Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (37 page)

We turn as one as the sun breaches the horizon, glowing reddish-gold on the glittery snow. The frozen lake looks like it’s on fire. A new day is born, another night survived.

“Faith,” Grant whispers. “When you want a hug, don’t fuck someone. Just ask for a hug.” Grant’s words are out of context and strike me in the heart. My breath hitches in my throat, my body trembles, and it takes every ounce of my self-control to hold myself together.

I will not break.

Grant, sensing the knife’s edge I teeter on, says, “Someday… someday I will build Marcus a house for the family that he deserves. I will build it above the spot that Rebekah Zeitler’s house once stood. It will be filled with integrity and love. Rebekah’s keepsakes will line the walls, and she will never be forgotten… Rebekah died of old age within Whittenhower Estate’s walls. Her last words were in Hebrew.
I forgive you
,” Grant whispers to the wind, and I crack.

~Chapter Twenty-Seven~

I sense him as Marcus had sensed me earlier. I pause outside of my bedroom door, scared to enter. Is seven a.m. too early to deal with emotional bullshit if you haven’t even gone to bed yet?

Probably, but when does my life give a fuck.

I walk into my bedroom, ignoring the dark presence looming on my bed. I have no dignity and no shame. I strip out of my well-used leather pants and silk blouse. I strip completely naked, pretending that I don’t feel his eyes devouring the tattoos that emboss my skin from ankles to neck.

I still don’t understand it. I wouldn’t strip myself bare, raw, revealed, and
exposed to anyone else. Even during sex with the Ezes, it was pitch-black. But my body, mind, and spirit agree that it’s okay for Wil to see me in the flesh. I can’t fathom why.

I pull on a pair of panties, a tank top, girly pink flowered pajama pants, and an oversized sweatshirt. I craw
l beneath the covers next to Wil, rolling until we are nose-to-nose.

“I was told that if I needed a hug, I should just ask for a hug, not fuck someone,” I bluntly say.

A pained expression flashes across Wil’s face a second before I’m yanked to his chest, with my head tucked underneath his chin. “Who do you trust?” Wil’s calm voice is dry and gravelly.

“I ask myself this before every question I answer now. Six months ago, my mouth would just spew the first words that came to mind, before my mind could even process them. Now
, as I lay here with you, I think to myself…
Self, should you be truthful? Self, should you tell Wil the opposite to throw him off? Self, does Wil plan on using this information against you?
So… there you have it.”

“I ask because I need to
know if you are safe or if you’re going down a dangerous path of naiveté,” Wil murmurs against my hair.

“Who is to say it’s the right or wrong path?”
I mumble against Wil’s warm and inviting throat- but I don’t take it up on the offer. I would love to drown in Wil’s scent and never resurface. How sad is that?

“You,” Wil whispers. His arms are steel bands across my back. His presence
soothes me- comforts me. Wil makes no move to touch me, other than the hug… and that’s exactly what I need right now.

“I trust Boyd to do what is in his best interests. I trust you to do as you are commanded. I’m unsure of everyone else because I don’t know their intentions. I infallibly trust Ezra. I trust Grant as long as he needs me. I trust that you will use this conversation against me and tell it word-for-word to my mother and grandfather, as you sit around dissecting my words for clues.”

“Pixy is no longer naïve,” Wil sighs. “I trust you to do the right thing in all things. We need to talk-”

“I don’t want to t
alk to you,” I sneer. “You: my enemy, my enforcer, the man that promised to protect me, yet always hurts me in every way imaginable.” I say the words to injure him. I expect Wil to gasp or flinch, something. But what I get back surprises me.

“I’ll talk
, and you will listen, or I will tie you to this bed, gag you, and talk,” Wil threatens in his serial killer voice. “You have to know, even if you don’t believe it, even if you mind tells you it is truth but your emotions are too battered to feel it, that I didn’t want what happened to happen. I didn’t want it to be that way. I wanted you to be with Ezra in the tent because it wouldn’t have hurt you as much as the Study did.”

“That’s not true,” I blurt out. “There was something honest about what Ezra and I did this afternoon. What
we did later… what we did to banish the guilt, shame, and pain… that was wrong. It felt right for a few minutes. It’s what Grant meant by asking for a hug. It was fun while we played, but when emotions came into it, I was stripped raw.”

“What do you mean?”
Wil murmurs against my hair.

“I didn’t want to do it. I
don’t think I’ve ever wanted to have sex with Ezra... or Cort, for that matter. I did it as repayment of friendship. I did it because it was required of me. It was sexy and pleasurable when it was just goofing around, teasing and taunting. I was able to enjoy it. But when we actually had sex, the emotions came out. I cried. I saw what they have… and I couldn’t…”

“Couldn’t what?” Wil squeezes me tighter, as if he can force the true from my lungs.

“I couldn’t… I couldn’t orgasm,” I stammer. “I remembered what it was like with you, how it turned you off. It felt bad to cum.” My voice is childlike quiet- a bare whisper in my bedroom as the sun beings to filter in, lighting the day.

“Pixy,” Wil sighs into my hair. “That isn’t what happened. It isn’t that you remind me of
her,
either. My mind rules me. I don’t walk around with my brain in the head of my cock,” Wil nastily twists the words out of jealousy or disgust, I don’t know which. “I’m not your average seventeen-year-old.”

“That’s for sure,” I snort, and Wil’s chest ripples with suppressed laughter.

“My mind rules me. I… can’t talk about what frightens me… during sex… but it has nothing to do with you or your mother or any woman. Years from now, I will hate that this happens to me. But right now, it keeps me out of trouble.  I can’t afford to be distracted by sex or emotions. You distract me, Pixy, and it could end up costing lives.”

“I won’t distract you anymore,” I grumble.

Wil’s warm laughter flutters my hair. “When we were together… did it…” Wil stammers… and Wil never stammers. “Was it like how it was for you and Ezra and Cortez? Did you regret being with me?”

“No,” I breathe, “I didn’t regret it. It was… epic.” I bark a laugh at how ridiculous that sounded, how girly. “I felt at peace until I opened my eyes and saw the horror in yours,” I admit.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Faith,” Wil cries out, voice filled with desperation and pain. “I tried. This afternoon, I tried. I was pressed against the wall by my grandfather, Jon. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Knowing in theory and seeing are two separate entities. As I watched Ezra walk into the study, a part of me died with the two of you. I realized that this shit is real. It’s not training. It’s not play. It’s not a strategy session. It’s practicality and actuality. It made me realize that in the grand scheme of things, I’m shit- nothing. I don’t have any control. I’m just a flunky kid that has to take orders like a good little bitch… and I hate it. I owe you the biggest apology, and there was nothing I could do.”

“There was nothing anyone could do. Once a vote is taken, it’s
like gravity. There are too many people with too many agendas to fend off. Ezra and I did it to save ourselves from a worse fate. Tonight we were with Cortez out of guilt and shame. I left them with each other- where they belong… Listen, Wil?”

“Yes, Pixy
?” curiosity thickens Wil’s voice, from wondering why I switched the conversation so quickly.

“I don’t trust Cort,” I admit
, answering the rest of his earlier question, and it kills me.

“What?” Wil says in shock. “Why?

“I love Cort as a brother or best friend. I love his personality, his charm, how he lights up my life. But Cort isn’t like you and me… he isn’t like Ezra. He doesn’t have our fight or drive to… survive. He thinks with the brain in his cock. He operates on emotion and he’s too immature to see what’s directly in front of him. I trust him in a way that people trust their friends and family. But not in the way that people like us need to trust someone.”

“I don’t understand, Faith, what do you mean?”

“We live day-to-day, a survival of the fittest lifestyle. It takes someone like us to stand by our side. I love Cort, but I don’t trust him at your back.”

“Christ,” Wil cries, body trembling around mine. “I know this. It doesn’t matter. We don’t need an edict from Mitchell. You and I both know who is whose partner. It goes without saying,” Wil, in his quietly calm manner, admits that he sees me as his partner.

“How long before Grant secures you with Stanton?” Wil asks out of nowhere and I freeze. “I said I would protect you. I’m trying. None of your family knows, and I will take it to the grave. I just need to know how long, because I have something for you, and I won’t give it to you if the outlook is longer than a few weeks.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” I deny
, because partner or not, can I trust Wil?

“Fine,” W
il bites out, his jaw is taut against the top of my head. “My sister- the one person on this planet that I was supposed to protect to the death, is pregnant. I know she thinks she loves Boyd and that Boyd thinks he loves her. It’s fantasy. It’s infatuation and lust. It’s not reality. It’s what the Elders want you to buy into with Ezra. You’ve seen real love, and what Boyd and Gretchen have isn’t it. I couldn’t protect my sister. But I will protect you, Faith. I promise,” Wil vows, and for some indescribable reason, I believe him.

“After the trial. I go into hiding after the trial,” I seal my fate. I trust Wil, and even though my mind disagrees, my intuition spurs me on. “It’s so I don’t have to play rape-and-seek until Ezra’s eighteenth birthday.”

“Okay,” Wil sighs. “You said you’d prove your worth to me. I think it’s time I proved mine to you. I have a gift for you, a gift that I wouldn’t give unless I was on your side of the game.” Wil pulls a bottle from his pocket- a bottle that will change my world. My breath hitches on a sob.

“This was for
Gretchen, but she wouldn’t take them. I couldn’t protect my baby sister,” Wil sobs. “But by God, I’m going to give you a different future.” He presses the Plan-B tablets into my hand and that fissure of a crack spreads wide open.

My crack fractures.

I hang on to Wil as tightly as I can as I fall apart. I violently scream all my pain and fear into Wil’s chest. I bare myself raw to the one person I shouldn’t trust, but I trust above all others. Sobs wrack my body, my fingers bruisingly dig into Wil’s back.

He cries with me.
He screams with me.

I crack. He cracks
I fracture. He fractures.
I bend. He bends.

And at some point, as all the agonizing frustration bubbles up
and bleeds out our eyes and screams out our throats, we decide to fight.

~Chapter Twenty-Eight~

“Thanks for coming with me,” I murmur to Ezra, fingers wrapped tightly around his for moral support. We sit on a bench outside of the courtroom as my daddy and aunt’s attorney puts up a good fight during their joint-trial. We’ve been here for eight hours. I’d hoped to see my family, but I was told it was a closed courtroom. I sit here, hoping that they can feel my presence and know I haven’t abandoned them- I need them to hold on to that love and faith I’
m sending their way. We sit among the media that keeps trying to get a bead on our identities so they can interview us.

Marcus comes to us periodically and whispers into Ezra’s ear. It helps that Ez’s dad is interning for the District Attorney. Marc doesn’t know what’
s going on inside the courtroom, but he knows the way his boss thinks. It’s been a small comfort, but we all know there is no hope- Daddy and Aunt Amelia are going to be on the inside for the rest of their natural born lives.

“Day one is over,” Marc says as he strides up the hallway towards our bench. He hands us a can of soda to quench our thirsts. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but they t
ook Tom and Amelia out the back and down to a holding cell so that the media couldn’t circle like sharks. You guys better go back to the house. I’ll be home in two hours. We’ll eat dinner together.”

Marcus pulls me from the bench and into his comforting embrace. He yanks Ezra in
, too. I fight tears. After a few deep breaths, I’m centered again- a technique Ezra taught me. He uses it to stay even, whole.