Page 4 of The Devil's Embrace

Darkness.

Pain where he’d never felt pain before. But where he’d always secretly wanted to.

Darkness.

Disgust at himself.

Darkness.

Shame.

Darkness.

Pleasure.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

* * *

There’d been a moment where he’d thought for sure this was over. The taunting and teasing. The jokes at his expense spoken loudly enough to be overheard. Cal had been careless, had given in to temptation in the locker room, and had been caught. He’d hated himself for his urges, but it was different when someone else openly hated him for them.

When someone else proved those internal whispers that told him he was a broken freak.

“We all know how dirty you really are,” a sharp laugh.

A sharp laugh and then…

His foot on the gas.

Calix on his knees, his hands stained red.

The last words Sister Grace had spoken to him when he’d left the orphanage with the police echoed seemingly all around him, thumping from the walls and out of the mouths of the onlookers.

“Good Light. May the gods have mercy on that poor boy's soul.”

That poor boy.

Thatpoorboy.

May the gods have mercy onhissoul.

His soul.

His.

May the gods…

* * *

“…mercy on…” Calix came out of the dream already speaking, uttering the words on autopilot. He didn’t notice. Didn’t know where he was or what he was doing, only that there was a searing pain somewhere and a rush of accompanying euphoria he’d never felt before. “Mercy…on…his…mercy on…mercy…”

“What was that?” a voice, harsh and out of breath, spoke directly against the curve of Calix’s ear, causing him to flinch.

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