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?
If it wasn’t them, then her killer is still out there.
Is that who’s been following me, warning me, watching me? I shiver at the thought of a stranger, a killer, entering my room when I wasn’t there, touching my things, leaving it trashed. Is he playing with me like a cat plays with a mouse before she devours it?
Or is that wishful thinking, ignoring the obvious, when the three boys who like to toy with their food are right in front of me, and they’d like nothing more than to scare me into leaving campus by pinning a bloody, severed human tongue to my door to remind me of my betrayal?
I talked, after all. When Eternity disappeared, I had nothing to hide, so I told the truth.
They wouldn’t tell the police anything. That refusal tells its own truth. Only a guilty person won’t speak. If they didn’t know anything, they’d have nothing to hide, either.
I shudder, relieved for the distraction when the three people who always sit in front of me take their usual places. Even though we’re in a big lecture hall, most people find a spot in the first few weeks and remain there out of habit. Sometimes their chatter bothers me, but today I welcome it. As long as Annabel Lee doesn’t remember me, the way I remembered her the first time I saw her face instead of just the back of her head or her cheek, I’ll keep sitting in the spot I picked the first day of school too. So far, she’s been too busy gossiping with her friends to look closely at the people in the row behind her.
“What are we doing for Halloween?” the goth girl asks Ronique. “My parents are having a party, but I’d rather just go to one on campus, if there is one. My family is… Intense, shall we say?”
“You don’t say,” deadpans the boy with white hair who sits with them every day. Since the lecture is so impersonal, I still don’t know his name.
“Let me guess, they’re all as weird as you?” Ronique asks.
“Hey,” Annabel Lee protests, adjusting the bejeweled spider she’s wearing in her hair. “Just because I’m a freak doesn’t mean my whole family has to be.”
“But they are,” the boy says, then turns to Ronique. “Don’t believe her if she says otherwise. She just said so, and she can’t take it back.”
“I’ve seen your cousin around campus,” Ronique says, then sighs. “With Saint Soules.”
“Oh, he’s not intense,” Annabel Lee says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He’s just a whore.”
I wince, ducking my head and lining up my pens by color, clipping each one to the top of my notebook.
“Then why won’t you introduce us?” asks the boy, pushing his shoulder into hers.
“Do you really want to be more involved in my family than you already are?”
“Basically, what you’re saying is that you’re part of the Addams family,” Ronique says. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Annabel Lee says. “For all you know, my family is full of sparkly unicorn rainbows and sunshine.”
“And that’s how you became a storm cloud,” the boy says, putting an arm around her. “My favorite little raindrop.”
“Are you going to let him talk to you like that?” Ronique asks. “Y’all are sick.”
“What, a girl with a morbid imagination can’t have a cute nickname?” Annabel Lee asks. “Besides, look at the gorgeous day outside. Who likes the sun? Gross.”
“Um, lots of people,” Ronique says, “Who aren’t vampires .”
“It’s too bright,” Annabel Lee says. “You don’t need that much light. It’s like it’s trying to blind you. Plus, hello, sunburns?”
“Maybe you wouldn’t get burned if you left your cave once in a while.”
They go on bantering, but I stop listening and color code my notes as the professor talks for the rest of the class. I try not to think about my next class—Finding God in Science. The class itself is fine, though I can’t say I’m able to focus on the topic like I can here. But the fact that Father Salvatore teaches it makes my heart gallop, my palms sweat, and my knees threaten to buckle at the mere thought of attending again.
I’m brought back to the confessional, the dirty thing he made me do. What would he do if he knew I wasn’t alone? That not only was I touching myself while sitting on my brother’s lap, but that I was rubbing his sticky release into me, as if could absorb it, suck it up into me, keep those tiny seeds of him inside me forever. Just the idea has me squirming, my core throbbing with need.
What if Heath recorded that one too?
I will expire.
I tug at my necklace, thumbing the back of the cross, where the word SHAME is etched. It doesn’t begin to describe how I feel after my confession. The things that have gone through my mind warrant more than one further confession, but if I do that, will Father Salvatore order me to try again? If I fail again, will he want to try something else?
My knees clench together, and I have to close my eyes and steady my breathing so I don’t start panting at the images whirling through my mind. I scold myself and slip the cross between my lips, clenching them around the metal before yanking it out. The cross tears the skin inside my lip, and the sweet tang of my coppery blood spreads over my tongue, soothing me.
I am here. I am alive. I am human.
I’m on my way to my next class, dragging my feet and working up my courage, when a familiar hush falls around me. Girls giggle under their breath, dart glances from under their lashes, play with their hair, and cast coy smiles behind me. I tense, dread pooling in my belly, but I don’t look back. Instead, I duck my head and grip my books tighter, quickening my pace.
I don’t make it far before a hand falls on the back of my neck, fingers firm and dominant.
“Running away from me, little sister?” my brother’s voice taunts.
I pause a second, letting my traitorous heart quell for him, and then I steel myself and lift my head. Like usual, Saint is flanked on either side by Heath and Angel—his best friends, formerly mine as well. I quickly tear my gaze from Heath’s before I can see the hatred in his teal-blue eyes.
“Just trying not to be late for class,” I say, careful to keep my tone even. I don’t have any classes with the three Hellhounds in front of me, which means I only see them when they seek me out. It hasn’t happened since the night in the chapel—except for Saint, who found me at confession. My pulse skips at the memory of last night, the filthy thing we did in that booth. I pray Heath doesn’t know, that he won’t blackmail me into further depravity with the knowledge he has now.
“I bet you are,” Saint says, smirking down at me. “Tell me, when you sit in front of him with your bruised knees crossed like an innocent little lamb, are you really squeezing your sloppy cunt between your thighs to masturbate in a room full of people?”
I gasp out loud, glancing around to make sure no one overheard. It’s clear that Heath and Angel did, but other people are also watching, whispering. Did they hear what he said to me? Do they know it’s true?
“Are you so pathetic as to picture a priest defiling you while you get off in front of him?” he asks. “Or do you think about fingering your crusty panties into that foul hole just to get a drop of your big brother’s cum in your cunt, the way you always wanted?”
Shame shimmers through me, hot as a mirage. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that I hate him, I hate them all, but I have enough sins on my conscience without adding another lie.
“You know that’s the only way you’ll ever get it, don’t you?” Saint asks, his voice harder.
“Get what?”
“My cum,” he says flatly. “I will never fuck that greedy little cunt, let it drink my cum to quench its thirst. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
I swallow hard, not trusting my voice, and try to walk away.
Saint grabs my arm, yanking me to a stop and spinning me to face him.
“Isn’t it, little sister?” he asks, backing me into the wall.
I meet his gaze, even though a shock of pain knocks the breath from me when I see the loathing in his amber eyes, the hard set of his jaw. Heath looms behind him, bouncing on his toes, straining forward like a racehorse trapped in its stall, eager to run.
Saint steps closer, shoving his knee between mine and rocking forward, his muscular thigh flexing against my center in one cruelly efficient stroke. I’m instantly weak, my core trembling, my flesh drenched.
Angel chuckles and looks me up and down, his gaze downright indecent.
“Saint,” I whisper, fighting not to grind on the thigh he’s pinning me with, sending ripples of pleasure through every inch of my body. It feels so good I think I’ll lose control at any moment, ride his thigh until it’s soaked right here in the hall, in front of all these people.
He smirks down at me, heartlessly sweeping a strand of hair off my cheek, sending a rush of tingles through me. I close my eyes to keep them from rolling back at the contact.
“Answer me, my thirsty, sick sister.”
I nod, my throat aching, my heart twisting in pain, my core clenching with pleasure. What is wrong with me? I know he’s torturing me for his own enjoyment, hurting me to give himself pleasure. It shouldn’t affect me this way, but it does.
He scoffs quietly, tensing his thigh harder, forcing my pleasure to rise higher with one last slow, ruthless grind. “Too bad I’m not an incestuous freak like you,” he whispers, so close I can feel his warm breath on my lips like a kiss, one that I’ve hungered for since before I knew what that hunger meant.
He leaves me with that, striding off down the hall with his friends like he doesn’t notice the girls fawning for his attention, the guys reaching out hands to congratulate him on his achievement. Meanwhile, I’m left to bear the humiliation on my own, the stares from the girls that hold a mixture of envy and disgust; resentment and hunger from the guys.
I know the disgust that the girls feel all too well, having felt it for myself for so long, but the envy is foreign to me.
I know the hunger the men feel, but I’ve never felt that other thing they show so clearly, as if they want to destroy me both for my weakness and because they weren’t the ones I chose to exploit it.
I ponder that to distract me from the shame of shuffling to class, trying to hide the change in my gait caused by my swollen sex throbbing between my thighs like a hot ember. My brother is the one who gave in, who touched me, and yet, he is celebrated for his apparent victory, while I have to do the walk of shame to class when I did nothing to invite attention.
When I reach Father Salvatore’s room, I dart to my seat, ignoring the murmur of interest my presence brings. Word travels fast on a campus this small, and some already seem to know about my confrontation in the hall with a member of the revered Hellhounds group.
At least most of them don’t know he’s my brother. I don’t know if I could bear that shame.
The shame of seeing Father Salvatore again is more than enough. The moment he strides into the room, purposeful in his tailored slacks and black shirt and collar, I can’t catch my breath. His gaze sweeps the room, and our eyes meet. A charge of electricity shoots like lightning down my body, striking in white-hot pulses between my thighs. I bite my lip not to cry out, squirming in my seat, clutching the edge of my desk. A lethal combination of humiliation and arousal flushes my face with a feverish heat. The priest’s eyes fall on my bitten lips, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Then he breaks eye contact, clears his throat, and pushes up his thin, wire-rimmed glasses.
“It’s such a nasty day outside, I thought I’d bring something to cheer you up,” he says, sounding so completely normal that I burn even hotter with embarrassment.
I’m over here simpering like I have no self-respect, and he doesn’t even know who I am. I’m just another student to him, one of his flock. He doesn’t know I’m the girl from the private confessional, the girl he told to touch herself while he sat just on the other side of the screen, listening to me pant and gasp as I pleasured myself. He doesn’t know that I was thinking about him when I did.
Father Salvatore produces a big Tupperware container and hands it to the first person in the row.
“You made cookies?” the girl asks, looking up at him like a lovestruck puppy.
At least I’m not the only one mooning over him.
Of course not. Look at him. He oozes masculinity, dominance. His gorgeous, sculpted face and dark eyes are commanding, his broad shoulders and narrow hips and muscular thighs invite sinful thoughts, and his voice…
God, that voice.
He chuckles, and the low, sultry sound rolls like thunder down my back, shaking like an earthquake in my core.
“I didn’t make them,” he says. “Though they are homemade. Okay, everyone take a cookie and then we’ll get started. They’re gluten-free and nut-free, but they have all the good stuff—butter and eggs and sugar.” He winks at the class, and every girl in the room must feel her panties melt simultaneously.
I take the tub, select a cookie and a napkin from the stack he passed along with it, and set them on my desk. As the cookies continue around the room to exclamations of happiness and gratitude, I nibble at mine. Father Salvatore said he didn’t make them.
So, who did?
I try to picture him at home. Does he live with his mother, or a relative like I did? Maybe a sister or cousin.
Or maybe he’s married.
The thought is like a shock of cold water to the face. But it’s not out of the question. Priests are allowed to do that now. There was no mention of a family when I researched him online, but I’m not good enough with technology to find anything besides the public information available in a basic web search. Still, if she’s not a wife, she could be a fiancé or girlfriend.
Those thoughts are only slightly less comforting.
I set my cookie down, feeling ill. I know it’s dumb, that it’s impossible for him to date a student. Of course we’re not going to be together. Even if he knew who I was, he couldn’t relieve me of my sins in the way I want him to. I’m a student. He’s my teacher.
The disappointment is crushing, nonetheless.
I didn’t realize I’d built up something so big in my head. It’s not like I sit around daydreaming of walking down the aisle with him—though I might now that it’s crossed my mind—but I put him on a pedestal. I’ve done everything he said, booked my confessions only with him, fantasized about him while I did something sinful, the first time I’d ever let myself do that.
And now I find out the man I’ve been dreaming about has a life. He’s not just a fantasy. He’s reality, and the reality sinks like a stone into my stomach. He’s not just my confidant, my advisor, my confessor. He’s not my savior. He’s a real man, with real needs, a life I know nothing about.
I console myself with the thought that one of the nuns made the cookies.
That lasts for a few minutes, while I picture the grouchy nun at the front desk of my dorm having a soft spot for Father Salvatore, a man so far from home, so alone.
But then I remember not all the nuns are pickled old grumps. Some of them are young and pure, more chaste than me, their thoughts as unsullied as their bodies. Some are reformed wild women with sins much deeper and greater than mine, who repented and found another path. Do they confess their most depraved carnal sins to him? Are the cookies a seduction they sent him under the guise of gratitude when he absolved them? Will some Jezebel far more clever and worldly than me succeed in leading him down a path of temptation where I’m too timid to even take a step?
I spend the class battling a new sin today—envy. When it’s over, I start back toward my dorm, as bleak and miserable as the cold, rainy day outside. I’m so busy churning with inner turmoil that I don’t notice the footsteps behind me for far too long. When I finally do, and I turn to face them, I find myself standing alone against the seven Sinners.