“Her name wasMouse and she was my friend.”
The sound of Sage’s voice startled both me and Daisy because we’d thought he’d fallen asleep. My insides went tight at his statement and I carefully reached for the TV remote and turned the television down, but not off.
It’d been almost a month since Sage had cut himself with the knife. He, Daisy, and I had fallen into a weird routine that was both confusing and amazing at the same time. The very night that Sage and I had agreed that there would be no more strangers in our bed, Daisy had come into our room. Sage had already been asleep, and I’d been in the process of turning the lights out after cleaning off the remnants of our lovemaking from both our bodies. I’d expected Daisy to say something as she’d come into the room, but she hadn’t. She’d simply gone to Sage’s side of the bed and crawled in under the covers next to him. I’d been surprised, but hadn’t said anything. As soon as I’d turned off the lights and pressed my back against Sage’s, Daisy had sought out my hand and pulled my arm across Sage’s body so it was wrapped around him and her at the same time.
The next morning, I’d left Sage and Daisy in bed as I’dshowered and when I’d gotten out, they’d been cuddling and talking much like they’d been the morning after I’d told Daisy the truth about Sage’s and my pasts. I’d kissed them both like I had that first morning, then we’d had breakfast together.
The same exact thing had happened the next night.
And the next.
Things with Daisy never went beyond some light petting and those searing morning kisses. She always waited until after Sage and I had made love to join us in bed. On the one hand, it was driving both me and Sage crazy because we wanted more, but on the other, we were just so glad that she was the one coming to us that we were reluctant to question it.
Our days had fallen into a comfortable routine as well. I’d asked Memphis not to schedule any jobs for me and Sage for a little while, since I wanted to make sure Daisy was comfortable staying alone in our house before we left for any overnight assignments. While I wasn’t worried that she was in any kind of danger, she was still struggling with the fact that Dylan hadn’t been found. She and Mav had been able to work together to find out some more information about Dylan, but it was sparse and it hadn’t helped locate the young man. But there’d been signs that Dylan had logged into his gaming accounts several times since his disappearance, so it gave Daisy hope that he was alive. She’d tried repeatedly to contact him via the games’ interfaces, but he’d never responded and had ultimately closed his account. Ronan had promised that we’d keep looking for him, but unfortunately, the leads were starting to dry up.
Besides the Dylan thing, everything was flowing along seamlessly. Sage and I had enjoyed getting to know Daisy. She’d opened up to us about her childhood with her mother which, while chaotic, had also been proof of how close she and her mother had been and what losing her in such a violent way had done to Daisy. The more Daisy opened up, the more she came out of her shell. Instead of escaping to her room every night to read or play one of her online games, she watched television with us. On her days off, we’d shown her around the area and had even gone hiking to explore the limestone caves and hot springs that northwest Arkansas was known for.
Every night after we turned off the television, Daisy said her good nights and went to her own room. Sage and I kept hoping she’d come to bed with us right away, but she’d seemed intent on giving us alone time. And while Sage and I made love every night, Daisy’s absence was becoming more and more noticeable, which was insane because she’d never participated in our sexual activity even once – not since the night of the wedding more than two months earlier.
Sage had been doing well, though he still had moments where he needed me to step in and give him a reprieve from the shit that was happening in his head. Fortunately, he always told me if I wasn’t quick enough to pick up on it, though I usually was. I’d stopped worrying about what Daisy would think. If I noticed that Sage was struggling or seemed on the verge of getting lost in himself, it didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing, I’d send him to his knees or I’d give him some other order that was meant to snap him out of it. The first time it had happened, I’d expected Daisy to flee the room, since it had happened while we’d been eating dinner. We’d had the TV on and there’d been a story on the news about a little girl being abducted and when they’d flashed her image on the screen, Sage had frozen. I’d ordered Sage to turn the television off instead of turning it off myself. When he’d tried to excuse himself from the table, I’d refused the request and I’d ordered him to finish his food. Daisy hadn’t interfered and she hadn’t looked down on either of us as I’d used every opportunity to occupy Sage’s mind with something else. When we’d finished dinner and Sage had cleaned everything up, I’d taken him to our room and used a mix of pleasure and pain to send him to that quiet place in his head that he craved. It’d taken a good two hours before he’d come back to himself completely. When Daisy had joined us in bed, I’d given him the chance to talk to us about what had set him off, but he’d declined.
Though he’d promised he’d tell us both soon.
From the words he’d just said,soonwas here and I was both relieved and nervous.
We were sitting in our usual positions on the couch. I was upagainst the armrest and Daisy was pressed up against my side. I had my arm around her shoulders. When we were watching TV, she liked to rest her head on my chest. Sage was in his favorite spot… lying on his side facing the television, his head resting on Daisy’s thigh. He loved when she played with his hair, so she did it often. Even now, her fingers were threading through his thick locks and while she’d stilled them when he’d spoken, she quickly resumed the gentle caress.
“I called her Mouse because she was so small and quiet. Her parents had only recently joined the church. She was younger than most of the girls when they decided she was ready to face the alter, but she knew what was going to happen. One of the other girls had told her. So when they put us in the room together for The Bonding, she began to cry and begged me not to hurt her.”
Sage’s voice was frighteningly calm. I wished I could see his eyes as he spoke, but I didn’t dare move.
“The boys always got initiated by one of the older female members of the church, so I knew what they were expecting from me and Mouse. I knew if she didn’t agree, she’d be punished and I knew how they’d punish her. They preferred that the girls be virgins when they faced the alter for the first time, but it wasn’t a hard and fast rule.”
Daisy’s free hand searched out mine and squeezed it hard, even as she continued to gently stroke Sage’s hair. I dropped my head and pressed it against Daisy’s because I needed every bit of contact with her that I could get, especially since I didn’t have my hands on Sage. She was my link to him.
“So when they came for us, I refused. I told them I wasn’t interested in Mouse and I wasn’t going to fuck her. They hated that word,” Sage said with a harsh laugh. “They called it ‘The Offering.’”
I swallowed hard at that.
“They punished me for days.”
“How?” I croaked, because I needed to know. I didn’twantto know, but Ineededto.
“Beatings at first. No food, no water, that sort of thing. But Iheld out. They’d put me back in with Mouse at night because they were sure The Bonding would cleanse me of whatever evil was keeping me from doing my duty. Then they tried using one sin to cure another.” Sage let out a harsh laugh. “For all the fuss the men made about fags being disciples of the devil, they sure didn’t have a problem going to town on my ass.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my mouth against Daisy’s hair to stifle the bellow of rage that was bubbling up inside of me. Daisy didn’t manage to quell the sob that tore free from her throat. I didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying.
“Took the fuckers days to figure it out,” Sage muttered.
“What?” I managed to ask.
“What would work. Mouse, she’d take care of me as best she could every night when they put me back in with her. When they came for me on the fourth morning, she screamed at them not to take me and she tried to cover me with her body. When one of the men grabbed her to pull her off, he wrenched her arm. I made the mistake of going after him.”
Daisy released my hand long enough to wipe at her eyes. “They used her to get to you,” she whispered hoarsely.
Sage nodded on her thigh. “They made me watch. One of the men raped her right there on the floor. Her own father was one of the men to hold me back as I screamed at him to stop. I told him I’d do it, but it was too late. When it was over, they told me that if I refused the next time it was our turn for The Offering, she’d be punished. We never refused again.”
Tears began slipping down my cheeks, but I didn’t care. My suffering was a drop in the hat compared to Sage’s.
