Briella.
Wearing nothing but a thin, transparent white dress. Making my she-wolf seem like some goddamn sacrificial lamb. Blindfolded. Wrists and ankles lashed to the beams, skin chafed raw.
I stop breathing.
Even before I make a sound, she flinches. Her head snaps up. Her whole body leans toward me like a sunflower hunting light.
SheknowsI’m here.
Something in me detonates.
I wrench against the cuffs, spit flying as I snarl, “YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKING BASTARDS!”
The guards yank me forward, but I kick and thrash, aiming for anything soft, anything breakable. I catch one in the knee. The other in the gut. Then a rifle butt crashes into the side of my skull, and the world goes momentarily white.
“Rory!”
It was a whimper, but I still heard it through the crashing pain.
I drop to one knee but keep glaring, blinking away stars. I growl to the Prophet, who stands next to me, hands lifted, fingers steepled, “If you touch her again,” I swear, my voice thickwith venom, “I’ll burn this whole fucking cult to ash. Burn your goddamn dick off and shove it up your arse!”
They haul me upright again.
Briella’s breathing fast now. Her lips parting. Tears sliding down her cheeks. But still she doesn’t scream.
She waits. For me. “Rory, don’t fight,” she pleads softly, weakly. “Please, I need you…God, I need you alive, Red.”
“Let her go,” I snarl.
The Prophet steps into view, hands clasped like some benevolent executioner. “She’s a catalyst. You, the trigger. I don’t need your words, Rory. I only need her pain. And redemption.”
“Ye don’t know the meaning of pain, ye Beelzebub bastard.” Thank you to the years of Catholic elementary school, and those priests with their dreaded ruler sticks. Was quite a bit o’fun shoving one up the prick’s arses.
I’ll do the same with this one.
I’ll rain down the apocalypse on his pretty preacher head.
And it won’t stop until I rip him apart, piece by holy piece.
73
Briella
“I LOOK FORWARD TO BREAKING YOU, LITTLE BRI.”
Citizen Soldier Playlist
“Just Be Happy”
“Therapy”
“Still Breathing”
THE MORNING
Iwake to the feeling of a warm mouth capturing mine, opening my lips, and probing his tongue inside.
I freeze, spine locking up, hands bracing into fists. Raw pain still burns my ass from how hard he took me last night.
