Absolution (Sacrificial Duet Book 2)

by Riley Ashby

  “It’s not that easy now.” He stopped a few feet from us, the point of a triangle between Conrad’s body and us.

  “Make the right fucking choice for once, Joshua.” They both started at the venom in my voice. “You’ve had so many options to make a difference, and each time you fucked it up worse than before. You stood outside that door while he raped my mother. While he tried to rape me. He’s done now. There’s no devil left to serve.”

  His face was implacable. “I have my orders.”

  “FUCK your orders!” He winced. “This isn’t a game, Joshua! Lives are at stake here!”

  “Give it to me, Joshua.”

  All three of us turned to see my mother in the doorway, wet hair hanging around her face, dressed in what I could only suppose were Meyer’s old clothes—a baseball tee and baggy sweat pants that seemed to swallow her whole. She held out one hand, steady, resolute. And to the surprise of every person in the room, he handed her the gun.

  Mom didn’t hesitate. She crossed the few steps between where she stood to Conrad’s body, aimed the gun, and put one bullet into the dent I’d left in the side of his head.

  The smell of gunpowder permeated the air as all of us held our breath. And then, as one, we exhaled.

  Mom dropped the gun and turned to Meyer and me. She flashed me a smile, just for a second, before looking at Meyer.

  “Are you okay, little lamb?”

  “Yeah.” His voice cracked, and he swallowed as he nodded to affirm his statement. “It’s just … my dad is dead.”

  *

  He made a move as if to crawl towards his father’s body, and Mom and I both reached for him at the same time. She fell to her knees in front of him, hands on his shoulders, as I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my forehead between his shoulder blades.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered, and my mother soothed him equally, but he was already starting to shake.

  “Get him out of here,” Mom said to me. “I’ll help Joshua clean up.”

  “I can handle this myself.” Joshua’s voice was tight, but he didn’t sound resentful. He sounded very, very tired.

  “I need to,” Mom said. “It’s important for me.”

  I climbed to my feet and pulled Meyer with me. Both of us almost fell to the ground again as he stumbled, eyes still on his father’s body, but he wrestled his feet underneath his body and allowed me to lead him out of the room.

  “You don’t like blood,” he said, dazed, and I looked at his chest and face. He was covered in the stuff. I thought it was all Conrad’s, but I couldn’t be sure. I needed to clean him up and see if he was hurt.

  “It’s not bothering me,” I lied. “Let’s go to the bathroom.” Step by step, we stumbled out of the room where both of us had suffered more hurt than any one person should have to endure. In the foyer, I glanced around helplessly. Where did I need to go? I barely knew anything about this place.

  “Upstairs,” he said, as if speaking to himself. “My bedroom. Mom was in there earlier, though.”

  “That’s okay.” I led him up the staircase. “We’ll get clean. Then we can decide what to do next.” I had no clue how to proceed, but Meyer was obviously no use. I needed to keep it together long enough for him to fall asleep.

  Somehow I got him upstairs and into his old bedroom without issue. The bathroom was just as ornate as I would have expected, more of what you would see in a master bedroom rather than a teenager’s. Leaving him leaning against the counter, I turned to the shower and started the water running. I had to turn around around suddenly at the sound of a loud bang, finding Meyer throwing open cabinets and tossing their contents behind him as he searched. He was trembling, still covered in his father’s blood, heedless of the shower running behind him and my hands as I tried to remove his filthy clothes.

  “I need something,” he said, voice unsteady.

  I knelt beside him and tried to still his hands. “Get clean, and you can have a drink.” I didn’t like it, but no way was I giving him pills.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” He pushed me aside as he finally came up with a nail cutter, extending the attached file. Everything clicked into place.

  “Meyer, no…”

  His voice was beyond cracked; it was completely broken. Tears sat on the edges of his eyes, barely held back from spilling over. “I have to, Madeline, you don’t understand. I can’t handle this right now. It’s either drugs or blood.”

  “Kiss me instead,” I begged, reaching for his face, but he was finally taking off his shirt to get access to his upper arm, revealing still-healing cuts. My heart, already cracked from seeing him in such pain, fell open even further at the reminder of his ongoing torment.

  “It won’t be enough,” he said, and pressed the sharp end of the nail file into his arm. I grabbed him and pulled, my strength combating his weakness just enough to pull it away from his skin.

  “Meyer. This isn’t healthy. Your brain is fried. You can’t make any rational decisions right now.”

  His head lolled to the side as he looked at me, but though his neck seemed unsteady, his eyes were resolute. “Maddie. I don’t fucking care.”

  I wanted to pull my hair out. There was no talking him out of this, and I wasn’t strong enough to restrain him. “Let me clean it first. Please, Meyer, you’re covered in … someone else’s blood. It needs to be sanitized.”

  He finally held still. “You won’t try to stop me?”

  “No, I promise. And I’ll get a knife. It’ll be better than that dull thing. Just … wait a few minutes. Please.”

  We stared at each other for an eternity, him debating whether or not I was telling the truth, before he finally set aside the nail file and sat back. “I’ll wait.”

  “Five minutes,” I breathed, and ran out of the bathroom.

  Finding a sharp knife in the kitchen wasn’t easy, everything was locked away, but I screamed and kicked at one of them until I was able to pry it open. A paring knife was missing, but I grabbed the next smallest one, and washed it quickly just in case. It was harder to find any first aid kit, but eventually I turned one up beneath a bunch of towels at the back of one of house’s many linen closets. I sprinted back to the bathroom as fast as I dared with a knife in my hands, and when I arrived I found Meyer in the shower with the door wide open, standing silently under the spray as his father’s blood washed off his body and down the drain. Water was spraying all over the floor, collecting in puddles and soaking into his cast-off clothes

  “What did you find?”

  I held up the knife I’d grabbed before dropping it on the counter and opening the first aid kit, searching for rubbing alcohol. He stepped out of the shower behind me, dragging a towel across his body and wrapping it around his waist before falling on the ground against the wall. There were no cotton balls, so I used a towel clean his arm. Then I handed him the knife.

  “Okay,” I whispered, sitting back and wrapping my arms around my knees.

  “You don’t have to watch,” he said, testing the tip of the knife against the pad of his fingers. “You’ve had to look at enough blood today.”

  “After all we went through downstairs? I’m not leaving now.” I pressed my mouth against my knees, looking up at him through my lashes. He nodded, shifting so my view of his arm was partially blocked.

  Then he cut.

  He went slow, as if savoring the motion, the pain, the ritual of his injury. He traced the knife over the cuts that were still healing, opening them anew and almost assuring they would scar. When that was done, he went further. Five, six, seven times he drew the blade across his bicep and sent blood tumbling down his arm, dripping from his elbow, trailing to the fingers and spilling onto the tile. His face twitched as he cut, but there was no other expression, no sharp intake of breath to indicate he even felt the pain. When he was done, he dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter and fell back with his eyes closed.

  “Better,” he whispered. And he did look more rela
xed. His body sagged, face went slack, even as the blood kept falling down his arm.

  “Can I clean it?” I wanted to stop that blood as soon as I could, keep it inside his body where it belonged. He didn’t need to be hurt any more. He’d already suffered enough.

  “In a minute.” He sounded drunk, or high, disconnected from himself somehow. “Let me feel it a little longer.”

  I held his right hand lightly, mindful of his fractured bones, while he breathed slowly as if asleep. A tear landed on my hand, spilling onto his skin.

  “Don’t cry.”

  I jumped when I raised my head and found him watching me.

  “How can I not, Meyer? When you need to hurt yourself to feel grounded?”

  “Things will be better now. I can get happy. But I had to do this. At least one more time.” He wrangled free his hand and reached for my face, stroking his thumb across my cheek and clearing the tears. “We’ll be okay. Do you believe me?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Baby.” He traced one finger along my jaw. “Don’t be mad.”

  “Am I not enough for you?”

  “That’s not what it means, Maddie.” He grabbed me, pulling me close despite my half-hearted struggles. His bloody left arm wrapped around me, smearing blood on my skin and shirt. “I was playing the victim card before, but it’s true. I’m sick. I should have been taking medication years ago, but Conrad wouldn’t let me, and then it became a source of personal pride. It was more manly to scar myself instead of take a pill.”

  I snuggled against his chest, hand on his heartbeat.

  “Look at me.”

  But I couldn’t. I had to keep listening, because what if his heart stopped beating and I missed it?

  He’ll be okay.

  He hadn’t spilled enough blood to put him at risk. I knew that. I just had to keep reminding myself.

  “Maddie.” He grabbed my chin, fingers slick with blood sliding over my face, and pulled me up to look at him. “I’m right here.”

  “No.” I grabbed his wrist. “You’re not. You’re so far away from me I can barely see you. I thought this would free you, but it just made everything worse.”

  “I’m here. I promise.” He let go of my face and slid a hand beneath my shirt, palm against my side. He felt warmer than he ever had before. “Do you feel me?” His other arm pulled me closer to him, until there was barely any distance between our faces.

  I thought back to the times I’d been so broken, so close to thinking I was ruined for the rest of my life. His hands on my body. His lips on mine. He needed that help now. He just didn’t know how to ask for it.

  “Feel me,” I said, placing his other hand on my breast. His breath caught at the same time his fingers twitched around me, thumb moving reflexively to caress my nipple.

  “We shouldn’t—”

  I kissed him before he could finish the thought, claimed his lips as easily as he’d always claimed me in the past, pushing him back into the wall so I could climb across his hips. And miraculously, it was as if the events of the past twenty four hours fell off our bodies like dented armor, collapsing to the floor between us. His hand beneath my shirt slid farther up my body, then to my back, as he crushed me tighter against his chest.

  “This is what saves us,” I whispered, breaking free of him long enough to pull my shirt over my head. His left hand found my breast again, squeezing tighter this time, but I leaned into his grip instead of pulling away.

  “There’s blood,” he said, and I looked down to see he was right, his own blood smeared across my skin.

  “Clean it.” I pulled at his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against mine. But the moment he was free he leaned me back, brought his mouth to my chest, and licked all around my breast before closing his lips around my nipple. Then I had to pull away as he bit, too hard, leaning back and pulling my skin.

  “Fuck.” We both looked at my chest, at my nipple red as a cherry, but before either of us could say anything more he leaned down again, lapping gently this time. I moaned as he lowered me to the slick tile, hot water from the shower still raining on us.

  “God, Meyer.” The blood didn’t bother me. The drops of hot water flecking over my skin lit up my nerve endings as much as his fingers, his mouth, the rough pad of his tongue traveling my body like it was the first time he’d tasted me.

  “Not me. You. This is all you.” He bit at my belly, then kissed up my stomach between my breasts to my lips again. “You know this entire time, I thought I had to save you?”

  I ran my fingers through his hair as he pulled at my soaked leggings, the only thing besides the shirt Joshua had packed for me in the go bag, and threw them to the side. Here we were again, in the shower on the verge of a breakdown, but this time I was pulling him closer instead of pushing him away, embracing him instead of fighting. He hoisted me to my feet the second I was naked, lifting me over the short step leading into the shower and following me in still half-dressed.

  “You’re the one who gave me a reason to live. Even before we met. You were the one thing keeping me going.”

  He pushed me against the far wall at the same time that I reached for his pants, yanking at the button as if it had offended me. One of his hands wrapped around my neck, but he didn’t tightened his fingers; he held me as if I were something fragile that he wanted to protect.

  “And now you saved me. I don’t know how to ever give that back.”

  His jeans fell to the floor and he kicked out of them without letting go of me, and when he stepped within my reach again I grabbed his cock, stroking it the rest of the way to fully erect as we stared at each other.

  “You don’t have to.” I ran my hand over the tip, earning me a shudder as his eyes flickered closed for a minute.

  “Give me that cunt,” he muttered, almost to himself, and stepped closer as he lifted my leg to prop on the bench sitting at the back of the shower. He ran his fingers over my pussy lips slowly, reverently, before spreading them and running his index finger down my slit.

  “It’s yours,” I breathed, suddenly barely able to focus on him.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, and slid a finger inside. His thumb rubbed my clit gently, barely touching it, but enough to wake up nerve endings all over my body. “You’ve done enough. Lay your head back for me.”

  He pushed on my neck again. I let my head lay back against the tile, and a moment later his lips began gently suckling on the soft skin of my throat as his finger began to wiggle inside me. I tensed, hand clenching around his length, and a soft moan escaped me.

  “That’s it.” He pulled out his finger and started to rub me with his whole hand, the ridges of his fingers running over my clit faster and faster. I tried to hold on to my sanity, tried to remember that this was about him, not me, but when I opened my mouth to protest he simply kissed me so sweetly I couldn’t bear to pull away. “Let me have your pleasure, Maddie.”

  “Okay,” I whimpered, and he chuckled low in his throat. It wasn’t quite a happy sound, but it gave me hope as I sank into his grasp. “You can take it.”

  “I will,” he promised, and then put two fingers inside me. I gasped and quivered, and then when he inserted a third and pressed on my clit with his finger, I fell apart. I wailed loudly as he kissed my neck, murmuring words I couldn’t hear against my pulse point, holding me secure while water fell around us and I came down from my high. I sighed as he dropped my leg to the ground, but I got no time to recover as he spun me around and yanked me back against him. I looked over my shoulder as he sat on the small bench where he’d set my foot before. His dick stuck up from between his legs, inviting me to sit on it, and began to back up even before he grabbed my lips and lifted me up slightly, steadying me as I swung my legs to the outside of his so that I rested on his thighs. And then, with him guiding me, I sank smoothly onto his cock.

  “Fuck,” I gasped, and fell forward into the stream of water, but he caught me with one hand around my waist, the other on my hip to
guide me back up. Like this, I felt stretched in a whole new way, like I was barely able to hold myself together with him inside. His lips pressed against my back, between my shoulder blades, and then he opened his mouth to run his teeth over the ridges of my spine.

  “You taste so sweet,” he said.

  I stiffened. It wasn’t his fault his words were so close to what his father had said, but they still hit too close to home. But he felt my apprehension as easily as if it were his own, and the hand on my hip moved around my front, between my legs, and began to stroke my clit.

  “Forget about it, baby. We’re safe now. We’re together. It’s really over.”

  “Meyer…” I twisted in his arms, bringing my head back toward his so our lips could touch. But I couldn’t focus on the kiss, not with his fingers strumming me as he bounced me up and down on his lap. Sensation came at me from every angle. I couldn’t process it all. I simply became a slave to his fingers and his dick, the wet sounds our bodies made as they slapped together.

  “Do you like that?” He changed directions on my clit, sending me writhing even harder.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but no sound came out.

  “I asked you a question.” He bit my earlobe, tugging the skin between his teeth. “Does it feel good, Maddie?”

  “Y-yes,” I managed to stutter.

  “Are you going to come for me again?” He bit my shoulder, ran his tongue up my neck.

  “I think…”

  “I don’t want you to think.” His voice was nothing more than a whisper now, a mere suggestion in my ear. “I want you to come all over my cock so I can feel you clench around me as if you’re going to break it off inside that tight pussy.” He increased the pace with his fingers. “Do you think you can do that for me?”

  I couldn’t answer, because it was unfolding inside me, spreading through my body like the tide coming in far too fast. My cries echoed off the walls of the bathroom as his fingers tightened in my side. It lasted forever as he kept stroking me, bringing me back for another round just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore. I twitched every time my pussy clenched around him. When I collapsed, panting, I didn’t get more than a moment to breathe before he lifted me off him and placed me on my knees, pulling my head back by my hair.