Page 57 of Forsaken

Caleb’s pain-filled eyes shifted back to Eli and he shook his head. “We didn’t know, Eli,” he said softly, his voice barely audible. “Nick and me…we thought...we thought you wanted it. That you liked what he was doing to you.”

I felt Eli stiffen next to me and he sucked in a deep breath.

“What is he talking about?” I asked Eli as my insides knotted up. Eli looked at me, his eyes wide and his mouth open, but nothing came out and he’d gone deathly pale. He climbed to his feet and took several steps away from me. Fear gripped me as I looked at Caleb. “Liked what?” I asked more angrily than I’d intended and Caleb automatically shifted closer to Jace.

“Caleb, don’t!” Eli whispered, his voice cracking.

Caleb looked confused as his eyes shifted back and forth between me and Eli. “Eli, I’m sorry.” He fell silent after that and I knew he wouldn’t be giving me the answers I needed. I stood and went to Eli who immediately began backing away from me.

“Eli,” I said gently as I reached for him, but he whirled away and tore out the door.

I ran after him, but with the few seconds head start he had, he made it to the woods before I finally caught up to him. I grabbed him, this time expecting him to lash out at me, but he didn’t. He just began screaming the word “no” over and over again. Deep down I already knew what Caleb had meant, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it. But now that Eli was shaking and crying against my chest as his fingers twisted in my shirt, I knew it was true. I held him as tight as I could and murmured inconsequential things in his ear at first, but when that didn’t work, I whispered the Lakota prayer that had helped soothe him once before. I repeated it over and over until he settled in my hold. It had to be at least ten minutes before he quieted enough to hear me.

“Nothing you tell me changes anything, Eli,” I murmured against his head. “Do you understand me?”

Eli disengaged himself from my arms and took several steps back. He wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve. “I was the one who started it,” he whispered.

I didn’t believe that for a second so I said, “Eli-” but he cut me off.

“It was a few days after my sixteenth birthday. My mom had flown to Mexico to visit relatives and Jack…Jack and I were celebrating the fact that I’d gotten my driver’s license with an action movie marathon.” Eli took in several deep breaths before continuing. “He let me have a beer. I liked it so I asked for another one and he gave it to me.” Eli’s voice cracked when he said, “It was so much fun hanging out with him like that. But the second beer was too much for me. When I woke up the next morning…”

Eli shook his head and wiped at the tears that had started to fall again. “I was still on the couch in the den and there was a blanket over me. I knew right away that…that I’d had sex. I was really confused and when Jack came in to check on me, I started crying and asked him why he’d done that to me.”

Eli began sobbing, but when I reached for him, he pulled away. “Please…please just don’t touch me right now, okay?” he begged.

“Okay,” I said softly, though touching him was all I wanted to do. Except for finding Jack Cortano and ripping his fucking head off.

“Jack was really upset and told me it was a mistake. He said…he said I’d gotten drunk and had started touching him inappropriately and that he’d tried to stop it, but that he hadn’t wanted to hurt me. He said I seduced him.”

“Bullshit,” I snarled.

“He showed me proof.”

Fury was rolling through my blood so my voice was louder than I’d meant for it to be when I asked, “What proof?”

“There were security cameras throughout the house. They were always on, including in the den. He showed me the video of what we’d done.”

Disbelief tore through me and I started shaking my head.

“It’s true,” Eli whispered. “I saw myself performing oral sex on him…I wasn’t fighting him and there was a point when he tried to stop me, but I didn’t. I didn’t struggle when he was fucking me either.”

I grabbed Eli, even though he’d asked me not to. “Even if I believed that shit, it wouldn’t fucking matter! He was the adult and he had no right to touch you. He raped you, Eli. Pure and simple!”

Eli flinched and tried to escape my hold. His despair quickly turned to anger. “Don’t you get it, Mav? I let him do it! That time and all the others! I never told him no! I whored myself out just like when I was a kid!”

“Others?” I bit out. “How long did it go on for?”

“Until I left for college and a few times after.”

Nausea rolled through my belly. Eli must have taken my silence as proof that I believed what he was saying, because he yanked his arm free and said, “I told you, I deserve whatever I get.”

“Just because you never told him no doesn’t mean you wanted it and it sure as hell doesn’t mean you consented!” I snapped. I stepped forward and grabbed Eli by both his arms and forced him backwards until his back hit a tree. “He raped you, Eli! And when I find him, I’m going to make sure he never hurts you again, do you hear me?”

Eli refused to look at me and my anger intensified.

“Tell me the truth. Did you want him to do that to you?” I asked. “The truth,” I said firmly. “Forget the guilt about what you think happened that first time, forget what you think you deserve.”

“No,” Eli answered without hesitation. “I didn’t want it.”

---