Page 47 of Penance

It takes longer than it should have, but before long I stand up off the couch, leaving Mercy behind. Turning, I kneel in front of her, staring at her innocent face. My fingers trace down the smooth skin of her arm, and I shiver at the feeling.

She’s so different from me, than this thing I’ve become.

She’s like porcelain, fragile and pure.

I’m like concrete, rough and scarred.

And when porcelain meets concrete, it shatters.

There’s no other way this can end.

She’s everything good in the world, and I’m the darkness lurking at the edges.

What will our child be?

A mix of us both?

If I could choose, I would want it to be like her—soft, kind.

The thought makes me pause, and I shake it away.

I can’t think about that right now.

I can’t let my thoughts go soft just because she came to me.

My eyes never leave her face as I prepare to lift her. I study the slight flutter of her eyelashes, the way her eyebrows crease in towards one another just a little bit.

It’s only been a few hours, but I already want to touch her again.

She’s so fucking beautiful.

So mine.

No, not yet.

I have to keep my dick in my pants, for now, anyway.

“Soon,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “Soon, you’ll beg for me, Mercy.”

Her eyelashes flutter again, as if she hears me, as if she understands. But she doesn’t wake up.

Trusting. Innocent. Mine.

I just stare at her, smiling.

This is what power feels like. Not the showboating, entitled bullshit we see from wealthy men in suits, or uneducated, self absorbed politicians. It’s this—the ability to hold another’s life in your hands, to shape their reality, to mold their mind like unsculpted clay, to make them yours.

I will be her God now, and I will make her worship me like I deserve.

My hands slide beneath her, one cradling her shoulders, the other supporting her knees.

She’s tiny, waifish, and I lift her easily. Her head rolls gently against my chest, her breath warm and steady against my neck.

I’m holding my entire world in my hands—my child, and the girl who will give it to me.

It almost makes me feel… something.

I can’t put my finger on what it is, though.

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