Page 11 of Outcast’s Return

I wait for Baptiste, my leg shaking under the table and my fingers digging into my palms. The world around me, with all its noise and normality, narrows into a tunnel, and all I can hear are those words...

You must spend a week with this woman. Seven full days. Spend every night in the same bed, and at some point, you must take her innocence.

Leopold knew what he was doing when he set the task, the scheming bastard. He’s weaponized Jolie Auclair against me, and somehow he knew it would hit the bull’s-eye. Somehow, the Castaways know about her and me and the private world we tried so hard to keep locked between us.

It’s just so damn... embarrassing.

Jolie. Jolie. Jolie.

As I sit in the booth, my throat constricts. Everything is on edge. It’s like I’ve been set on fire. I can barely keep myself still. I want to scream. I want to fight something, or someone. Anything but feel this pain ravaging my insides.

Her face. Her fucking face, still the same. My angel.

My deceiving angel.

Not a day has gone by that I don’t think about her, and of the rage she unleashed. Seeing her in that room only proved it... despite what I had thought, Jolie Auclair still, somehow, has power over me.

Why was she restrained? Did she agree to this task? What does she know? What has she said to the Order?

Is she in fucking danger?

Baptiste soon arrives. He spots me immediately. Yep, he’s dropped everything to see me.

Good man.

I need him right now.

“What is it, Fabien? Jesus, are you hurt? What the fuck’s that blood?”

Baptiste is tall like me. Forest green eyes. Dirty blond, slicked back hair. Broad shoulders and defined cheekbones.

I give him quick answers, enough for him to understand the fight. And how I won.

“And I have been given my task,” I whisper.

He asks me what it is.

“I’m to be paired with a girl,” I reply. “We have to spend a week together.”

“A week with some girl? That doesn’t sound too impossible, Fabien. Why would you walk out of that?”

“It is impossible when it’s the one person on the planet you hate the most.”

“Who, Fabien? Who’s the girl?”

“There’s a reason I wanted to speak only to you and not Clement.”

“Tell me who it is, Fabien.”

“Jolie Auclair.”

The smile on his face dissolves quickly.

There’s a long pause as the name sinks in. Even just saying the two words out loud makes everything so much more fucking real.

Baptiste avoids my stare. His eyes drift down to the table.

“I know about you two,” he finally says. Softly. “It took me a while, but I put it all together. You two were...”