Page 57 of My Forever Sin

Not when he also set me up to this. He’s probably in this room, hiding in the shadows, witnessing whatever is about to be inflicted on me.

A heaviness settles in my stomach, liquid slowly rising up my windpipe.

“You look good on your knees.” Samuel stands, gripping my chin and forcing me to look at him. “You’re lucky we need to wait until marriage, otherwise I’d be fucking that mouth whenever I please.”

I take a deep breath of the stale air. The last time I obeyed someone like this, I promised myself it would be the last; I need to focus.

Heath rounds me, taking his leaden aura with him. Clothes shuffle behind me as my eyes scan the men surrounding us before I spot Michaels’s glossy black shoes taking Heath’s spot.

My head is yanked up by Father Michaels, making me face Mother’s wrongfully delighted grin, a bottle of amber liquid fisted in her free hand. “You must be cleansed. You’re a fucking disgrace. This is not how I raised you.”

A performative tear slips down my cheek, aided by the painful hold Michaels has on my hair.

Glass clashes with my teeth and burning, amber liquid rapidly fills my mouth and drains from the bottle as I squeeze my eyes shut. It floods my throat and begins spilling out over my chin and neck as my breath is stolen, chest and throat constricting excruciatingly. I clutch Father Michaels’ hand, roughly attempting to shove him away while liquid rises to my eyes and my entire body begins thrashing in desperate search for oxygen. Mother is saying something, but I can’t hear over my ears filling with deafening static. I feel like my body’s being set alight from within.

My head swims, and just when I think he might stop, a new bottle replaces the empty one and my vision blurs, a calm settling over me before everything goes black.

At least it wasn’t what I feared most would happen.

I gasp, my lungs rattling in my chest with a burning pain. Pins and needles invade my limbs as I cough out bitter liquid, then proceed with shallow breaths. I try but fail to open my eyes, it’s like my body has been completely drained of all energy and I struggle to move, although I don’t really want to.

A slap stings my face, throwing my aching head to the side. “Wake up.” That voice is familiar; it tickles at the sides of my brain like I should know who it is.

Wriggling my numb limbs, I notice I can’t separate my arms, nor can I move them much. A thumb jabs into my brow bone, peeling my eye open, making it sting and water immediately.

A grunt, then another slap that barely hurts but I’m too tired to react to it. “Open your eyes!” she whines.

I drag my eyes open, squinting through the piercing sensation. A head of red hair leans over me, a furious look plastered on her face.

Lacey.

Did they do it to her too? For hosting the party?

“Lacey, what…” I sigh, lifting my head, then immediately dropping it from fatigue.

“I know what you did with him last night.” She’s angry, her voice holding barely restrained jealousy.

“With who?” My head lolls along the hard carpet.

“Kain.” She pinches my cheeks, roughly angling my face towards her. “You brute. Sucking your stepbrother’s dick is one thing, trying to steal my fiancé is another. But sucking his dick out of wedlock? They’re both punishable sins if anyone found out. No surprise you’re in this state, the Devil has possessed you.”

A warmth begins spreading through me, that angry feeling I’m well acquainted with returning. “How do you know?”

She scoffs like it’s obvious. “Kain told me. We’re supposed to be getting married, but you led him out into the forest and forced his dick into your filthy mouth.”

My fingernails dig into my palm.

Again. He did it again. Except this time, I should’ve seen it coming.

My nostrils flare. “I wouldn’t touch that prick if he were the last man on earth. You won’t, for a second, consider he might have set this up?” My words barely come out as a whisper through my roughened throat.

She rolls her eyes. “He would never. He loves me.”

That shoots me like a lightning strike to the chest when it shouldn’t.

“I’m happy for you,” I grit. Feeling starts returning to my arms, and I pull against… ropes? Slowly looking up, I confirm my suspicions. When I return my gaze to Lacey, it’s not her that I find staring back at me—it’s a polaroid of Kain I took. The one I abandoned in my bedside table. My lip curls at his young face, the one that fed me lies and betrayed me.

“Where did you get that?”