Her Rebellion (The Rite Trilogy 2)

She shrugs a shoulder but can’t quite hold my gaze.

“Mercedes.”

“Judge.” She rolls her eyes and pushes past me to mount her horse. She moves with ease and assurance, and it helps that the horse likes her. “Can we go already?”

I nod and glance at the horse I’d bought for Theron. She’s smaller than Temperance. I think of my brother. Of the calls my mother has been receiving that are disconnected almost as soon as they connect. And I don’t tell Mercedes that when I think of him, I think of the boy I knew before his twenty-fifth birthday. Because he’s in trouble. The things Ezra has turned up leave no doubt.

“I’ll go without you if you can’t be bothered,” Mercedes says.

“You’ll do no such thing.” I get Kentucky Lightning ready, and we ride for a long time that morning. Long enough to watch the sun burn off the fog racing each other, testing each other’s skill. And in spite of herself, I do see Mercedes smile. She even laughs before she catches herself. I don’t comment.

“Are you trying not to take me by that outbuilding?” she asks me as we circle back to the stables the long way around.

“Are you in a hurry to get to the house? I thought you’d enjoy more time outside.”

“Tell me the truth, Judge.”

“I don’t want you upset.”

“I won’t be upset. You all have to stop treating me with kid gloves. I’m stronger for what happened.”

“It’s okay to be fragile sometimes.”

“You mean weak.”

“I mean fragile. It’ll take time for the trauma—”

“There’s no fucking trauma,” she snaps and clicks her tongue. Temperance gallops off as Mercedes guides her in exactly the direction I was trying to avoid.

“For fuck’s sake.” I go after her, catching up and leaning over to take her reins and at least slow Temperance down. “Take it easy.”

She snatches the reins back into her gloved hands, and we ride in tense silence toward the outbuilding that houses the punishment room. Once we reach it, she dismounts.

“I want to see it.”

“It’s locked. I don’t have the key.”

“Liar. Besides, there was no lock. He broke it.”

“And you think I didn’t fix it?”

She walks to the mouth of the building and enters. I dismount and follow her, using the flashlight on my phone to guide us. I show her the padlocked door.

“Satisfied?” I ask.

She looks up at me, her face mostly hidden in the shadows. “What was it? Before?”

I study her. Remember the trust she’d talked about what feels like an eternity ago. When she trusted me with her secret.

“We called it the punishment room.”

Worry creases her forehead.

“My grandfather. He was, well, let’s just say he ruled with an iron fist.”

“Not your father?”

“No. My father was gentle. Which Grandfather found weak.” I move to walk out of the cave, but she puts a hand on my arm to stop me. I turn to her, and in the light of my phone’s flashlight, her eyes shift to the scar Theron left on my cheek. She reaches a hand up to touch it, fingers light. It’s the first time she’s touched me in, fuck, I can’t remember how long. Apart from pulling my hair when my face is buried between her legs, she avoids my touch.

“Theron said something.”

I swallow because I don’t trust myself to speak. Not the way my heart is beating as her fingers make their way down my cheek and to my mouth, hovering there before she drops her arm to her side.

“When I cried out, he said that it could always be worse. He said that he’s not the monster. That I have no idea what you’re capable of.”

I draw in a tight breath. The air in here seems thinner. I need to burn it down and leave only ashes. Because this building, it’s like a fucking black hole of time that still manages to trap me and reach its claws into my present.

“What did he mean, Judge?”

I open my mouth to answer but my phone rings then, interrupting us, breaking into the moment. I see that it’s Ezra. “I need to take this.” I walk out toward the sunlight and answer, grateful for the call because I’m not sure I’m ready to answer that question.

“Judge, you need to come.”

“What?” My heart thuds.

“I’m sending you my location now.”