Page 101 of Swallow Your Sorries

Sylo lays spread eagle on a stark white table in his underwear, his wrists and ankles bound. I’m half perched beside him, one leg bent on the table, the other stabilising me on the black earth of the forest. I swear it’s moving, creeping with things obscured by the darkness. No surprise there, the old greenhouse is infested with them and a myriad of other things that never saw the sunlight.

This section of the forest used to be a part of Beaulieu’s campus, but after a land dispute with some conservationists in the mid-nineteen hundreds, the school was forced to return a few thousand square metres to the forest. In the process, they lost the old chapel and the original greenhouse. Instead of spending the money to demolish them, the buildings remained standing. Trees and roots broke through the stones and panes of glass, integrating the building back into nature slowly but surely in a thin layer of moss. With the tight trees and the grimy green glass walls, it’s damn near impossible to see inside the greenhouse.

The table, though, is well illuminated by hundreds of dripping candles that keep Sylo’s stony face in full view.

To his credit, he’s not bitching or pleading or making up fucking excuses. He knows what he’s done, and he’s not apologising for it.

Yet.

A crawling sensation alerts me to an odd-looking centipede crawling up my pant leg. I swear the creatures in this forest just lookwrong.Like they belong to a different age. Perhaps one where humans still hadn’t figured out fire yet. I kick my leg and send it flying. It lands on my target with a soft thud right on Sylo’s pale stomach. Its thick legs scurry towards the dark hole of his navel as it looks for a place to hide. I can tell Sylo wants to cry out, and so can Zedd, because he readies the gag to shove into Sylo’s mouth.

But Sylo doesn’t cry like he used to. He’s playing big boy now.

When the creature realises, it's far too big to fit, it re-emerges and slinks off between Sylo’s legs, maybe to settle in the darkness of his asshole.

Bae emerges from the darkness into the candlelight with a munch of one of Zedd’s latest creations. This time it's crispy garbanzo beans loaded with spices. I don’t miss Sylo’s little flinch at the crunchy sound. Anyone who could eat in here had a stomach of steel.

Then again, I’d slept in here more than once.

Two honey eyes glow a step behind Bae followed by soft padding and laboured breathing. Panting really.

Zoi’s already salivating in anticipation of his next bean, the plain ones Zedd made specifically for him.

“I think he’s telling the truth about that hickey,” Bae says boredly in between bites before tossing a few to Zoi. “I doubt he gave it to Eloisa.”

“You’re just wasting your time, Gant. If I’d done it, I’dgloat.”

“But you agreed to be her tutor.”

“I can’t help it that she wants to spend an entire hour with me, multiple times a week. All alone—”

Sylo’s blood splatters across my cheek and Étienne’s that’s hovering over his head the moment my fist makes contact with his lip.

“She’s got you this fucked up?” Sylo laughs, his teeth soaked in red. “If I’d have known it was this bad, I would’ve tried something sooner.”

I don’t get to land another hit, because Étienne extends his arm and Sylo’s gaze flicks to the black sleeve hovering above him.

For a second his eyes drift to Étienne unsurely and it’s the first time I see raw fear. Not the masked kind he gives to me. Because Sylo’s known me too long. Two years to be exact, and that’s long enough. But Éti’s newer and Éti’s disturbs him.

We all watch in silence as Étienne’s sleeve seems to move of its own accord. Then, in a flicker of candlelight, we see it, the massive, hairy black spider making doughnuts around Étienne’s elbow. Then his forearm. Then his wrist.

The short intake of air that rasps from Sylo’s throat makes Zedd’s eyes water with laughter, but Bae eases back into the shadows. Zoi, on the other hand, is utterly transfixed by our eight-legged friend. He jumps onto the table and pads up Sylo’s torso to watch intently.

Between his breathing and Sylo’s, I can’t tell who’s panting harder.

“What did we tell you about playing with those things?” Bae asks.

“That it’s creepy,” Étienne says calmly as the spider begins its descent on a silvery string to Sylo’s face. “But I like creeping things.”

We know.

“Because you’re weird as fuck,” Sylo says, his wide eyes flickering to mine. Mixed in with his thinly veiled terror is pure despisal because he’s about to break his icy facade, the one he’s upheld so well since we were eleven. “I told you I didn’t do it. What the fuck else do you want? You can’t keep me here much longer. They’ll start a search soon.”

Like I give a fuck about that. It’ll take days before they finish searching the campus itself and move on to the outskirts.

“Stop pretending like you don’t already know what I want,” I say boredly. “It’s tiring.”

Sylo presses his lips thin before eyeing the spider again. It’s moving agonisingly slowly, seemingly through midair. “This is low,” he rasps. “Even for you.”

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