: Chapter 18

Frozen in fear with my mouth agape, I haven’t blinked since opening the door.

My jaw is lax and my stomach in knots as the crying young boy scurries out of the room, pushing past me in complete humiliation.

Have my eyes deceived me? Was Bishop Caldwell really about to molest this child behind closed doors with deceptions of the Lord’s will?

My chest feels compressed, and that need to breathe is still a thought left in another life.

Bishop Caldwell clears his throat as he simply adjusts his cassock over his legs.

“Miss Strait,” he begins, walking back around his desk and taking a seat behind it as if nothing happened. “Knocking is a requirement here at the Covenant Academy. Disrupting lessons is worthy of discipline. Now, what can I do for you?”

Still stunned by the visual, I’m unable to form words.

“Y-you…” I stutter. “W-what was that? What was happening?” I point to the spot where he had that young boy sitting before him, his pants open.

He tips his head to the side, his deep-barreled chest releasing a heavy sigh, his deep-set wrinkles and slicked-back black hair that’s peppered with gray, making him look worse for wear. “What was what?”

“I just saw you—”

“You saw me assisting a child of God, Briony,” he interrupts, leaning back in his chair, adjusting the sash over his swollen stomach, filled with the unhealthy diet of a celibate man. He stares at me with a defiant gaze. “Now, I’ll ask again, what can I do for you?”

He’s really about to blow over this as if it’s nothing. As if my eyes deceived me, when I know for a fact they didn’t. He raises a brow, like he can hear my thoughts. His face slips into an expression far too readable. Those thin lips roll into his mouth and his eyes narrow. A look far too knowing. No one will believe you.

“Y-you needed to see me?” I ask, confused as to why he keeps asking what he can do for me when this meeting was at his request. “That’s why I was here.”

His brows lower, face set to a frown, before he sits forward in his chair, peering at a notebook on his desk. Flipping through the pages, the light shines on the crucifix of his black rosary, making my stomach churn in disgust. He shakes his head as his forehead wrinkles.

I never had a meeting with him.

This was all Aero’s doing.

The walls are caving in, and darkness threatens to consume me entirely. I’m overwhelmed with the revelation, terrified of the man before me, who I’ve trusted for years. I’ve put all of my time, energy, and passion into an institution I believed in. A faith I’d follow to the end. Led none other than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Everything is a lie.

Before I realize what’s happening, I feel my feet moving beneath me as I slowly stumble back out of the room.

I hear him call my name, but I’m already running.

Pushing through the office doors, I spill into the hallway filled with students leaving for the day, tripping onto my knees. Scrambling up, I hear him call my name again as tears fall from my eyes.

It’s all a lie.

I turn away from the onlooking students, running down the empty conjoined hallway, when a hand slaps over my mouth and I’m pulled back abruptly. Feeling myself fall back into a dark closet, I scream against the hand. I attempt to escape the hold when I feel a hard body seal to the back of mine.

“Shhh…calm down, Briony!” I hear the familiar tone.

The voice of the man who set me up.

I lose my battle with my emotions and begin sobbing against his hand. He pulls me tighter to his front, his voice in my ear.

“Stop it! Stop fucking crying!” he demands, wrapping his other arm around my waist, holding me even tighter against him.

I try to reign in my emotions when I hear Bishop Caldwell in the hallway, asking someone if they’ve seen me. The voices slowly fade as they walk away from the supply closet we are currently hidden in.

“Stop being a weak bitch, Briony,” Aero growls in my ear. “It was about time you joined the real world with the rest of us.”

I take in a shaky breath through my nostrils, calming myself against his hand. After I do, he finally drops his hands, turning me by my upper arms to face him. His first mistake.

I visualize the outline of his frame towering above me in the dark space and take the opportunity and slap him across the face.

The face that’s not masked.

I realize it when I feel the warmth of his cheek against the sting of my palm, the sharp sound of the slap echoing in the tight room.

Gasping, I feel behind me for a light switch. I need to see him. Before I can do much more than touch the wall, he grabs my wrists tightly in his hands, pushing my back against what feels like metal lockers behind me. He holds my wrists above my head, pressing his hips against mine, pinning me in place. A position that is all too familiar.

“You slapped me,” he says through gritted teeth, his nose pressing firmly against my cheek.

“You knew! You knew this was happening and did nothing to stop it!” I bark out, thrashing wildly in his hold.

He slams my wrists against the locker above me, causing pain to shoot down my arms.

“Wake the fuck up, church girl,” he seethes. “This isn’t an isolated incident.”

I attempt to kick him, but his body seals itself to mine.

“Your naivety disgusts me,” he continues, “but Jesus, that swing…” He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Fuck, I love those hands on me.”

I fight his hold against my arms, rocking my body violently against the locker as I groan out in frustration.

“Get it out,” he says. “C’mon,” he eggs me on.

This is what he likes. The fear. Aero gets off on my fear and aggression. The thrill of it all paired with my anger has me exploding against him, taking out all of my frustrations in this moment, using him as my punching bag.

But he’s too strong. I feel his smirk against my cheek, his hair tickling the side of my face as I breathe him in while panting with exhaustion.

“Go ahead. Fight me, little doll. It’ll only get you fucked,” he says in his gritty tone.

“Get your hands off of me!”

“Forgive me, please,” he says sarcastically, gripping both my wrists in one hand above me. “Everything I do is for you. Don’t you see that?”

His other hand slides up the inside of my forearm until it reaches the top of my head. Two fingers slide down the middle of my forehead, slowly running down the curve of my nose until they reach my lips, almost memorizing the profile of my face. He pushes those two fingers between my lips, hitting my teeth. I follow his lead, opening my mouth as they push through onto my tongue.

He rests his forehead against mine in the darkness, sliding his fingers deeper and deeper, until he’s hitting the back of my throat and I’m coughing around them, choking on their length. A breathy groan escapes his lips and my eyes water as he holds them there for a second before pulling them back out.

Taking the two fingers, I hear his lips part as he sucks on them. In some sick and twisted way, something about the crude act causes a stirring in the pit of my stomach. The temptations that endlessly plague me.

“See?” he whispers. “You’re not his little slut. You can’t even properly swallow a cock.”

The graffiti. His sick and twisted games are endless.

“You did that?” I seethe through clenched teeth. “You wrote those vile things about me?”

He sighs against me. “Forgive me. Tasteless, I know. Not really my style, but…when in Rome, we do as the Romans do, don’t we?”

He’s insane. His thought processes are so beyond messed up that I can’t even understand him half the time. There is always an element of religion in the riddles he spews, and the root of that is something I must get to. His entire identity is a maze to me; an endless cycle of twists and turns. The finish line, never in sight.

“Why?” I cry out as the tears threaten to reappear. “Why are you doing this to me?”

I’m frustrated. Confused. Hurting. Feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt before, knowing a leader who I’ve dedicated my life to has deceived me and everyone else in our community in the most disturbing way possible. All while fighting these dark, indecent sensations Aero continuously siphons from me. My head is swirling, my mind a complete fog.

“For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory,” he recites to me.

I still my body against his, absorbing the words, listening to the phrase, and deciphering it. Letting out a sigh of disbelief, I relax against his hold as my mind works at the familiar words. It’s one of the first passages he ripped from the Bible and left for me on my dresser.

“They want to mute you, Briony,” he whispers. “Take away your voice. Clip your bud before you bloom.”

The cryptic code, revealing his answer. He hasn’t been doing any of this for no reason. He’s been silently protecting me in his own sick and twisted way. Protecting me from the people he assumes are my enemies, while simultaneously hardening me for the fight.

“But I need you to bloom. I need you spread before me in all your dark, delicious beauty. Unravel your strength and show me the depth between your petals,” he says, running the back of those same fingers along my cheek.

My heart catches at his words. They’re meant to mean something deeper, but when he says them in that cracked, needy tone, the muscles in my thighs tighten again. My body deceives me in his presence, always seeking something more.

“I’m your God now,” I whisper his words back to him, the same words he wrote over the passage, finally deciphering the message.

The Lord your God goes with you to fight for you against your enemies. It wasn’t meant as blasphemy. It was a sign of his protectiveness. He’s willing himself to be my shield, but only if I bear the sword.

He straightens his spine, towering silently above me, and if I could see more clearly, I’d only imagine his face held a proud look of admiration. His head dips towards my neck, my eyes are closed tightly as my body shakes with the fear of revelation. Warm wet lips surround my earlobe, sending that shrill of sparks through my body again. He sucks it gently before I feel his wet tongue slide up the length of my ear.

My pulse is pounding in my neck as a hoarse moan just barely escapes. He places something small and metal against my palm, and my fingers close around it. I can just barely see the glint of light hitting his eyes from the sliver beneath the door, but their fire burns through the darkness.

“And we shall reign victorious,” his smooth voice purrs.