Page 69 of Drag You Down
But sometime when he least expects it, I’m going to give him his worst nightmare.
I smile as he forces me into the back of his patrol car.
Maybe I can show Levi the insides of O’Connor’s body and let Levi taste his blood.
He’d like that.
CHAPTER 15
LEVI
The bus that takes me home costs two dollars and fifteen cents. I had three dollars in my pocket, and I have to deal with the annoyed glare from the bus driver while I stick the bills into the machine.
Everybody else has an electronic fare card. There’s a fare card at home, one we share between all of us for whenever somebody needs to go outside our neighborhood. I haven’t done that often.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about that now.
Maybe it’s because I don’t want to think about the pounding in my chest, or how sweaty I got running away from the devil.
I shuffle toward the back of the bus, and I find a single empty seat next to a young woman wearing large earphones. Her music is audible through the device, a steady thump thump thump that doesn’t resemble any of the music we listen to at home.
Home.
My back already aches in anticipation, though the idea of telling Father Zachariah is far less appealing than the penance I know will follow.
Maybe I don’t need him to dole it out.
Maybe I can pray and seek it on my own.
The bus ride back to the apartment complex seems to both take forever and be over in an instant, and as I exit it, I look quickly around for signs of Gabriel.
Nothing.
I don’t expect him to be here, not after the commotion he’d made by leaving his car parked in the middle of traffic, but part of me almost wishes he was.
Almost.
I’d prayed for him, but when he’d come, I’d panicked.
And what he’d said about Father Zachariah… No. I hadn’t been able to stay.
I let myself into the building, eschewing the elevator and trudging up the stairs. My hands shake as I unlock the door to the apartment, and I call out for Eve. It’s early in the morning, but she doesn’t answer me. The door to her bedroom is open, and her bed has been neatly made.
I frown, but it leaves me open to repent before she gets back and asks questions.
My hands shake as I open the bottom drawer of my dresser, moving my clothes until I find the flogger I keep hidden there.
Its presence is one of the biggest sources of my shame.
I know that I should go straight to Father Zachariah and beg him to hear my sins, but I can’t.
If I told him I’d laid down with another man, he would do more than require me to take penance. He would kick me out, and I would deserve it. But I can’t leave Eve here without me.
What if Gabriel was right? What if Father Zachariah isn’t who I think he is,whatI think he is?
I swallow down those thoughts, and I pull the flogger out of the drawer. I toss it onto my bed and remove my shirt, closing the door to my bedroom before I circle back around to grab the handle of the flogger.
The leather is rough, obviously cheap, but my decision to duck into one of New Bristol’s seedy sex shops had been on an impulse. I’d needed punishment then too, but I’d been too ashamed to tell Father Zachariah then, like right now.
