by Rina Kent
Indi
My legs twitch. I come to with my heart beating in my throat. I’m on my side, draped in shadow, but surprisingly I’m not cold. The green and brown enveloping me slowly comes into focus.
The woods?
I shift a little, a headache thumping in my skull.
There’s an arm slung over my waist.
Panic scurries through me and converges in my chest, forcing out every last bit of air. I lie still as death.
Briar’s behind me, body flush with mine.
What did he do to me? But an internal check produces nothing except the tight headache of a good sobbing session, and a dull ache where a rock’s pressing into my hip.
A warm, steady breath washes over the back of my neck. Goosebumps scatter over my arms and legs, and I slowly turn to look at Briar.
We’re under the boughs of a massive oak tree. The floor is mossy here, only the odd stone. My head is on his arm, and he’s sleeping.
I remember crying. How he held me so tight.
I’ve never felt that…safe before.
None of it makes sense. If anything, I should have run away. Briar’s not someone I want to be alone in the woods with. I grasp his wrist and lift up his arm. It’s heavy, and long, and I already know I won’t be able to move it much without waking him.
I barely lift him an inch before his massive hand grabs my belly and squeezes. I go stiff in shock.
“Briar.” His name catches in my throat, mingling with a gasp when his lips touch the back of my neck.
“Jesus, you smell so fucking good,” he says, those words chasing warm puffs of air over my skin.
Oh God, why did I wake him? Now I can’t move away if I wanted to. It feels like the forest’s claimed me and I’ve gone and taken root.
Briar’s lips skate over my neck, my jaw, my cheekbone. He rains a flurry of light kisses over my face, hesitating when he reaches the edge of my mouth. For a moment he hovers there, his warm, sweet breath fluttering over my lips as the hand on my belly moves down.
Get up. Run away. Don’t let him pull you under!
Briar groans as if he can’t hold back anymore, and his mouth crashes against mine. He takes without asking, dancing without letting me lead, all the while ignoring my mewls of protest.
A frantic ache bursts into my core, thumping in time with Briar’s furious kiss.
How the fuck could I want someone so badly? I don’t care if I never breathe, eat, sleep, or regain consciousness again. All I want is him. I want to give him everything. More and more and more, until there’s nothing left for me to give.
Nothing left for him to take.
I shiver violently at the thought, and Briar pulls back with a reluctant exhale. “You cold, Angel?”
As if offering up the heat of his body, he pulls me hard against him.
I can feel every muscle on his body.
And his rock hard cock.
How easy it would be to just lie here and let this happen. To let him slip a hand up my skirt and tug down my leggings. For his cock to—
I shove at him and scramble up. He lifts his hands in mock surrender, a strange half-smile on his mouth as he stares up at me. Lowering his hands, he props himself up on one elbow.
Laying on his side, he should look defenseless, weak. He doesn’t. He could be a leopard waking from a catnap.
His earlier words tumble back into my mind.
Just tell them you don’t like it here.
Thankfully — thankfully — I don’t have any tears left. He drained them out of me like the sun drains the deserts.
He doesn’t deserve to know, doesn’t even deserve an explanation, but I’m hoping it will be like a thorn in his paw. Something small, seemingly insignificant, but that will drive him mad over time. And the only mouse around to take it out would be me.
“My father—” I swallow hard, and fist my hands at my side. “Stage four Hodgkin Lymphoma. Know what that is? It’s a cancer that attacks your lymph nodes. They thought they got it in time, that they could cut it out.” My voice fails for a second, but I bite the inside of my bottom lip hard enough to taste blood, and then force out the rest. “They kept cutting and cutting, but that didn’t stop it spreading. Eventually, there was nothing left for them to cut out. Not without killing him outright.” I let out a soft laugh. “They dragged it out for a year. A fucking year. That was when he told me and my mom that he’d had enough. That he just wanted the pain to end.” I hold up my hand, fingers spread. “He died five years ago.”
Through my entire toneless monologue, Briar’s expression doesn’t shift an inch. But his eyes keep darting all over my face, like he’s scanning me for the first hint of a lie.
Just thinking about Dad, repeating that story, brings a visceral image to mind; how pale and thin he looked on his bed, skin the same color as the sheets but more translucent. He’d insisted on coming home — said he didn’t want to die in the hospital — and I hated him for that because I knew that, when he died, his spirit would haunt us forever.
And it did.
A black cloud hung over our house every second of every day after he passed away.
My legs go weak, and I hurriedly sink to the ground before I fall.
On my knees, ass on my heels, hands on my thighs — here I sit in supplication to Prince Briar. Am I begging him to stop tormenting me, or for him to go through with his threats?
He watches me with that same intrusive glare as before; silent, unreadable.
Probably waiting to call bullshit on my train wreck of a life.
I smile, but there’s fuck all warmth in it, because my soul is frozen solid. I’ve been a fucking Ice Queen for half a decade. And my frozen heart? Some random, sadistic fuck shattered it a week ago.
I grip my hands together so they’ll stop shaking.
“Eleven days ago, someone broke into my house and murdered my mother.”
Briar’s mouth twitches, but that’s it.
One. Fucking. Twitch.
“Case is still open. No suspects.”
I lean forward, pressing my palms onto the moss.
Briar slowly sits up and runs his hand through his hair with that same silent scowl on his face.
Guess you wish you could take back all that shit you said earlier, huh?
“One guy. That’s what the cops said. Could have been more, but they only found traces of one—”
I cut off.
Fuck, I can’t do this. What the fuck’s wrong with me? This is private shit. I’ve made my point.
I push up, but Briar darts forward and stops me in my tracks. We’re both on our knees, our bodies a few inches apart. I have to look up at him to see his eyes, and he’s gazing down at me like I’m some kind of forest fairy that’s about to grant him a wish.
My stomach coils uneasily as he slides a hand around the back of my neck, the other on the small of my back.
“Don’t stop,” he murmurs, back to scowling.
“You sick fuck.” I turn my head a little, bile-bitter saliva flooding my mouth. “You sick, sick—”
“Tell me.”
I swallow hard. “What, so you can get off on—”
He squeezes the back of my neck, and I cut off, taking it as a warning. He dips his head a little lower. Suddenly, he doesn’t look angry or frustrated or smug. There’s an intensity to his gaze, some kind of urgency.
“Wh—?”
“You’ve never told anyone this, have you?”
My stomach flips over. I shake my head, not trusting my voice right then.
“Then tell me. I can take it, whatever it is. Tell me, and forget about it. I’ll keep it for you.”
I frown at him. Keep it? What the hell—?
He grabs my hand and puts it on his heart. Just like when I shoved him away from Addy the other day.
His heart pounds like a racehorse’s.
“Feel that? It’s going strong. And it can still take a fuck load more.”
I tense my fingers, burrowing
my nails into his flesh through his cotton shirt. His lips part, and his breath washes over me as he lets out a sigh.
“They — he — tied her up.” My heart starts pounding harder, faster. Blood roars in my ears.
Briar’s eyes light up, but not for the story. I’m confiding in him, and for some reason he’s eating it up. I can’t think about what this means, not right now.
I’ve reached the top of this fucking roller coaster, and there’s nothing left to do but close my eyes, hold tight, and hope I don’t fucking die.
Chapter Twenty-One
Briar
Indi’s story comes out slowly, reluctantly. But then it builds speed. I’m swept along like a leaf down a river running heavy with snowmelt.
I want her to stop.
I want her to keep going.
I want to hear everything.
And then I want to forget I heard anything at all.
Because I can do that for her. I can take away her pain, her suffering, her nightmares.
Christ, how can she not have fucking nightmares?
Her eyes glow, but this time her anger, her hate, it isn’t directed at me. But it’s just as fucking beautiful as if it was.
“I went out that night. The night he killed her.” Her voice grows thick before she clears her throat. “Random house party, wasn’t even anything special.”
Indi blinks, but the movement is frozen in time. I can’t look away from her eyes, but at the same time I feel drawn to watch her lips as she speaks. Could be because she’s barely more than whispering.
I understand. A secret this dark, this depraved — no one should ever have to hear it.
I lean in until her face is a blur. Until every word touches my mouth in a flurry of her breath.
“Got drunk. Got easy. But then I had to go home. Always gotta go home, right?”
I tighten my grip around the back of her neck. I want to cut in, to tell her home isn’t the end-all and the be-all of this fucking life. Take it from someone whose home is nothing but an empty shell. Or from a guy like Marcus, where home is a rusty bear trap just waiting to slam shut.
Not unless that home is with me.
“I thought the cab driver took me to the wrong address.” A soft laugh puffs against my lips, and I lick them on instinct. I lean back a little, cradling her face in my hands. Not wanting her to stop, already feeling her sense of relief as these words spill out of the dank, dark hole she shoved them in.
“It was all black, my house. And still smoking. Hardly anything left of the place.” She shakes her head, and I tighten my grip until she stops. Her eyes fix on me, draw at me until I want to kiss her. Instead, I smooth away a chunk of hair from her forehead.
“I got a bit mental when I figured out what had happened. When it all sunk in. They gave me a really strong sedative. It was better then. Everything wasn’t so loud anymore, so bright, so fucking real. But I still knew what was going on. Guess the other people didn’t know that. The cops and shit.”
Her eyes drop, but I tilt her head back until she looks at me again.
“I overheard two of them talking. If I hadn’t been so fucked up, I’d have covered my ears, walked away…something.” She shakes her head. “But I just sat there. Listening to every fucking word.
“They said he’d…he’d had to have done this kind of thing before, because it didn’t look amateurish. The ropes, the knots he used. How rough…how rough he’d been when he’d raped her.”
My heart feels like it wants to fucking implode under the weight of Indi’s words. But I swore to her I’d listen, that I’d take this burden from her. I have broad shoulders and a big heart. She’s a tiny thing. No one like her can withstand this kind of shit. I can. I’ve done it before, I can do it again.
“He stabbed her with one of our kitchen knives. Not just once, but over and over and over again. And then he strangled her with his belt.”
She should be sobbing again, but it’s as if there’s nothing left.
“He left her tied up. Wrists and ankles, face down on the bed. There was still…he’d used a soda bottle to, to—” Indi shakes her head hard, signaling the end of the morbid recitation.
I crush her against me, inhaling her scent. She’s stiff at first, but then she relaxes. I can feel her heart pounding against my chest, just as I’m sure she can feel mine.
But slowly, ever so fucking slowly, her heartbeat grows softer, steadier. I like to think I tame it. That, as an animal, only I could know how. But if that were true, then I’d have learned to tame mine a long time ago. And I haven’t. If anything, it just starts beating harder the longer I have her against me.
Because I still want her. Right here, right now, despite everything I’ve just heard. Perhaps because of everything I’ve just heard. I want to drown her sorrow with ecstasy.
But it’s not right. It’s not decent.
And it may never be. And I’d have to be okay with that.
I never knew she was this broken. But now all I want to do is force that darkness from her mind.
But how can I, when all I have to offer is more darkness? More depravity? More violence?
Dark doesn’t consume dark. It festers and grows and expounds.
The last thing Indigo Virgo needs in her life right now is a sick fuck like me.
Indi
I finally understand what he meant by letting him ‘keep it’. He’s eaten out my pain like a bad cancer, leaving me disease free.
For now, anyway.
But what about him? How can he take on such brutality without succumbing to it in some way?
Then again, I know nothing about Briar. He said he can handle anything…and maybe he can. Maybe he’s been eating his own pain for so long, it doesn’t taste spoiled anymore. Maybe he even enjoys it. Like it’s an acquired taste that makes normal people retch, but makes his mouth water.
I’m fully aware of how hard he is for me. And for some disgusting reason I can’t fathom, I’m wet for him too. But instead of putting his hands on me, he moves back and pushes me away. Separating us.
We’d be hot as fuck together.
The same can be said of wood and a butane fucking torch.
I’ve stopped trying to out-think Briar — it’s too exhausting. But I expected him to say something. Anything.
Not, ‘sorry.’
Not, ‘it’s gonna be okay’.
Neither of us are that fucking naive.
But he’s silent. Distant. Cold, even. He stands, watches me for a moment until I do too, and then slips a hand in his pocket. He takes out my switchblade, hands it to me, and then leads us out of the woods.
As soon as I see where the sun’s sitting, my stomach drops an inch.
It’s past lunchtime already. How the hell could we have been gone for so long?
We walk back to the stables, silent and more than a yard apart. Briar’s head is constantly turning — looking for our horses, I guess. But when we get to the stables and Mr. Denard and Ms. Parsons step out of the shadowy depths of that big barn…well, I kinda get a premonition about why we didn’t find our valiant steeds.
“So where were you?” Addy whispers.
I’m toying with the corner of my notebook, flipping the pages over my thumb as our teacher drones on in the background.
“Horse riding.”
“And what, you lost track of time?”
I sigh and look up at Addy. “That’s what I said.” She’s sitting beside me, pretending to look at the board as she interrogates me from the side of her mouth.
There’s a detention slip burning a fucking hole in my left breast pocket. Briar has one just like it.
Apparently, extending your free period to an over two-hour-long leisure ride in Lavish Prep’s foothills is frowned upon. As are boys and girls disappearing off the grounds together.
Ms. Parson’s got as much of a dressing down as we did for pairing us up. Denard had her pegged as some kind of pedophilic matchmaker, and I’ve never felt as sorry for her in t
hat moment as I did right then while Denard’s forehead grew pulsing veins.
Even Briar’s rapport with the French teacher did nothing to reduce our sentence. We each got a week, and Denard’s sincere vow that our parents would be notified about our lack of attendance before the day was out.
I almost laughed at that, and I caught a glimmer of something that might have been amusement in Briar’s eyes. If anyone can communicate with the fucking dead, it’s Mr. Denard.
“So…was he a good fuck?”
My eyes snap over to Addy. Her nose is up in the air, her jaw bunched like she’s gritting her teeth.
“The fuck, Addy?” I whisper furiously. “Nothing happened.”
“Mmm,” she says.
“Addy.”
But she ignores me, now and for the rest of the fucking class. Even my texts go unanswered, and I give up with a growl of irritation that makes our teacher glare at me.
As soon as class is over, Addy’s out the door. I’m only a step behind her, but fuck she’s got long legs.
“Addy. Addy, come on! Just—” I break off with a frustrated curse and put all my effort into catching up with her.
She’s waiting for me around the corner, wearing a mask of such cool indifference it’s like she transformed into a robot on the way over here.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to talk and haul in a breath at the same time. I really gotta take a look at getting my fitness levels up. I mean, fuck, racing after Addy, running away from Briar? Then again, if shit keeps on like this, I think I’ll be ready for the Olympics come Christmas.
“Thanks for what?” Addy prompts, crossing her arms over her chest.
“For listening.”
She shifts, and glances away. “You haven’t told me anything yet.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
Her brown eyes settle on me, but they flit away an instant later like nervous butterflies. I sling my arm through hers and start walking. I have one more period before home time. If I don’t iron this out with Addy, who’s to say she’ll even listen to me tomorrow? She obviously thinks I broke her trust by sleeping with Briar. I can only hope she’ll listen to reason.
