by MV Ellis
Sins At St. Joseph’s Academy
The Fallen 1
MV Ellis
Take You
Published by The Other Shoe Productions
Digital Edition
Sins At St. Joseph’s Academy © 2021 By MV Ellis
First published January 2021
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Disclaimer
Sins At St. Joseph’s Academy is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found therein are either from the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons alive or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
The author acknowledges all song titles, song lyrics, film titles, film characters, trademarked statuses and brands mentioned in this book are the property of their respective owners. MV Ellis is in no way affiliated with any of the brands, songs, musicians, artists, or other entities mentioned in this book.
“The sins of the father shall be visited up the son.”
~The Bible
For everyone who has lost someone.
Sins At St. Joseph’s Academy Playlist
Find all my playlists on Spotify,
Find the Sins At St. Joseph’s Academy playlist on Spotify
LANKS - Embrace
Halsey - I'm Not Mad
Ruel - say it over (feat. Cautious Clay)
Anne-Marie - To Be Young (feat. Doja Cat)
Toni Romiti - No More (feat. Janine)
Halsey - Graveyard - Stripped
Refs - Run
Niko Walters - Close My Eyes
LANKS - Child
Anne-Marie - Problems
R3HAB - Am I The Only One (with Astrid S & HRVY)
H.E.R. - Damage
Odette - Dwell
FLETCHER - Shh...Don't Say It
CXLOE - Swing
Haux - Lie Awake
Tusks - For You
Ørka - Phantom
J.Howell - Love You In The Morning (L.U.I.M)
Ruelle - The Fear of Letting Go
NF - Got You On My Mind
Sophie Lowe - Trust
Raphaella - Closure
MDWS - Circles
Kina - Tell Me About You (feat. Mishaal)
Benji Lewis - Stay Around
Emily Rowed - Let Me Hurt
Jeida Woods - SKIN
Gretta Ray - Passion
* * *
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SINS AT ST. JOSEPH’S ACADEMY
MV ELLIS
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Prologue
Zeph
One Year Earlier
* * *
I swipe the comb through my hair one last time, even though it’s already perfect. Of course it is; everything about me is perfect. Not that I really even need to bother. I could show up to a party in a black trash bag with a bird’s nest for hair, and girls would probably still throw themselves at me, wanting a piece. That’s how I roll.
I step back to admire my handiwork and get a better view of the rest of my body in the mirror, confirming what I already know. I’m the human embodiment of perfection. Perfect hair, perfect face, perfect teeth, perfect body, perfect skin. I drop the towel I tied around my waist when I got out of the shower, and look downward. Perfect dick.
Just then the door to my bathroom swings further open, and in saunters my best friend Tyce, with his usual chillaxed swagger.
“Dude, stop admiring your fucking dick—pun very-much intended. Get dressed, and let’s bounce.”
“You’re the only fucking dick around here, and why the hell wouldn’t I admire it? It’s goddamn perfect, like the rest of me.”
He takes a long, hard look down at the appendage in question, saying nothing for an extended moment, before tilting his head to the side, serious as cancer, until his mouth kicks up into his trademark grin.
“As much as I would love to burst that particular bubble, and shatter your delusions of grandeur, it hurts me to admit that it is, in actual fact, a near-perfect example of the external male reproductive organ. Even more so now that you’re apparently sporting wood for me. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s the second-prettiest dick on the face of the Earth. After my own, of course.”
“Ha! You don’t look or sound high, but you really must be if a) you think I have a hard-on for you, and b) you believe your dick is better than mine. It doesn’t even come close, pun also intended.”
“Well, there’s only one way to settle this debate…” He begins unzipping his jeans.
“Jesus Christ, you two aren’t going to start comparing dicks again, are you? Any excuse, right? Why don’t you just get it on and get it out of your systems?”
Aster’s voice from my bathroom doorway startles both of us. One of the many things that pisses me off about my “darling” kid sister is her ability to seemingly appear out of nowhere, like a phantom, or a deadly fart. In fact, if I hadn’t witnessed her walking on her own two feet, with my own eyes, I would be prepared to believe that she actually floats in mid-fucking-air.
I reach down for the towel I’ve discarded and wrap it back around myself.
“No ‘were’ about it, little girl. Last I heard, neither of us invited you to be here, so if, while you’re in your older brother’s bathroom, you see something you don’t want to, that’s hardly my business or problem, is it? You know where the door is, given that you just walked in uninvited like you own the fucking place.” Tyce is almost as much of a big bro to her as I am, and shows just as little patience for her irritating ways. Less, even.
She chews her gum in an exaggerated fashion, clicking it like a pro. “Who said anything about not wanting to see it? Oh, I want to see it. I just don’t get why Brother Dearest would want to, that’s all.” This girl has swag for miles, just like our mom, which always has me torn three ways between being pissed off, proud, and terrified for her.
She leans back on the door frame, and crosses her arms in a stance that screams ready when you are.
Never one to back down from a challenge or an opportunity to impress a chick, even if she is his best friend’s kid sister, whom he’s known since she was in diapers, Tyce reaches for his zipper again.
I’m fairly certain he’s bluffing—if only because he knows I’ll strangle him with his own innards—but sometimes it can be hard to tell with him, and there’s no way I‘m prepared to take the risk when Aster’s involved. While it’s true that I can’t stand the sight, or even thought of her, most of the time, she’s still my “baby” sister, and I’m still her big bro, and that counts for something.
“Dude, touch it in front of her and it’s the last time you ever lay a hand on it. I will cut it off and feed it to the fucking pigs while you bleed out in front of them. I kid you not.” I’ll deliver on my promise, too. I always do.
“Party pooper.” She flips me the bird and gives me her best mock pout, with her plump, shapely lips in full effect. Even though I’ve known her all her life, and most of mine, I still frequently spin out at how different we are in pretty much every way, including looks, and especially our personalities.
It is such a cliché, but she really is exactly like our mom, from head to toe. She’s inherited her golden-brown skin, curly, afro hair, and slate-gray eyes—she is literally her mini me. While as much as I hate to admit it, I am Xavier Cross 2.0. I have his paler skin tone—though with a bronze glow that makes me look perma-tanned—my hair is just a shade darker blond than his, and my eyes are the same vivid blue.
I can’t recall how many times in my life I’ve looked at my reflection and wished I didn’t see my father looking back at me, but genetics are a bitch, and the Cross genes run strong. My father looks just like his father, I’m the mirror-image of mine, and, in the unlikely event that I am demented enough to ever have kids myself, I’m willing to bet that if I had a son, he’d look like a clone of me.
Looks aren’t the only way the two of us take after our respectively gendered parent, either. The genetic lottery would so have it that our personalities have gone that way, too. From what I understand, Rukiya “Rocky” Cross, née Gordon, has always been a model citizen. She’s the kind of person who works hard and always does the right thing, and doesn’t have to think twice about what that is in any given situation, let alone decide whether to do it or not. She’s never been in any kind of trouble, and would rather go hungry than ever break the law.
Some people are just made that way. My mom and my sister are two such people. Xavier and I—not so much. Although he doesn’t like to talk about the bad old days before my mom civilized him, I know all of Father Dearest’s deep and dirty secrets, and boy, are they dirty. Filthy, in fact. I also know for sure that nobody has ever accused him of being a model anything—citizen, son, student, or human. Nothing. Of course, he swears he’s a changed man these days, but knowing that the same blood runs through our veins, and how it feels to be me, I very much doubt it.
“Speaking of parties.” Aster’s voice cuts right across my thoughts.
“Which we weren’t.”
“Well, I said party pooper before, and we’re about to talk about them, since you’re clearly on your way to one, despite being grounded to like the one millionth degree.” She stretches her gum out and winds it around her index finger, while I silently will it to get stuck in her bouncy curls. At least if she has to spend hours extracting gum from her Velcro hair, she’ll be off our backs, and we’ll be out the door before she remembers why she was even hassling us in the first place.
Sadly, the gods aren’t on our side, and she pops her gum back into her mouth again, chewing frenetically, like her life depends on it. Fuck you, gods.
“So, the fuck what? If Rocky and Xavier are stupid enough to leave me here unattended while I’m grounded ‘to the millionth degree,’ in order to attend yet another charity circle-jerk designed to salve their consciences for the lavish way they live, then I’m smart enough to take full advantage.”
“It’s Saturday night for God’s sake. Did they really think I was going to stay home with my dorky little sis, reading my non-existent Bible?” I very much doubt that’s the case, not only because they know that isn’t even close to being my style, but also because they are both confirmed born-again atheists.
“The ‘fuck what’ is that I have them on speed dial, and I’m one press away from connecting the call and alerting them to your planned jailbreak.”
“You wouldn’t fucking dare.” Would she?
“Wouldn’t I?” She turns her phone screen toward me, showing that she is clearly one button press away from calling “Dad.”
“Not if you want to see your next birthday, no.”
“Hmm... well, see, the thing is, big brother, that I know you’re not going to kill me, so that’s an obvious idle threat. And the reality of the situation is that you already make everyone in the family’s life a living hell most of the time, including mine, so how bad can whatever punishment you think you have planned for me really be? Especially, when we factor in the little issue of you being grounded to within an inch of your life, if Mama and Papa find out you were planning to go, or, even worse, went to a party tonight?” The urge to wipe the smile from her face is strong.
“So, do you really want to take the risk? Because from where I’m standing, I have nothing to lose except an ‘in’ to the party of the year, which I didn’t have in the first place. Ergo, for me, it’s a zero sum game.” Who the hell is this grown-ass sounding chick, and what the fuck has she done with my once little and sweet “little” sister?
Well, damn, here’s me lamenting the fact that we share the same genes, but are different in every way, and she goes and pulls a stunt like this. Maybe I was wrong about her being one hundred percent Gordon. This hustle is totally a Cross move, so maybe a little of Xavier’s blood does flow through her veins after all. In fact, maybe it isn’t just a little, but a lot.
Worse still, she has the whole world believing she’s, good, sweet and innocent—the polar opposite of her diabolical father and brother. Yet the gleam in her eye says something different. She’s one of us: cunning and quick as a fox. Scratch that, she’s possibly worse than us, because the only thing deadlier than a wolf is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“So what’s it going to be, hermano grande? Do I get a hall pass, and a Cinderella ticket to the ball with you, or do I put my itchy finger to good use, and call the ‘rents?”
“Jesus, you’re a fucking stone-cold shark.”
“Cor-rect,” she deadpans, overemphasizing each syllable. “So…?”
“Fuck. Okay, under three stipulations.” I shoot her a death stare.
“Tell me.”
“First: as soon as we get there, you split. I mean you don’t look at me, you don’t talk to me, and you don’t tell anyone you fucking know me, let alone share my DNA. I’m serious, kid. If someone holds a gun to your head and asks you if I’m your brother, you develop short-term amnesia. Second: if I find anyone’s naked dick within a foot of you, I will cut it off and put it down the garbage disposal. No ifs. No buts. No maybes. That pecker is worm food faster than you can say ‘don’t touch my fucking sister, you perverted little asshole.’ Third: this is a one-time, never to be repeated deal. No negotiation. No do-over. Fourth: if I go down for this, I’m taking you with me, lock stock, and rotting fucking barrel. Deal?”
“But you said three conditions, and that was four.”
“Do. We. Have. A. Motherfucking. Deal?” She might be a stone-cold fox in training, but she has nothing on me. I stare her down until she crumbles.
She sighs reluctantly. “No fair, but okay, it’s a deal.”
“So go put on something that doesn’t make you look like a twelve-year-old librarian, for fuck’s sake, or it’s going to be a very short night, because you won’t get in.”
As she walks out the door, Tyce turns to me with a shocked look on his face.
“Jesus Christ, I never thought I’d see the day when the player got played, especially not by your younger sis, but dude, she took you to the cleaners.”
“I know, right?” My tone conveys my mood—down. “I just hope she doesn’t make me live to regret this.”
Even as I say
the words, I know that somehow she will, in the worst possible way.
Chapter 1
We Know Who You Are
Zeph
Present Day
* * *
I press my lips down hard against Trinity’s, probing with my tongue until she opens up. As ever, it doesn’t take long. I explore her mouth, savoring her sweetness until she pulls away.
She wrinkles her nose a little. “You taste of cigarettes, like always.” She isn’t a smoker.
“Yeah, because I had a smoke just before I walked through the door, just like I always do. And just like you always do, you taste like the body and blood of Christ, so I guess that makes us even.” It’s a well-worn routine of ours. “But if you insist on being screwed right after choir practice, then it is what it is. Come to think of it, why do you insist on getting nailed right after choir practice every week?” I gesture to the opulent, faux gothic surroundings of the school chapel.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t designed with filthy fucks for kinky schoolgirls in mind, yet I’ve gotten my rocks off here many more times than I’ve attended mass.
“Because it’s the ultimate way to sock it to Daddy Dearest. It’s like sin bingo, you know? Fornication? Tick. Fornication before marriage? Tick. Fornication in the apse? Big. Ole’. Tick. You never know; I might go for the full house today, and let you in the back door. Fornication in the ass? Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a motherfucking winner. Oh, you can add profanity to my card, too, and that’s a full house!”
