Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 78631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Aren’t they?
“If any of you cunts go to the brass”—Tully’s voice—“this will be you next time.”
The door to my new room slams.
Zach, Mike, the others. They won’t come after me. I already know that.
And I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming.
They’re going to beat me to a pulp.
I’ve been beaten before. Not usually by guys this big, but when I was nine and the perpetrators were eleven or twelve, it hurt like hell.
I can take it.
Not like I have a choice.
“Where are you taking me?” I demand.
“Shut the fuck up.” A voice I don’t recognize.
Then a clattering blow to my head.
Another.
And another.
I can barely walk. I can’t see either. My vision has gone blurry again. How many hits to the head can a guy take?
I’m pretty sure I’m about to find out.
They wouldn’t dare kill me, would they?
What the hell? If they do? At least I’ll be out of this fucking place. It’s not like anyone cares if I live or die.
The two of them drag me to a door, and once it’s opened, my eyes clear enough so that I can see the long stairway that leads to a cellar or basement.
One of them pushes me down the first couple of steps, and somehow—I’m not sure how—I manage to keep my footing instead of tumbling down the entire staircase.
They’re going to kick my ass in the basement.
Fine. I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it.
When we get to the bottom of the stairs, one of them pulls the string hanging down from the ceiling to turn on a lightbulb.
Four other guys stand there.
And my blood runs cold.
“This one thinks he’s a big shot,” Tully says. “We’re going to show him he’s not.”
Six? Six guys who are sixteen and seventeen years old against me?
I won’t survive this night.
“Please,” I beg.
Then I hate myself for it.
All that time in the other group home—the beatings I took and the beatings I doled out—never did I beg.
“Please what?” one of them says. “We’ll please you all right.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Try to brace myself for the punches I know are going to come. I’ll be on the ground, staying in a fetal position as much as I can as they beat me and kick me.
But then—
“Open your eyes, shithead.”
Slowly I open one. Then the other.
“Get his pants, Red,” Tully says.
“What?” I say.
Evil laughter surrounds me, as if ghosts are haunting this basement.
“Man, you have no idea, do you?” A big grin spreads over Tully’s face. “It’s time to pop that cherry, kid.”
Present day…
Only once.
And only that one time.
Apparently, according to Mike and Zach, sometimes it’s just a beating. Sometimes it’s a rape by one or two of the big ones. Apparently I was special. I got all six.
They took their turns with me, beating my face, my back, my legs, my ass, while they violated me, one after another. Tully took two turns.
I couldn’t sit down for several weeks. Couldn’t go to the bathroom without it being a bloody mess.
But I never told. Even when Leon interrogated me about the bruises, about the split lip and the black eyes.
I didn’t tell. I was no narc.
The kings left me alone after that.
It truly was an initiation and nothing more, and because I fought back so hard, I got it worse.
Had the same thing happened to the big boys? Did they come to the home when they were younger?
I never found out the answers to those questions.
But Tully? The leader of the kings?
He became sorry he ever fucked with me.
And that is the real reason why.
Why I am sin.
Not because my parents thought I had done something horrible to my baby sister.
Not because they abandoned me.
Not because no one adopted me while I was at the first home.
Not because I participated in plenty of beatings at both homes.
Not because I was gang raped by those fucking degenerates.
And not because I became an addict.
But because of what I ultimately did to Tully.
Diana doesn’t know. Hell, Jesse doesn’t know. My therapist doesn’t know.
The one thing I’ve never told anyone.
And the thing is? I didn’t feel one iota of guilt about it.
I’ve learned to compartmentalize. I’ve learned to live in the dusk, just on the cusp of darkness, because I leave what happened to Tully in a part of my mind that I never let myself see.
But when Diana tells me she loves me?
I have to face it.
I have to face who I truly am.
And I have to tell her.
I have to tell her why I’m unworthy of her.
I draw a breath, still holding on to her hand. “Diana, you don’t know me.”
She crinkles her eyes, shakes her head. “I do. I know you have a good heart. I know you have a tortured soul. I know you, Dragon, and I love you.”
I take a deep breath in. “There’s something I need to tell you.”