I pushed up from the floor, and once again Enoch reached for me, holding my hands in his. I tugged, but he held firm in his grasp.
“Let me go,” I pleaded.
Enoch frowned. “Sixteen days.”
My jaw clenched with anger at the reminder and I my focus strayed to Jae and Rick who were standing watching the scene I was making.
“Fuck,” I cursed, shaking my head.
“Sixteen days. Don’t give up now.”
I used my shoulder to scrub at my ear, the phantom feeling still there. I shivered against my wet clothes and my shirt stuck to my back. I stifled the urge to gag.
It’s just water. It’s not blood. It’s just water.
You’re fucking up his party.
Calm. The. Fuck. Down.
I sucked in a breath, forcing my shoulder to drop but the feeling of unease increased to a boiling point.
“I just need it to stop,” I implored.
Rick stepped up behind Enoch, a neutral expression on his face as he placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Why don’t I pray? It always helps me and it’s helped Nox. And then we’ll find a distraction until the impulse passes.”
Enoch nodded and I screamed in my head, foot tapping with nothing to do to release the energy coursing through me.
“Dear Heavenly Father—”
“Let the Holy Spirit fill you, let it wash over you like rain, cleansing all dark desires and sinful urges.”
“Stop! Just stop!” I growled with frustration. “I don’t need more prayers that will fall on deaf ears.”
“God is always listening, Emory.”
“Fuck that. Where was God all the times I’ve prayed then?”
Enoch squeezed my hands and I moved my eyes to his pained expression. “I know it doesn’t always feel like He’s there or listening, but He is.”
“Where was God when they put a bullet through Javi’s skull? Where was God when I was held down by Kush and Peter and raped in the pool of my brother’s blood?” Enoch flinched, his mouth falling open and I reveled in the pain. It was mean. It was cruel. To be sharing these details with him. To be lashing out at him, but if I couldn’t hurt myself then what was I supposed to do with all the anger swirling in my chest? “Where was He when the only choice was death or letting seven men take turns using every hole in my body? God doesn’t listen to people like me, people who don’t deserve his help or his forgiveness.”
A chair tipped over in my periphery and Jae muttered courses to himself as he righted it.
My eyes flicked back to Enoch who had tears in his eyes. The reality of what I’d just done was sinking in and the need to escape the situation was the only thing on my mind as I shoved at his chest, making him drop his hold on me.
I stepped back, staring at him as my chest heaved with guilt, shame, anger, fear, frustration. There was a toxic substance flowing through my bloodstream and I was infecting everyoneelse in the room with my presence alone and now with my past. The one I shouldn’t be revealing to a stranger.
“You deserve it,” Enoch said firmly when I met his stare. “I’m so sorry that you were alone, that no one was there to intervene. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about you.”
I pulled my hair at the roots, delighting in the little pinpricks of pain and Enoch’s face fell.
“Please, stop. Hurt me. Don’t hurt yourself.Please. We can go downstairs and you can put on the gloves and take it out on me. Okay?” His eyes were begging me to listen. “Don’t let them win. Don’t let them take away your will to keep going. You trust me?”
I swallowed, nodding.
“Then trust me when I tell you that this is going to pass and you’re going to make it to day seventeen.”
