He looks like he’s about to cry, my palm print red on his big sallow cheek.
“Why are you doing this? Why?”
“Because you shouldn’t exist," I tell him. “Because your mother should have been mine. Your father was a lumpen dolt, a barely-sentient example of humanity.”
I am caught between two completely contradictory desires. I care for these two because they are part Ivy, and I loathe them because they are partly their father. A psychologist would probably say I have split them down the middle, treating Nina as the embodiment of Ivy, and punishing Jonah as the incarnation of his father. I might have appreciated more nuance if Nina were not so naturally desirable, and Jonah not so absolutely deserving of all the pain I can give him.
But he has his mother’s eyes too. I can’t let my long-held loathing destroy him. There is still some chance he might be rehabilitated and learn from this suffering.
A slow smirk spreads over his lips. I know he has thought of something to say. I wait for it to emerge from his impertinent mouth, and I am not disappointed.
“My mom didn’t want you because you’re a fucked up, twisted old English fuck, and my father was a nice guy who never hurt her.”
“Until he drove her into a tree.”
“Accidents happen, my dude.”
I cannot express all the terrible things I want to do to Jonah simply for those last two words, my dude. A red mist is beginning to descend on me, a rage from which I cannot easily extricate myself. Still the boy keeps talking, unaware of what he is raising from the depths of Hell.
“So you were friend-zoned and cucked, and now you think kicking the shit out of me and fucking Nina is going to make up for it? You’re pathetic. I’m telling the cops about everything. About your weird weapon stash downstairs, how you fucked my sister in the church, and how you abused me. They’re going to drag you off and put you in one of those asylums, and then Nina’s going to go to prison, because she’ll take the fall for me when push comes to shove after they drag us into your weird wig courts.”
“And why would she do that?” I restrain myself from pointing out that one cannot simultaneously be friend-zoned and cuckolded. That’s not the point right now, and it’s far from the most stupid thing he's said in the past five minutes.
His smirk is so smug and insufferable it is utterly intolerable to behold. “She always does. I’m all she has left.”
I hit him. Hard.
Harder than I meant to.
Harder than I should have.
There is a crack. The kind of crack a body is not actually capable of making. And then he is done. Flat. Finished. Over. Eyes that glared now gaze into eternity.
“Accidents happen, my dude,” I tell his thoroughly insensate form.
“Master!” Crichton gasps. Actually gasps. I’ve shocked him. Didn’t think that was possible, but here we are.
“Just get rid of the body.”
Chapter Nine
Nina
It’s just the two of us at breakfast. Me, Bryn, and the ache between my thighs. I feel as though I’ll be feeling his ravaging for a very long time. He’s much bigger than I gave him credit for, and what he did to my tender body is something I’m still recovering from.
We haven’t spoken about it, though. I think that might be an English thing. Have filthy sex in church, but don’t mention it over the toast and tea.
“Jonah’s not coming down?”
“Jonah’s not hungry," he says. I notice the corner of his lips quirk a little, as if he just made some private joke he finds funny.
I’m not sorry Jonah isn't here. He’s always an asshole and a distraction. I want it to be just Bryn and I for a while. I want to talk to him. I want to know why he wanted me so badly in the church, and what he wants from me now. I have never had such intense sex. I know there’s something wrong with Father Bryn. He’s not normal. People don’t go psycho in the fog, even if it is an allegedly magical fog. But he fucks like he is demon possessed, and when I allowed myself to submit to it, it was the best feeling in the entire world.
I try to make conversation. I am burning with curiosity. Bryn is a private and reserved person, as many of the British are, but surely our intimacy has earned me something like truth. He was inside me, and in many ways I was sleeping with a stranger.
“Who are you? A demon hunter. That’s all I know, and that’s starting to become the least interesting thing about you.”
“I was born here. As previously mentioned, this was my ancestral home. Your mother was a friend of the family. She visited often. It is customary for families with homes this size to do quite a bit of visiting and staying.