Page 1 of These Monstrous Ties

Chapter One

Present

I don’t thinkthis is fun anymore.

Jeremiah spins me round and around and I’m going to be sick, but I can’t tell him to stop. He doesn’t listen. He never has.

The night blurs around me, my stomach churns. The crisp fall air doesn’t help. It hurts. Because it reminds me of Lucifer. Of the Unsaints. It reminds me of hell, of his demons in the woods.

It reminds me of living.

Nearly one year ago, I planned to die. Halloween night I was ready to do it. Then Lucifer showed up, kept me alive long enough to ruin me, and then he left.

It was Jeremiah that had found me.

I start to heave.

Jeremiah’s deep laugh rumbles in the night but finally, mercifully, he stops. Slowly, the miniature merry-go-round comes to a halt, too. I close my eyes, swallowing past the bile in my throat. My pulse starts to slow a little. But I know better.

Jeremiah isn’t merciful.

Strong hands haul me off the pink pony and throw me to the ground. I land in the wood chips of Raven Park and scramble to my feet. I’m unsteady, dizzy. Nauseous. But Jeremiah won’t stop until I fight back.

He’s grinning at me as I try to hold my gaze on him. I want to puke.

“That’s all you got?” he taunts me, hands in his pockets. He’s tall, broad shouldered. I swear to God, even in the night, his pale green eyes glow.

We’re only three years apart. He’s 23 to my 20. But in moments like these, I feel we’re lifetimes away from each other. I don’t want this. I never would’ve asked for it.

“Fuck you,” I spit at him, the world slowing around me. I can see clearly again. I’m not going to fall. Not yet. It’s two weeks until Halloween and I know Jeremiah is going to make every single one of these two weeks hell until the grand finale. It’s his way of punishing me. For what he saw.

He whistles, then runs a hand over his short brown hair. His jaw is lean, his body muscular. I know he boxes. I know he trains. I do too, but I still know he could take me anytime, any day, whether he’d just spun me around in circles or not. I know it and I hate it.

“That’s all you got, Sid? ‘Fuck you’?” he mimics my voice. He shakes his head. As if he’s disappointed.

I steel myself. Straighten my spine. I know what’s coming next.

But he waits. He waits a second longer than I think he will, and in that second, I start to relax. I start to lower my hands, clenched into fists in front of me. I start to breathe again. Maybe tonight he will be merciful.

Maybe he’ll give in. Maybe we’ll go home. And just when I think that, because I’m nothing if not optimistic about my brother, he tackles me.

My head hits the ground with a thud, and I gag, my stomach convulsing. He wraps his arms around my head, almost as if he’s cradling me. I feel every inch of his body pressing into mine. The world spins again.

I don’t move. Now it’s too late to fight back. Now it’s better to give in.

“Shh, baby,” he says. “I’ve got you.” He holds me tighter. My stomach heaves underneath him again. “It’s okay, baby.”

But it’s not okay. It’ll probably never be okay.

Then he whispers in my ear, “Why do you make me do this to you, Sis? Why do you want to hurt?”

Chapter Two

Halloween, One Year Ago

It’s goingto be tonight.

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I like wearing masks. I like being in disguise. Baring my body for a living for the past year, since I left my latest foster family after a disappointing string of them, it felt good putting on something different. Something strange.