says they’re all corrupt.

“I only want to go home.” I feel like a small child all over again, desperate to go home but not sure what awaits me there.

What if Eve told Father Zachariah about what happened? She has to be worried by now. I would tell him if she went missing. I would be trying to help, even if it would be…

Misguided.

“Okay. What’s the number?” she asks. “I’ll call for you.”

I hesitate. I can understand her not wanting to hand a stranger her phone, and I can’t even imagine how disheveled and out of place I must look right now.

I think there’s still blood under my fingernails, too. I’d had to wash my hands in a hurry, and I hadn’t been able to scrub them completely clean.

Or am I imagining it?

I give her the number, and she enters it into her phone and presses the call button.

It rings, but no one answers. She lets it ring eight times before finally tapping at the button to end it.

My heart has already dropped into my stomach, and I realize I am well and truly lost with no way to get home that I know of.

“Thanks,” I say, though my voice sounds hollow.

“Anybody else you want me to try calling?” she asks. “Lots of people have their phones set to Do Not Disturb in the evenings. It probably didn’t even ring on their end.”

I shake my head. “I don’t have anyone else.” My mind strays to Gabriel, but I wouldn’t call him even if I had his number.

Would I?

After the way I’d bailed on him…

I don’t know.

He’d seemed so adamant about wanting to keep me, but I could’ve shaken him off.

I don’t know what to think about that possibility.

Do I want him to chase me?

“That sucks.” The woman puts her phone back in her pocket and looks out over the river. “Guess I’m kind of the same. I wouldn’t be out here if I had people to call.”

I look at her again, frowning. “Is… something wrong?” I find myself asking before I can stop myself.

“Eh. What isn’t wrong?” She smiles at me.

“I’ve been homeless for about three months now.

Got kicked out after my boyfriend found out I’d been raped.

He accused me of cheating on him.” She laughs bitterly.

“He said I must have led the other guy on. Of course, when I went to the cops to report the crime, they told me there was no proof anything happened. And that’s when the groping happened.

Thanks for not making me call the cops.”

I stare at her, my brain having a difficult time parsing the words. “That’s horrible.” I can’t think of anything else to say, anything that would make this even remotely better.

I’m not sure if Father Zachariah would urge me to invite her to the compound to speak to him or if he’d consider her soul too stained to bother with, and the thought bothers me. No one is beyond redemption.

Even me? I’m suddenly not sure.

The woman takes another drag of her cigarette.

“Yeah, it is.” She blows a ring of smoke out.

“I read that some hotshot CFO disappeared. The guy who raped all those other women. And I keep wishing that would happen to my rapist, too. Due process? What a joke. The only people who benefit are rich white guys.”

Disappeared.

I’m suddenly very, very cold.

“Do you think he would’ve deserved it if he’d died?” I ask, my voice hoarse. “If someone had killed him?”

If Gabriel had killed him.

She laughs. “That’d be divine justice, wouldn’t it? I mean, I should say I’m against murder or whatever, but I’m not going to cry if a rich asshole gets killed.”

Divine justice.

An angel in disguise.

I shiver, staring back out at the river below us. “Some people would think he deserved it,” I say. “I don’t know what to think.”

I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why she’s confided in me, either. Maybe she sees me as a kindred spirit.

Maybe I am, fallen as I am now.

“I can’t tell you what to think,” the woman answers. “But I say: why waste your time worrying about that guy? There’s plenty more rich white douchebags where he came from. I hear they’ve got cloning facilities out in California where they churn them out.”

My head jerks up, and I stare at her. That… What? I realize she’s only joking, but it still threw me enough to where I fall silent for several moments.

If law enforcement doesn’t help the people of the city, who does? The world is corrupt, morally bankrupt, and even this stranger who doesn’t know God understands that.

“Okay. Well, if you’re sure you don’t know anyone else to call, I’m gonna find somewhere to hole up for the night.

” The woman pushes away from the railing.

“If you need a place too, the stairs over there, they lead under the bridge. It’s an okay spot, but lots of people sleep there so don’t flash any valuables around. ”

I should invite her back home.

Why am I even hesitating?

“Do you believe in God?” I blurt out.

The woman gives me a crooked smile. “God? I mean, if he exists, he’s getting off on my suffering, so fuck him.”

The words make me physically recoil. “God has a plan for all of us,” I say, my cheeks flushing hot. I start to speak again, but her smile has vanished. “Never mind. Thank you for letting me use your phone, and for the offer. I… I’ll find my way home.”

Somehow.

“Sure. Word of advice? Look less lost while you’re walking the streets. If you don’t, you’ll attract the kinds of strangers who will do cavity searches looking for spare change.” She waves and walks off.

I have no idea what she means.

I don’t think I want to know.

I look bleakly out over my surroundings. I don’t know what to do.

God will provide.

He has to.

“Help me,” I whisper, and I should be praying to God, but I know.

I’m praying to Gabriel.