Page 59 of Heartless Heathens

“Fuck, that’s awful.”

“Here’s a random old bottle of water,” Reesa shouted from the front and I took it from her, unscrewing the cap and placing it under his mouth for him to drink.

He drank the entirety of the bottle and Reesa put the car in motion. Corvin’s eyes closed all the way, and his breathing became slower, though not any less labored.

“What happened?” I asked him. “Where do you go?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere that’s hard to come back from. Every time it gets a little bit harder to find something that brings me back,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Is that what happened to you the other night?” I asked him, unsure if it was okay to bring it up.

He didn’t answer. I wondered if I should have been sitting in the front like he asked me to. I was practically sitting on top of him, he had to have been uncomfortably cramped in the tiny back seat of his car. I reached forward to climb into the front but before I could kneel my way to the seat next to Reesa I felt his hand wrap tightly around my ankle.

I looked back, he didn’t open his eyes, but his hand stayed firm around me. I sat back into the seat, trying to get comfortable and make space for myself. It wasn’t possible, he was big and there was no way to sit in the back without being on his lap. He didn’t seem to mind, he had bigger problems to deal with.

His eyes stayed closed for the rest of the ride. I pulled the sheathed knife out of my pants pocket to admire the beautiful gemstone adorning the handle.

“Do you like it?” he asked, though his eyes didn’t open.

“I don’t understand it,” I said honestly. “But it’s beautiful.”

“That is exactly how beautiful things should be. But be careful, because they are the ones that hurt the most.” His eyebrows formed a deep V.

Reesa hit too many bumps but eventually we found ourselves back in front of the chapel, even though that wasn’t where we’d found the car in the first place.

“I’ll go get the other guys,” she said before rushing out of the car.

“Are you awake?” I whispered and he grunted an unintelligible response. “We’re home.”

“This isn’t home,” He chortled out sharply.

“It’smyhome.” I corrected him, finding myself brave enough with him in this weakened state to remind him that this chapel was mine first before they invaded my space.

“Jackass—we told you to take your pills,” Felix yelled out, slamming his hand into the glass window of the car before pulling the door on Corvin’s side open.

He nearly fell out, but I was guessing that had been part of the point Felix was attempting to make here.

“What happened?” Sonny asked me, opening the door on my side.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.

“Say goodbye Reesa. You’ve had your fun for today,” Sonny told her just as the two men began to drag Corvin inside.

“Will you let me see her again?” Reesa shouted over to them.

“That’s up to her,” Felix answered and her eyes went wide and a smile coated her face.

“Well, if you want a friend. I’m over there.” She pointed over to the dormitories in the distance.

I knew the building well, though I’d never actually been inside of it. You had to be a student to be able to access most of the buildings on campus aside from the library. Eventually the library was the only place I ever bothered to enter. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me into a tight hold.

Once her embrace loosened, I slipped my hand through the top of her pants the same way that Felix and Sonny had done to me before. She swatted me away and pushed me hard against the exterior chapel walls.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she asked, the alarm in her voice sending a cold sweat over me and draping me in anxiety.

I hated making mistakes.

Father Frollo always punished mistakes.