I gave her a wan smile. “Thanks, Bethany.”
Jai didn’t wait for any more questions. He bolted toward the stairwell and kicked the door open with more power than necessary. I didn’t understand his annoyance with Bethany, but I was too drained to question him. I hung on as he bounced down the steps and charged toward the silver sedan.
“Where is Noel?” I asked as Jai sat me in the passenger seat and buckled me up.
“In Heaven with Gideon, but he’ll be home later.” Jai tossed my backpack into the back seat then offered me my hoodie. “You cold?”
Nodding, I accepted the sweatshirt and tugged it up my arms. The seatbelt stopped me from pulling it over my head, but this would do for now. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes as Jai started the engine.
I wasn’t actually sick, but my Guardians fretted over me like I’d received a terminal cancer diagnosis. As Jai predicted, Gideon cooked a pot of chicken noodle soup, and Noel bundled me up in a pair of his pajama pants, one of Jai’s shirts, and bright orange toe-socks with little turkeys on them—Thanksgiving toe-socks.
Wrapped in blankets like a burrito, I was quarantined to the couch as we watched the first movie in the Lord of the Rings franchise. The chicken soup was delicious, and it settled my icky stomach to some degree. My nausea was caused by guilt and shame more than anything, but the soup helped.
My head rested in Noel’s lap, and he pet my hair as Jai propped my feet on his thigh, his lean fingers playing with my toes every so often. At fifteen-minute intervals, Gideon would ask how I was feeling, if I needed more soup, a glass of water, maybe ice chips. They were being so sweet, and my self-loathing grew.
Technically, I was lying to them, but I selfishly indulged in their kindness as we watched The Fellowship of the Ring.
Halfway through the film, my eyelids started to droop, and I must have fallen asleep because I awoke sometime later to strong arms lifting me from the couch. I nuzzled a chest smelling of sunshine and lilac. Noel kissed the top of my head as he carried me like a baby.
“Here,” Jai whispered over the rustle of fabric. “He can sleep in my room.”
“I can take the couch,” Noel said.
“You took the couch last time. I’m good.”
Noel laid me down in sheets of spicy tobacco. I delved into the blankets, seeking warmth. Half-awake, I watched Jai slip his T-shirt off, the faded light from the living room playing along his tattooed back.
“Goodnight, Riley. Feel better.” Noel pecked my forehead, and I smiled.
“Goodnight, Noel.”
With a squeeze to Jai’s arm, Noel left the room, and his bedroom door clicked shut a moment later. Jai stood over the bed in nothing but his pajama pants, hands on his hips.
“I’ll be on the couch. Call if you need anything.”
I was already guilty over lying, and kicking Jai out of his bed was the icing on the cake. If I’d been fully conscious, I would have stayed silent, but sleep loosened my tongue.
“We can share. The bed’s big enough. I don’t mind.”
“I’m okay on the couch.”
“But it’s your bed.”
Jai’s dark eyes glittered strangely in the dull light, and he glanced over his shoulder as his tongue piercing clacked against his teeth. “I shouldn’t…”
“Why not?”
Granted, I had little experience with sleepovers, but friends shared beds, didn’t they? It was rather illogical for me to sleep in Jai’s double bed all by myself while he took the couch.
Reaching a decision, Jai nudged the door, leaving it hanging ajar by an inch. I scooted over until my back met the wall, and the mattress depressed a moment later. As Jai situated himself on the other side of the bed, I snuggled into my blankets and smiled. I liked being close with my angels.
As I succumbed to sleep once more, a finger grazed the back of my hand beneath the blankets. I opened my hand, and Jai enveloped it with his much larger one, his callouses scraping over my smooth palm. Our fingers twined, and we shared a sigh as unconsciousness swallowed me whole.
I stared into a pair of blood-red eyes, cursed flames raging within. As I opened my mouth to scream for help, the beast lunged. Its hot, rotten breath burned my skin. Its sharp canines pierced the skin of my throat. I was choking on a thick, metallic mire of blood. And I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
“Riley!” Someone shook me awake as I suffocated on my own blood. “Riley, breathe!”
“What’s wrong?” Another pair of hands grabbed at me, and I fought like an animal. I didn’t want to die, not like this. “Riley, sweetie, calm down.”
Power cracked through the air, and my eyes flew open. I inhaled on a gasp, choking on nothing. Too many arms embraced me. Cinched between two bodies, I panted for oxygen.
“Shh, everything’s okay.” Noel ran his hand through my hair, cradling my head on his shoulder. “Just breathe, nice and slow. There you go.”
“He stopped breathing. He wouldn’t wake up, and he wasn’t breathing.” Jai’s voice shook, and I reached blindly to comfort him. He captured my hand and brought it to his scruffy cheek.
A huge hand squeezed my calf—Gideon. They were all here. I was safe. I wasn’t dying.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t m-mean to. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Gideon said. “You did nothing wrong. Just focus on deep breaths. Can you do that for me, little one?”
I nodded, burrowing deeper into Noel’s embrace. The room quieted, and I inhaled deeply through my nose, out through my mouth. Under the touches of my angels, I calmed.
“It’s still early.” Gideon rose from his crouch and patted the top of my head. “Get him back to sleep.”
Jai and Noel nodded, and Gideon left the room after another affectionate ruffle of my hair. I’d lost my pants during my struggle, but neither Jai nor Noel seemed interested in retrieving them. Instead, Noel shifted me until I was lying on my side with Jai at my back. He then lay at my front, our hands clasped between our chests.
“It was just a dream,” he said. “You’re safe now.”
Jai’s arm slipped around my torso, and his facial hair scratched the back of my neck. “He stopped breathing, Noel. He wasn’t breathing.”
“He’s fine, Jai. You can feel his heart beating. You can hear the rush of air in his lungs. He’s okay.” Noel’s melodic voice coaxed a calm into the atmosphere, and Jai shuddered, burying his face in the back of my neck.
Finding the crook of Noel’s neck, I snuggled into their combined embrace. Squished together, we caught our breath, calming from the adrenaline surge. Part of my exhausted brain told me I shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t allow them to hold me like this. But I was too tired to listen. I needed this; I needed them.
“Go back to sleep.”
Noel hummed a quiet melody, a lullaby I recognized though I swore I’d never heard it before. It invited me into unconsciousness, and the song continued, even after I surrendered.
Chapter Eighteen
When I awoke, I was groggy and warm, too warm. Sweat collected at the back of my neck and the base of my spine, but I didn’t move. I was always cold, and I loved the heat radiating from the space heaters in front and behind me.
Consciousness ebbed in slowly, and when I opened my eyes, my lashes fluttered over Noel’s Adam’s apple. His heart beat evenly beneath one of my palms, and my other hand twined with Jai’s over my stomach. Our legs tangled under the blankets, fabric and leg hair tickling my skin.
Jai’s hot breath puffed over my shoulder where my shirt had slid down, and his fingers skimmed the skin above my boxer-briefs beneath my shirt. A mishmash of body parts, we snuggled close as my angels snored softly. I’d never felt this safe and secure, trapped within the confines of their various limbs.
I remained silent so as not to wake them as my fingertips dragged over Noel’s chest. I traced his collarbone, then sifted my fingers through the fine, barely there white hairs smattering his pectorals.
A voice in the back of my mind struggled to be heard over the thrumming of my heart in my ears, but I ignored it.
When my toes prickled, on the verge of falling asleep, I wiggled to free my imprisoned leg. Jai’s hand on my tummy pressed harder against my skin, and I stilled.
“Too early,” he husked against my neck. “Go back to sleep.”
“My foot.” I wriggled again, and Jai hissed.
His large palm clamped my hip over my underwear, holding me in place. “Stop wiggling, Riles.”
Raspy and thick with sleep, his voice trickled down my spine, and something strange sparked to life in my veins. When I ceased my wiggles, his grip loosened, and long fingers trailed over my lower belly. His palm returned to its place over my navel, searing my skin.
Noel’s leg shifted, sliding between my legs, and I gasped as his leg hair teased the delicate skin of my inner thighs. I nearly swallowed my tongue when his leg hitched higher, dangerously close to my groin.
With shallow breaths, I settled into the mattress as the low simmer in my blood bubbled hotter. My skin felt stretched too tight, my sensitivity heightened, and when Jai’s facial hair scratched the tender skin of my neck, goose bumps exploded over my body.
The heat, their scents, the intimate touches, they overwhelmed me. It was too much, and for the first time in a very long time, that familiar, naughty tingling erupted in my belly. My eyes shot open, widening in panic.
No, no, no! Please, not now. Please, not that.
But I couldn’t stop it. My veins buzzed and boiled over, and fireworks crackled and popped low in my stomach. To my utter shame, it started to harden.
As my erection grew, so did my hysteria. I was too close to Noel, and Jai’s hand hovered right above the band of my underwear. There was no hiding my traitorous body’s reaction. The slightest shift, and they would both feel it, too. And then I’d be in so much trouble. They’d punish me.
The presence of my angels, which had moments before been indulgent, now suffocated me. I struggled against their grips, a choking whine escaping my lips as I flailed for freedom. Jai grunted, cowering away, and Noel jerked upright with a cry of alarm.
“What’s happening?”
“Let me go!”
With an accidental kick to Jai’s kidney and a cruel shove to Noel’s shoulder, I scrambled from the bed, tumbling to the carpet. I climbed to my feet and fled the room, leaving two disgruntled angels behind me. Thankfully, they didn’t give chase immediately, and I made it to the bathroom before they caught me. I slammed the door and locked it for good measure.
Tears burned my eyes as I glanced down at the bulge in my underwear. My breath hitched on a sob, and I ground the heel of my hand against the engorged member until the pain made me dizzy.
Go away, go away, go away. I repeated the mantra in my mind as I drowned in humiliation.
Had they seen? Did they know?
Shame like I’d never known strangled me as understanding dawned. I was naive, I knew this, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew what an erection was. I understood why they happened and what they were used for. Disgust surged through me.
I had become aroused by a boy—two boys! They were my friends, my Guardians, and I’d soiled them. My evil, rotten nature had escaped, and I’d dirtied them. I was vile, foul, wicked, just like Ms. Janet said I was.
“You’re a wicked boy, Riley!” Her grip on my wrist cut off circulation as she dragged me into her bathroom. “Disgusting child, what a mess you’ve made! You foul creature.”
At thirteen, I should have understood the natural processes of my body, but I’d been forbidden from asking questions or searching out answers. Waking up sweaty with something sticky in my underwear had frightened me. I was confused and scared; a part of me feared I’d done something wrong, but I called out to the only mother I had.
Always a light sleeper, Ms. Janet charged into my room, her bathrobe secured around her unnaturally thin waist. Her gaze landed on the mess I’d made in the sheets then on my damp underwear, and her eyes widened. When her face whitened with rage, terror seized me.
She ordered me to strip my bed and undress. I obeyed instantly; I knew better than to keep her waiting. Then she snatched my arm and yanked me out of my room. Hauling me into her bathroom, she tossed me against the sink, and I gripped the porcelain with trembling fingers.
I never fought against her punishments. They were for my own good, to make me better, and I deserved them because I was bad. But when she started filling the tub, dumping a bucket of ice into the already cold water, I begged for mercy. I apologized and pleaded, grasping the edge of her robe as I wept, but she was beyond reason.
This was worse than being locked outside in the middle of the night, stripped down to my white briefs. I’d gladly run to the basement and curl into the unused freezer chest as she locked me inside. I’d take the dark and the fear for hours. Anything but the tub.
“Get in.” Her expression was emotionless, chiseled from stone.
I sobbed into my hands and shook my head. “Please…”
She shoved me again, and my hip slammed into the side of the tub. “Get in now.”
Gritting my teeth, I stepped into the tub and nearly screamed as the frigid water burned my skin. I lowered myself into the tub until only my head remained above the surface of the water. Ice clinked against my arms and legs, and my body convulsed with violent shivers.
“Humans are filthy creatures, Riley. We need to learn to curb our evil desires, control the wicked lust inside us. We are meant to be pure and perfect. Do you understand?” Ms. Janet petted my head lovingly.
No, I didn’t understand. I didn’t mean to make a mess. It was an accident.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I repeated as pain wracked my body. “Please, Ms. Janet, I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. Please.”
“It’s for your own good. You know that, right?” Her eyes blazed with insane conviction, and I sobbed harder. “I do this because I love you, to make you better. Boys are nasty creatures, but you’ll be good, won’t you?”
I nodded, praying she’d let me out of the tub. “I’ll be good. I promise, I’ll be good.”
“I do this to fix you.” Her gentle hand tightened in my curls, the kindness bleeding away. “To make you better. To make you good. Because I love you.”
Using her grip in my hair, she shoved my head under the water, her other hand covering my mouth and nose. Ice seared my cheeks, and my eyes burned. And I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe!
I surfaced from the memory, gasping for oxygen as I curled into a ball on the bathroom floor. Stuck between the past and present, I closed my eyes and begged for forgiveness. I’d tried so hard to be good, but I could never measure up. I was evil to my core.
According to my school health books, spontaneous erections and uncontrollable orgasms were natural and healthy, but they were lying. Ms. Janet wouldn’t punish me unless I did something wrong. Whenever I woke with an erection or made a mess in my underwear, she forced me into the ice bath.
To save myself from pain, my body stopped reacting, and my accidents became few and far between. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken with my penis anything but flaccid. Until today.
“Riley?” Noel banged on the door. “Riley, sweetie, are you okay?”
No.
“Yes,” I lied.
If they knew the truth, they would be so angry, so disappointed. I wanted them to be proud of me, but now, they’d hate me. They’d finally see what an evil boy I was, and Gideon would hold me under the ice water. Jai would lock me in the unused freezer chest, and Noel would force me to kneel in front of the toilet, shoving his finger into my throat until I threw up.
I needed to cleanse. If I took the initiative, maybe they’d be proud of me. They’d see I was trying to be a good boy. They wouldn’t hate me.
“Riley?” The doorknob jiggled, and Jai cursed. “Riley! Open the fucking door!”
Quivering in fear, I scram
bled to my feet and turned on the shower. I cranked the temperature gauge as cold as possible, then stripped out of my clothes. “I’m getting in the shower now," I called out as I pulled the shower curtain aside. “I’m getting in now, I promise.”
The icy water hit my skin, and I lost my breath for several seconds. Submerging myself beneath the frigid spray, I blindly shut the curtain. Each drop stung like individual needles as the water crashed over me, and I gritted my teeth against the cold. Goose bumps broke out over my skin, and I fisted my hands at my sides, forcing myself to stand under the freezing water.
It was my fault. I deserved this.
Voices rose, and they were beating on the door again. I dropped to my knees in the tub and shoved my finger into my throat until I gagged. My stomach was empty, but I had lots of practice purging. I barely grazed the back of my throat before I was emptying the meager contents of my stomach into the tub.
“You’re a wicked little sinner, Riley!” Her spittle splattered over my cheek to mix with my tears as she shoved her index finger down my throat. “We need to get the sin out of you. It’s for your own good.”
Acidic bile ravaged my throat, and I wretched and choked with every heave. I was a wicked boy, and I needed to cleanse the evil from me. It made me better. It made me good. I just wanted to be good again.
When there was nothing left but stomach acid dissolving the lining of my throat, I curled into a ball and watched the remaining vomit swirl down the drain. There, I did it. Everything would be okay now.
“That’s better now, isn’t it, Riley?” Ms. Janet wiped hair off my sweaty forehead and cradled me against her breast. “Don’t you feel better, now?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I choked out between sobs.
“Good boy.” She hugged me like a mother held her son. “You know it’s for your own good, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy, Riley. You’ll feel better now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I lifted my face into the frigid spray, washing away the filth. “I feel better now.”
Revelations: Fire & Brimstone Scroll 1 Page 20