Angry God by L.J. Shen

“They were supposed to be here almost two hours ago. I’m getting worried.” Poppy poked out her lower lip, sitting at a black-mapped table in front of a tray of watermelon-Jolly Rancher-infused margaritas.

Fancy-ass drinks for the most unpretentious girl I’d ever met. Len was a vodka-straight-outta-the-bottle chick, and she was surrounded by extravagant people who didn’t get her. Just like me.

Arabella plopped beside Poppy, drawing faces on a black balloon with a silver Sharpie, pouting.

“Could’ve taken the train to London and got some shopping done. What a dud.”

“Zip it,” Poppy barked, grabbing a margarita and downing it in one go.

Edgar scratched his beard, mulling the situation. He’d decorated the room all afternoon with Poppy. Saying he didn’t look happy would be the understatement of the fucking millennium. I was surprised smoke didn’t blow out of his ears.

The party was to take place in the second, smaller kitchen of the castle—the deserted one the staff never used. Poppy and Edgar had done a good job cleaning it up. There were black balloons everywhere, a Happy Birthday Lenny sign hanging in front of the door, and a crap ton of food and alcohol. I made it a point to be late, deliberately taking my sweet-ass time after I finished working, but even though I showed up an hour after the text said, Lenora still wasn’t here.

“Did you try ringing her again?” Edgar frowned at his older daughter, running his paws through his wild silver hair.

“Every five minutes.” Poppy stood up, plucking a second drink from the tray and raising it in mock salute before downing it on her way to the sink, where she disposed of the plastic cup. “Texted her loads, too. Should we inform the police?”

“Inform them of what? She’s probably getting snogged under a tree by Rafferty Pope. That’s who she left with this morning.” A steel voice came from the door as Fairhurst strolled in, holding a boutique bag that looked in itself more expensive than some prime property in my neighborhood.

Good Girl’s present, no doubt. I looked around. There was a small mountain of presents in the corner of the room.

Of fucking course.

“We know she’s with Raff. That was the plan, but he would never whisk her off like that.” Poppy shook her head.

“He’d better not,” Edgar muttered under his breath, motioning for both Poppy and Arabella to come to him, perhaps to come up with a plan B.

Fairhurst grabbed two of the girly, pink margaritas and made his way toward me, propping a shoulder against the wall I was leaning on. He handed me one of the drinks, and I took it, keeping my eyes on the door.

“A quid for your thoughts?” he asked hoarsely.

Your taxidermied head hanging above my fireplace.

“You can’t afford my thoughts,” I deadpanned, swirling my drink in its cup.

“Don’t be so sure. Everyone has a price.”

“Spoken like a true whore. No wonder your career is going down the shitter.”

“Always so thorny.” He chuckled. “Truce?” He tipped his margarita in my periphery, his eyes clinging to the side of my face.

“Eat shit.”

“Already am, every day we postpone our inevitable negotiation. May I present to you an opening offer?” he asked.

“What do you think you’re bargaining on?”

I watched Edgar raising his voice to the girls, losing his shit. Good. I wanted him to be pissed enough to have Rafferty by the balls when they got back. I’d be happy to finish the job—and the douchebag.

“Vaughn?” Harry poked.

Right. Asshole was still here.

I had all my ducks in a row, not that he knew that. I knew exactly where he kept all the incriminating information about my mother, which meant that really, it was just a matter of breaking in and deleting it. He could’ve sent it to other people, but his email records didn’t show any deleted items in need of recovery, which meant fucker had it saved on a cloud with an auto-email ready. Easy to delete without a trace.

Basic, asshole.

“My freedom,” he said. Simply. Humbly.

“According to you, it was never in question.” I finally turned around, wearing a cocky smirk I’d borrowed from my dad—the kind he used before crushing his opponents. “I’m just a fucking kid. Don’t let a teenager cramp your style.”

“You seem calm.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“I am.”

I was, five minutes ago. Before it became apparent that Pope didn’t give a fuck about my warning, and Len might be snogging him.

It wasn’t that I cared so much what Lenora Astalis did with her lips—both pairs. I had no sentiments toward her. But we had a deal, and I’d kept my end of it by not touching anyone else.

“The facts, such as they are, deem you dangerous and capable, Vaughn, and I’d be daft to pretend otherwise. I think I may have been a bit harsh the first time we met here. I wanted you to get the full picture. Now that we both have leverage, I feel we could negotiate and walk away from this happily.”

“Nobody leaves the negotiation table happy,” I said.

The end game was never to be happy, but to be smart. Plan ahead.

I tsked, shaking my head like he was a rookie. Harry took a step closer, giving me a please look. He smelled of desperation. My mouth watered for his blood. I could practically fucking taste it.

“This could go very right, or very wrong. Time to reveal our cards, Spencer.”

I opened my mouth just as the door burst open and in walked Pope, Len’s arm thrown over his shoulder. Her feet shuffled along the floor, and she dragged like a rag doll. Her eyes were half-shut, out of focus. I could smell the alcohol on her breath from across the fucking room.

Called it. Vodka chick.

“Oy, we seem to have a bit of a problem here.” Pope stopped by the table, trying to steady Good Girl on her feet. She collapsed into his arms, slithering down his body like smeared Jell-O. He held her upright, letting out a nervous chuckle and looking sideways.

She wasn’t a cute drunk.

She wasn’t even a sad drunk.

She was straight-to-ER-then-rehab plastered, and my mood turned from sour to murderous.

I stepped forward, leaving Harry hanging and brushing past Arabella, who was biting down a vicious grin, and Poppy, who’d slapped a hand to her mouth, giving Lady Macbeth a run for her money in the melodramatic department.

Edgar beat me to his daughter, holding her arms to keep her upright.

Shock filled every wrinkle of his face. Guess he wasn’t used to his younger kid fucking up. For all the black shit she’d smeared on her face and worn, Lenora wasn’t a bad kid. A straight-A student who never said a word when she’d been through hell her entire senior year. No boy trouble. No drugs or alcohol.

Perfect, but not in a boring-ass way, like her sister.

She stumbled backward, squinting to try to bring him into focus. Her back hit the wall, and Rafferty and her dad both reached to help her. She swatted their hands away.

“Lenny, have you been drinking?” Edgar asked.

“Not as much as I should have, Sherlock.”

Edgar glowered. Arabella giggled in the corner, covering her mirth with her manicured nails that hadn’t seen a day of work. My eyes snapped from Len to Arabella, from Arabella to Edgar, then back to Len.

Fuck.

“She’s been slipping shots when I wasn’t looking, sir,” Pope said, excusing himself of any responsibility.

Breaking his nose was going to be the height of my year. Maybe even decade.

“You’re completely hammered.” Edgar ignored Rafferty, barely restraining himself from shaking Lenora.

Everybody stood back. Even Pope took a step away from the shitshow unfolding in front of us. I stayed close. I wasn’t in a trusting mood, especially where her father was concerned.

“Quite observant.” Good Girl zigzagged her way to the head of the table and fell into a seat with a sigh.

She reached for a tower of triangle-cut BLTs, popping one into her mouth without chewing. She knocked over three plastic cups and a burning candle in the process. Poppy was quick to pick up the candle before it burned a hole through the tablecloth.

“Quite, quite observant. I guess that’s one thing I didn’t inherit from you.” She dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling, her favorite thing to do.

I made a mental note to ask her why she was looking at ceilings all the damn time.

“What are you on about?” Edgar blinked, his stance still rigid. He stared at his daughter like she was mad.

And she was, I realized.

At him.

I glanced at Arabella, whose face was draining of color, even under her three pounds of foundation, blush, and bullshit fake smile.

“I’m talking about the fact that you’re a pig.” Len looked up and managed to somehow hold her father’s gaze before her eyes rolled in their sockets involuntarily, crossing then zoning out.

The room sucked in a collective breath. I advanced toward her, yanking her up by the arm, and tugging her to the door.

“Show’s over. Come on.”

She shook me off, slapping my hand away, hard.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she screamed.

I turned around and glared at her. My teeth clenched in anger, and I took a deep breath before hissing, “Your ass needs a shower, water, and a loaf of bread. You’re saying shit you won’t be able to take back tomorrow. Unless you have a time machine handy, I’d strongly advise you let me handle this.”

She thrust herself at me, and maybe if she hadn’t been as drunk as an 18th-century sailor, people would’ve suspected we were banging, but she was so sloshed, I bet they chocked our familiarity up to sloppy drinking.

She whispered in my ear, “You knew and you didn’t tell me. We’re over, Spencer. Go find another unassuming girl to suck your blood and take your virginity. I won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole.”

My eyes flared in rage at her words. At my own stupidity.

Count to ten, I heard my mom’s voice pleading in my head.

Then a hundred. Then a thousand. Do not react.

Good Girl turned around and stumbled through the door, but the minute she rounded the hallway, I grabbed her arm and shoved her through a side door.

I slammed the door shut, hearing people outside looking for us. Since Harry had given me lengthy tours of this place when I was thirteen, I knew it by heart. This door was hidden under an alcove and looked like a part of the wooden wall. They’d never find us.

I cupped my hand over her mouth so she couldn’t call for help and dragged her down the pantry stairs while she resisted, kicking her legs and trying to bite my palm. The scent of old food they used to keep here—sacks of potatoes, condiments, and canned food lingered in the air, though the place was completely empty. Mold was also a big player in the puke-de-toilette fragrance. Under the stairway, there was another hidden door. I took the Swiss knife out of my boot and jammed its edge into the lock, picking it with expertise and elbowing the door open. I pushed a still-kicking Len inside and closed the door behind us. It was the deepest shade of dark there was: pitch black. She couldn’t see anything.

I couldn’t either, but I knew where we were. What was there.

“Where are we?”

She hiccupped, but her voice sounded considerably more sober and less pissed off. The sense of danger heightened her senses, maybe because we were officially underground, her family and friends were upstairs, and no one could hear her.

Maybe because they said this place was haunted, and they weren’t wrong.

It was.

With my own fucking nightmares, for instance.

It was kind of rad knowing she was lying on the cold, damp stone bench and I was standing, hovering over her. It was my favorite position in any encounter, no matter with whom.

But it felt particularly good when it was Len, because she was the only person who didn’t cower, even when her body language said so. I’d never managed to get her on her knees for me, and fuck knows I tried.

“What was that all about?” I ignored her question.

“Oh, let’s see. My father is shagging my nemesis—my teenage nemesis—and she threw it in my face this morning. Happy birthday to me! And she added that you knew about them and didn’t tell me. Why?”

Because it wasn’t my business.

Because hurting her unnecessarily wasn’t high on my to-do list.

Because I didn’t get the fucking chance to.

That was the worst part. She was fucking mad at me for not doing something, before I’d had the chance to decide whether I was going to do it or not.

“I have no loyalty to you,” I said coolly, following my instinct to answer to no one. I wasn’t one to be pushed.

“You don’t have any to Arabella, either. And she is the one in the wrong.”

True, but why would I ruin your day because your dad is a horn dog and Arabella is continuously breaking Guinness records as the trashiest person alive?

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Do you like her? Is that it?” she asked.

Sober Lenora would never ask this.

“Fucking in love with her,” I said.

I was not in charge of how I was feeling, and that annoyed the shit out of me. A part of me wanted to scream that she was the dumbest smart creature I’d ever met, and another wanted to apologize for…for…Jesus fuck, why was I twisted inside-out over this bullshit?

Guilt. I was feeling guilty. Goddammit.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Len scoffed. “You’re made out of the same cloth.”

“Don’t poke the bear,” I warned.

“The bear poked me first! The bear tore me to shreds. Arabella is out for my blood.”

We were not talking about the same fucking bear, that’s for sure.

“Yeah, well, at least she sucks cock,” I deadpanned.

Len snapped her mouth shut. I heard her body shifting, standing up in the dark. She was unsteady, but humming with hot energy that made me want to rip her clothes off. I heard her bump against the wall, and after a few seconds of squirming, she managed to tug her phone out of her pocket and turn the flashlight on. Her blonde hair glowed like charred gold, and her face looked even younger under the white light. She moved the phone around, examining where we were.

“Christ,” she breathed, pointing the phone up to the ceiling in a circular motion, her eyes bulging.

“Nice choice of words.” I slipped behind her, one hand curling over her midriff and the other taking hold of her phone. I directed the light to the corner of the ceiling, where there was a line of rusty, crooked hooks. There were rope marks all over the oak beam, which was half rotten, soggy, and damp in some places.

“It’s a nine-hundred-year-old castle. You must’ve known there was history behind it. Secrets.”

The word secrets weighed heavy on my tongue, and we both knew why.

She said nothing. My cock pulsated, throbbing, begging to punish her for liking Pope, and I pushed it against her ass. I didn’t even think she noticed. She was too captivated with the place we were in.

“What happened here?” she whispered, her heartbeat wild and feral against my fist.

“Story is, the castle had been standing on a pilgrim trail leading to London. The Tindall couple, who didn’t have children and hated the fuck out of each other, needed a way to burn time. Didn’t help that the Tindall dude lost all the madame’s inheritance gambling and drinking. They needed cash, fast. They made money renting out the first floor to the pilgrims, who used it as a court of law. Criminals judged guilty of serious crimes were brought here. Any idea why?”

My lips fluttered over her collarbone. The air was chilly and moist—different from that in the cellar I worked in, which had been refurbished and air-conditioned so it could keep the mammoth statues Edgar Astalis kept there in top condition. This felt authentic. Old school. Creepy and medieval.

Her throat bobbed under my lips. Her breath still smelled like nail polish remover (damn vodka), and I still wanted to kill Pope, but she was mine now, which meant I no longer saw red.

“They executed them here?” she croaked.

I nodded into her skin. “Four hundred people have died here. Reputedly.”

“Wow.” She shuddered, her skin blossoming under my lips and fingers.

She was turned on by it. I slipped my hand into her shirt, moving my fingers up and down her stomach. She was so hot, and I was so cold, and it felt so fucking wrong I thought I was going to come inside my jeans right there and then.

We could never be together outside these walls, for more than just these a few weeks. Lenora would inevitably find a man who would give her the world, and I’d leave here and try to ruin said world, because that’s all I knew.

She was perfect, and I was nothing but a collection of flaws.

Besides, she doesn’t want a goddamn boyfriend, I reminded myself. And you don’t do the monogamy crap.

My little story kept her occupied, though, and took her mind off Arabella and Edgar.

“Can you feel the death all around us?” I curled my hand over the flashlight of her phone, so we were in the pitch black again. I dragged my teeth and stubble over her sensitive skin. “Does it make you wet?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked, ignoring my question. Her head fell sideways, giving my lips better access to travel along her collarbone.

I nodded into the crook of her shoulder.

“Really?”

“Ghosts of our past.”

“Oh.”

“Who drive us to be who we are. To do what we do.”

She trembled as my hand slipped into her elastic sports bra. Her tits were even warmer than the rest of her body. Silky and soft. I’d sculpted hundreds of tits in my lifetime, but never touched any. It shouldn’t have surprised me that they were so smooth. They were, after all, anatomically, fat.

I knew that, I sculpted that, I made it look real.

But I finally got it. The obsession with tits. Len’s were spectacular. I squeezed, breathing through my nose to keep the pressure in my balls in check. I wanted to make her forget Pope had a dick. Or anyone else, for that matter.

“You didn’t get me anything for my birthday,” she murmured, letting me kiss her neck and up her jawline while my thumb found her hard nipple and flicked it.

Anotherthing she never would have said sober. I stilled, my mouth on her skin, my breath uneven.

“I wasn’t expecting anything, to be honest. Not even a card. But a happy birthday, yeah. I expected at least that.”

I said nothing. My hand was still shoved inside her bra, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I was angry at her or at myself, and that was another brand-new feeling.

Just tell her happy birthday,a small, tiny, fucking crazy part of me urged. Manners are not a weakness. And you’re about to plunge into her ass bareback.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like a power battle, and for some reason, she always had the upper hand, even if she didn’t know it.

She felt out of reach, and it made me want to throttle her.

I shook my head. She stepped away from my touch. My hand fell from under her shirt. The chill of the room wrapped against it immediately. Len turned around to face me, took her phone from my hand, and flicked her flashlight completely off.

“I know I’m drunk, and I know you said I’ll regret the things I said tonight, but I honestly don’t believe I will.” Her voice was steady. Flatlined. “I’m done being considerate of my dad. He certainly isn’t considerate of me. As for you…” she trailed off.

I waited. Since when did I wait for people to tell me what they thought about me?

Never.

Who cared?

She was just another mouth—not even a particularly good one. She sassed way too much and gave me trouble.

“Finish the fucking sentence.” I loathed myself for giving her yet more power by wanting to know what she had to say.

“Our arrangement is over. Don’t come to my room. Don’t talk to me if you see me in the hallway. Stay out of my business. We’re done. And you never asked me—I know, I know, not that you care.” I heard the whine of the ancient door opening, and Len took a step out. “—if I believe in ghosts, too. But here’s your answer: I do, for the exact same reason you do. I don’t believe in literal ghosts, but I believe our past unleashes dog-shaped demons upon us, and they chase us, and that’s what keeps us running. Moving. Living.”

I said nothing, not really in the mood to correct her and tell her I hadn’t asked whether she believed in ghosts or not because I knew the answer already. It was what made her presence bearable. When we were in a room together, all our ghosts were waiting on the other side of the door. I could hear them.

“My ghost is my mum. I lost her when I was very young, and I vowed to never love someone as much as I loved her, so I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing them, too. Losing her almost broke me. But because I don’t get attached to people, I wasn’t scared to get in bed with the devil himself. I finally realized I can’t fall in love with you, but that doesn’t mean I should give you the time of the day,” she paused.

I could make out the shape of her head as she shook it.

“As it happens, I really shouldn’t. Now, take me to my room and lock my door after you. I don’t want to see my father.”

I did as I was told.

I left her with a bottle of water, two Advils, and a scowl.

“Goodbye, Spencer,” she said, watching from her bed as I locked her door and slipped the key back into her room, protecting her from myself.

Yeah, good fucking riddance.

The boy snored softly when I entered his room.

He was in the upper bunk bed, in the boys’ dorms on the third floor. The lower one hadn’t been occupied, so I guessed his roommate was hooking up somewhere. It was embarrassingly easy to find him. Fairhurst kept his name on his phone’s contact list along with a picture of him, the sloppy fucker, and I had access to every single detail on Fairhurst’s phone now, thanks to The Fixer.

I was feeling a little unhinged and a lot trigger-happy from my encounter with Len earlier tonight, but I doubted it was the reason I nearly tore the boy’s head from his spine when I clawed at his throat and brought his face down to mine. I wore a hoodie, a black ball cap, and a black bandana on my lower face.

His eyes popped open in the dark, frightened, like he’d just seen a ghost.

“Out,” I hissed.

I wasn’t hot on using too many words. He wasn’t supposed to pick up on the American accent. I squeezed the back of his neck, bringing my point home. He nodded frantically, jumping to the floor with a thud and grabbing a hoodie from the back of his chair by his desk. He slipped into his slides, then waited for instructions. I poked my knife into his back from behind and opened the door for him, forever the fucking gentleman. Once we were out in the hallway, I followed closely behind him. Four in the morning or not, there was little room for error.

We took the stairway up to the fourth floor, to Fairhurst’s bedroom. I knew he was staying in London tonight because he’d said as much after I got back downstairs from Lenora’s room and made excuses for her. Edgar had looked wrecked, Arabella triumphant, and Poppy was bawling. Harry said he’d deposit Lenora’s present at her door and take her to dinner when she was feeling better.

Inwardly, I told him I’d die a thousand deaths before I let them spend one-on-one time together.

When the boy and I reached Harry’s room, I picked at the lock, broke in, and closed the door after us. I opened the double doors of Harry’s walk-in closet and motioned for the kid to get in.

“G-get into the closet?” he stammered, rubbing at his arms. It wasn’t even cold.

I nodded curtly.

“W-what will you do to me? I’m just…I’m not… We’re not together or anything like that. I didn’t know he had a boyfriend. He was just a pull.”

Sure. That’s why he was here. Because I wanted Fairhurst’s cock all to myself.

“In,” I snapped, poking the knife in the guy’s throat.

He scurried into the closet, turning around and looking at me expectantly. I knew he was a senior. I knew his name was Dominic Maples, that he was originally from Edinburgh, that he’d been fucking Fairhurst for a year now, since before he was legal. Of course, dangling it in my enemy’s face was futile at this point.

I didn’t want to cause harm.

I wanted full destruction.

And locking Harry’s ass in jail simply wasn’t enough.

Once Dominic was inside, I used my gloved hands to place his palms on the shelves of the walk-in closet, widening his stance by kicking his feet apart.

“Get naked,” I said gruffly.

“Why…how…”

Rather than answer his half-finished questions, I shoved his sweatpants down myself. He kicked them off obediently, along with the slides, getting the point and taking off his hoodie and shirt.

He turned around to look at me, and that’s when I noticed he was hard. His damn cock was pressed against a drawer, purple and engorged. Yeah. He really was Harry’s boyfriend. They were both sick.

Once Dominic was stark-ass naked, I took a graffiti chalk can and sprayed his back. He shivered as the cold liquid splashed over his skin, biting into one of Harry’s sweaters to keep quiet, but his damn cock was still pressed into the mirrored drawer, and it was still rod-straight.

When I was done with the black paint, I tossed the can aside, took the kid’s phone out, and shoved it in his face, standing behind his back.

“Unlock.”

He stared into it, using face recognition. I took a picture of the guy’s back, sent it to Fairhurst through Dominic’s phone, and tucked said phone into my pocket.

Showtime, motherfucker, and you got a front-row seat.