Redeeming Rhys (9 page)

Most of them never survived the corruptibility. The fire always won. Second chances were nothing but a lie. He wished he understood what he told her. He was drawn to people he could fix, but there was never a future beyond tomorrow.

Fuck it,
he thought. He removed his boxer-briefs, letting his large erection spring free. Wren opened her full lips in appreciation, making pride swell deep in his belly. Her tears had ceased, but Constantine knew her pain was just as much present as it was before. He was stealing from her just as much as the others.

“We should wait, Wren,” Constantine said, regret filling his tone.

He continued to stride slowly to the bed where Wren lay, naked and wanton for him.

“I’m no angel, Constantine. I’m a whore just like my mother.”

He should have been repulsed by her words, but it only made his cock throb with need.

Lust. A sin…

Something overtook him. Desire and something much darker and deeper. It swam around in his veins, tempting him with its bad intentions. But he wasn’t bad. He was good. He was the kind of man that hated bad. He fought against it.

He climbed on top of the bed and situated himself between her thighs. This time, he didn’t look into her eyes. He didn’t want to know what they meant. He didn’t need a reminder of her hurt. He guided his cock into her cunt, pushing hard, surprised at the amount of resistance he was met with. She cried out, clawing at his naked back. He couldn’t do it, but he was magnetized by something he wasn’t sure of. He hilted deep inside of her tight pussy twice more, searing through her, her angelic voice screaming out while her small hands clawed at his back, urging him for more.

He pulled out of her, feeling like Judas, the biggest of all betrayers. He hung his head, resting on his heels. He had murdered his beliefs, all of what he had been fighting for.

“Please,” Wren sobbed, clutching his arms.

He looked at her. She was crying. He wasn’t sure when she started to cry again. He could feel everything that he had been working towards breaking. Wren was clinging onto her past as Constantine wore the face of the memories that she was trying so desperately to get rid of. She wanted a freedom that she had been barred from for years. She wasn’t crying because of him. She was sobbing because she had withheld happiness for so long. She was in a limbo, caught between Rhys, a man that stole and gave her life, and Constantine, a man that she wanted to understand, but she wasn’t sure how to.

She was numb to him, the hard thrusts of his hips were absent as her brain focused on the internal pain. She needed him. She needed more. When he pulled out of her, she was empty again. So she begged him. She begged Constantine to take her, digging her nails into him. He took her by the upper arm and lodged her onto her stomach, pushing her head into the pillow. His grasp held onto her small hips while he adjusted himself behind her, pushing his hard cock into her tight cunt.

“Bet you don’t feel like an angel now, do you?” Constantine huffed.

Suddenly, Wren felt enveloped by familiarity. Was he giving her what she needed because he saw it in her eyes? She should try to fight it because it set her heart on fire. She wanted to tell him to stop, because it wasn’t supposed to be how her first time since
the encounter
was supposed to go, but her mouth was muffled by the pillow. Constantine brushed his hands over her angel wings that were tattooed on her back, fucking her furiously. Wren gave up trying to hold herself up, letting her body go limp as she silently screamed into the pillow.

She wasn’t crying out for the moments she was sharing with Constantine. She knew he was a good man.

She was crying out because he was giving her what she needed. And she hated herself for that. She enjoyed it, and that is what she was afraid of. Being treated like a dirty whore. She felt her lower stomach tighten and pussy drench. Her vision went black as she gave into a world of darkness.

Her past and present would never balance.

“YOU HAVE SINNED GREATLY,
Wren. I will show you the repercussions of your actions,” Sister Magdalene stated to Wren.

She was fourteen, almost fifteen, but felt more like she was six in that moment. She sat in her room at the house for unwed mothers, her simple twin bed adorned with nothing but a grey wool comforter that made her itch and sweat at night, and a crucifix above her bed. A small table was next to her single bedstead with a rosary and bible. The aged floors creaked every time someone was walking down the hallway. She knew when it was Sister Magdalene, her strides were short and heavy. She was fifty-something, plump, and her features were hard, the wrinkles of her skin proof of her frowns and displeasure of the immoralities that overtook the world. She was a servant of God, teaching the offenders of the world civility. Wren had been shipped there after that fateful night since she was given a second chance, though she wasn’t ever sure how lucky she was. The tiny flutters in her belly made her remember just how bad she was.

“Yes, Sister Magdalene,” Wren returned, sitting on her knees, making sure to assume the praying position when she heard the steps creak down the hallway down to her room.

“You will see the evidence of evil and understand the holy ways of the Lord. Get up.”

There was nothing comforting about her tone. It was corroboration that Wren was a bad girl. Perhaps she did belong with Rhys…

Wren stood and bowed her head, terrified to meet the eyes of Sister Magdalene. She knew she was a woman that showed no mercy. Wren should have felt safer than where she was before, but she didn’t. She felt as if she had merely graced the surface of dysfunction. At least Rhys wanted to convince her that he was good. He showed her that he cared, even though she didn’t want it. Looking back, that was better than her current state.

Wren followed Sister Magdalene down the hall and into a dark room with a large white screen and projector. There was one desk in the corner. Sister Magdalene hobbled over to the center of the room to the cart that housed the projector and grabbed a wooden yard stick, flipping her coif as she turned to look at Wren.

“Sit.”

Wren obeyed.

“Place your hands on the top of the desk,” she demanded.

Wren’s nervousness peaked, the buzzing of the projector making her gut churn with vivid reminders of what brought her there. She suddenly wished that Rhys would have taken that sharp knife to her throat, slicing it and putting her out of her misery, but he let her live. He had to. Through the peril he had endured, the fuckery of his mind, he set it to the side and let her exist in a world made of iniquities and corruption.

Wren’s nightmares were about to get worse.

Sister Magdalene reached Wren and brought the yard stick above her head, smacking her fingers with enough strength to make a grown man cry out. Wren wanted to yelp out in pain, the agony from the hard blow radiated through her fingertips to her elbows, but she remained silent, knowing that it was all part of her punishment for her escape last week.

“You know why I brought you here, right? Your sins may not be forgivable. You are an abomination for humanity, little girl,” Sister Magdalene seethed, swatting her hands again.

Wren couldn’t help it as the tears escaped her eyes, staining her with evil and disgrace.

“I will show you evidence of other’s sins and mistakes, girl. You will watch and memorize these images. Realize that you let the devil invade your mind and sway your already bad choices.”

Wren wanted to tell her that she had no choice but to give her innocence to Rhys, but her words would be insignificant to a lady that was sworn in to be an obedient servant to God.

Sister Magdalene flipped another switch, grotesque pictures filling the screen. Wren’s bodily functions overtook her as vomit seeped through her mouth, falling onto her hands that were still planted on the top of the desk, marked with red thrashes.

“You want to be a murderer, Wren? You want to go to hell?” Sister Magdalene’s words were like venom to her confused heart.

Wren tried to put her head down, the puke threatening to make its way from her mouth again.

“Don’t you dare look away!” she yelled to Wren, charging over to her with the yard stick.

Before Wren had time to react, she took it high above and swatted her across the face, forcing the vomit free, splattering it across the room.

“Look, you murdering fool. If you are lucky, God may forgive you!” she yelled, her voice like a shameful vow that Wren would never forget.

Wren’s eyes studied the macabre pictures plastered on the screen, pictures of illegal abortions and dead babies in trash cans.

“Do you want to lead a life as a sinner?” she boasted to Wren.

Wren knew she would never be forgiven. She was no better than Rhys, the boy who put her there. If he really cared, he would have taken her with him. Instead, he punished her by leaving her behind.

Wren felt a flutter in her belly. Evidence of what Rhys left behind. For the next five months, she would be trapped with reminders. Little kicks of life. Half of her, half of him. She only hoped that the child she didn’t wish for, the same one that she wanted to abort, would not be bad.

She had run away from the house for unwed mothers the day before, searching for an abortion clinic. She remembered one outside of the city where her father used to protest. When she found the clinic, one of the protestors recognized her. She was a frequent volunteer at the house.

Her punishment was being locked away in her room, her only friend the horrid memories from before along with what she wished to do, murder the only piece to her past. Maybe she did belong in hell.

“I believe you’ve seen enough. Get up. Back to your room to pray. I’ll have Sister Caroline bring your supper.”

Wren walked back to her room and kneeled beside her bed as the clink of the lock made her realize she would be sealed in that hell for three more years until she was eighteen.

She clasped her hands together and prayed, but she knew they wouldn’t come true. Then, she felt a little kick again. When the footsteps of Sister Magdalene were silent, Wren fell to the cool wooden floors and clutched her pregnant belly, crying as she hoped that her prayers would come true.

All she wanted was goodness to find her.

Sweet reminders weren’t good enough. The time was near for the dark reaping. May goodness be with those that lay within his path; he breathed death like a terrifying serenade.

THE BAD BOY WAS
coming home.

Pungency filled the musty air as Rhys awoke from a dark slumber. He squeezed a cold body next to him, the realization of his actions setting in. The finality of death stared at him, the girl’s once dark eyes were now hazed over. The blood-spatter on the walls had dried completely, the vibrancy of crimson absent and now a wretched brown color. Rhys couldn’t ever get used to the smell of death, the cathartic combination of stealing and nonexistence leaving him confused. He was never sure why he felt like he could have done things differently. It wasn’t empathy or sympathy, rather he wished he could relieve himself from the fucked up thoughts that invaded his mind.

He needed absolution from the girl who held his secrets since the beginning of time when he started to change. Madness is sometimes birthed, other times it is learned, and in other cases, it is vengeance. If you are unlucky enough, you are victim to them all.

Rhys’ throat was dry, and oddly enough, he found himself hungry. He looked over at the small nightstand next to the bed and eyed the three-hundred-fifty dollars carefully. He decided before he filled his beat-up Ford truck, which he stole, up with gas to start the four hour trek to Hooverville, Kentucky, a small suburban area south of Louisville, he would stop at a fast food joint and grab a meal.

He knew he wouldn’t have much time to offer the girl a proper burial. He didn’t pity her, rather he hoped for her sake, that if heaven did exist, or God for that matter, that he had answered her prayers and she had made it to heaven and not purgatory. Maybe he wasn’t all that bad…