“They probably redid the ritual in an effort to cover it up and make sure that it didn’t look like there was any connection.”
I feel faintly sick. It had been one thing to imagine sacrifices hundreds of years ago, in a time that doesn’t even quite feel real. It’s another to see a newspaper article from a decade ago; it doesn’t seem as if it was all that long ago and realize that the girl it’s about died violently, murdered in service of a ritual that I was a victim of not all that long ago.
Another thing to feel guilty about, that I’m alive, and she’s not. That my “sacrifice” was just having to have sex with a couple of bullies—bullies, who, incidentally, I’m now very much enjoying having sex with.
I imagine Alice, bound and terrified, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was going to die as they raised the dagger to her throat. I imagine Cayde and Dean and Jaxon’s great-grandfathers touching her blood to their lips, sprinkling it across the ground. I imagine the people of Blackmoor going along with the ghastly ritual, believing somehow that it was justified by how prosperous Blackmoor continued to be, how safe and supposedly free from crime.
But safe forwho, exactly?
Certainly not safe for Alice Plymouth, or the nameless girl who followed her, the first one given over to their sons as a plaything, her virginity offered up as an alternative to spillingallof a virgin’s blood.
Certainly not safe for me, who had spent my first weeks at Blackmoor House terrified, who had been kidnapped from those same grounds, abducted and beaten and raped and left for dead by the same men who were supposed to protect the heirs and their pets.
“I’m going to burn this fucking place to the ground,” I grind out from between my teeth, shutting the book and reaching for the stack of newspapers. Part of me doesn’t want to know any more than I already do, but I know I can’t stop now. I can feel the guilt churning in my gut, eating at me because I spent last night screaming out orgasm after orgasm between the descendants of the men who did these awful things. Because I fell back into bed with one of their sons this morning. Because Ilikethe degradations, the punishments, and the humiliations deep down, but even if I didn’t, I was never given a choice. None of these girls were.
The fact that I like it now doesn’t change the fact that this is slavery in all but name, indentured sexual servitude with no end date to the contract. And how many of the girls in those photos enjoyed it or came around to liking it? All of them? Almost certainly not. Some of them, maybe, probably a few. A couple of them at least probably discovered some buried, dark desires that might never have been unearthed otherwise, the way I did.
But that’s not an excuse. And I can feel myself burning up with shame all over again that I’ve loved it as much as I do.
I flip through the newspapers, not seeing much of a note. It doesn’t seem like the game has gotten much public coverage, that’s for sure. But then Mia gasps, and I look up, startled.
“Oh my god.” She pushes a newspaper towards me, dated about five years ago. The headline of the front-page article immediately captures my attention.
St. Vincent Eldest Son and Heir Killed In Car Crash.
My heart nearly stops in my chest.
“Did you know Cayde had an older brother?”
I shake my head, swallowing hard. There’s a photo of the eldest St. Vincent, all in color, a yearbook picture. He’s very handsome, clean-cut with darker blond hair than Cayde’s, wearing a polo and a wide smile. He has the same green eyes, but they’re not angry like Cayde’s almost always are. He looks like a nice enough guy, although I can’t really get much of a read on his personality from the canned photo.
“Dean and Jaxon don’t, do they?”
I shake my head again, having a hard time forming words. “No,” I say finally. “Not that I know of—I didn’t know about Cayde’s, either. But as far as I know, they don’t.”
“So what happens if there’s an eldest that’s older than any of the other families’ children?” Mia peers at the article. “Is there still a game? Does it wait until the other boys are of age? How does that even work?”
“Fuck if I know.” I look down at the photo again.Daniel St. Vincent.I truly have no idea what would have happened in terms of the town, if he’d lived—if he simply would have inherited as the eldest child of all three families, if there would never have been a game for this generation, my life might have been completely fucking different. I don’t even know how I feel about that. I should wish that I’d had a life where I never ended up in Dean or Cayde or Jaxon’s hands, but I’m not sure I can anymore. I’m not sure if I would change it, and that realization feels like a punch to the gut as I look down at the newspaper.
Is this some kind of fucked up Stockholm Syndrome, or am I really falling for them?
“Athena?” Mia looks anxiously at me. “Are you okay?”
I nod wordlessly. I think of how angry Cayde always is, of the simmering rage just below the surface. I think of the scars on his back, layers of wounds healed and reopened, and I feel another sick twist deep in my stomach.
It has something to do with his brother’s death. I just know it. Something to do with the fact that he was never really meant to be the St. Vincent heir.
I flip through the newspapers, looking for more. “Shit,” I whisper, coming across the next bold headline—Driver At Fault in Fatal St. Vincent Crash Found Dead in Apparent Suicide.
“There’s no way that was really a suicide, any more than Alice’s parents’ was a murder/suicide,” Mia whispers. “Philip St. Vincent must have had him killed.”
“Yeah.” I scan the article. “He was found in his attic. But that doesn’t mean that someone didn’t put him there.”
“I mean—” Mia frowns, chewing on her lower lip. “I hate to say it, but it’s hard to blame him when it comes to that. With the kind of power he has? If someone killed my kid, I don’t know how I’d feel.”
“Yeah.” I flip through the paper, looking for any more information. “But still—”
All I can think, though I can’t bear to say it aloud, is that I very much doubt that Philip St. Vincent tied the noose himself. It was probably one of the Sons, or more, doing his dirty work for him. And considering the timing—