Chapter 6

ChapterSix

IBLIS

The whip slices through the air before it makes contact with my skin. The pain is unimaginable as it opens wounds present yet not healed. Shame floods my mind, quickly dissipated by another lash to my back. I don’t count how many I’ve endured in the last thirty minutes. I understand that I’m not satisfied with my penance.

Abaddon tried to follow me after, but I wouldn’t allow it. It’s harder being around him than Asmodeus. Mo gives me what I need. I know he does it as a perverse way of garnering his revenge, but Abaddon only takes part because he knows it’s what I need. I guess what Abaddon does is crueler because he strips me bare and makes me feel. Abaddon’s tenderness provides glimmers of light in my perpetual hell, and that hurts more than any violence and humiliation I’ll ever experience.

Another crack of the whip. I torture my flesh, hoping to heal the hollow ache in my broken heart.

“Fuck, Iblis.”

I close my eyes and hit myself again and again, relishing the pain on my skin that numbs the pain in my soul. Blood trickles down my back, but I don’t stop. I keep going, wanting that sensation where I’m satisfied I’ve suffered enough. But it never comes.

“I said stop!” Abaddon shouts, gripping my wrist to hold the whip still before it lacerates my skin again. “Jesus fucking Christ, Iblis.”

Abaddon tears the whip from my hand and guides me to the mattress on the floor. “Getting an actual bed instead of lying on a mattress on the floor won’t suddenly make you better. You’ll still be treating yourself like shit. Don’t worry. The only thing you’ll change is getting a good night’s sleep.

“I don’t deserve this mattress,” I whisper, unable to look Abaddon in the eye.

He growls, leaving my side and heading to the small bathroom attached to my room. He returns with a cloth and rubbing alcohol. The mattress shifts as he sits beside my battered and broken body. My heart shatters as Abaddon leans in and whispers three words in the shell of my ear. “I forgive you.”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“The fuck you don’t. You were ten. That fucker groomed you. You think a ten-year-old is capable of doing that shit on their own? Fuck, Iblis. He gave you CPP to rile you up. Most times, it wasn’t even you. The drugs created someone different, something different. It was like you were possessed. None of what happened was your doing.”

I shut my eyes to keep Abaddon’s words from making their mark.

“Listen, Iblis. I enjoy degrading you. It’s hot having you submit to me, but I don’t want you to if it’s about hurting yourself. I like violence, Iblis. My favorite pastime is chopping up body parts to decorate my walls. But, man, when you make me do shit to hurt you, sometimes it kills my boner. There’s an odd pain in my chest that makes me feel bad or some shit. And I don’t give two shits about anything.”

I wince as the alcohol hits my open wounds, some caused by Asmodeus but most created by my need to outrun my past.

“You still believe in God, don’t you, Iblis? The shrine on your wall and the rosary you wear around your neck isn’t just for show, is it?”

I concentrate on his question, searching deep to see if I have an honest answer. “I want to believe.”

I stiffen as Abaddon’s warm lips touch my bloody flesh. He’s kissing me. Gentle brushes of his lips over the brutal marks on my skin.

“Stop,” I beg. “I don’t deserve this.”

“You’re right,” Abaddon says as he places another kiss on my flesh. “Neither do I. Neither does Asmodeus. We were kids, taken by a madman and forced to partake in horrors no child should.”

“Stop, Abaddon. All this makes the pain worse.”

“Can’t be any worse than the wounds that you keep reopening. They’ll never heal if you keep doing this shit.”

I move off the mattress and push Abaddon onto his back. “Good. I hope they remind me of the monster I am for the rest of my life. I don’t deserve kindness or grace. I sure as fuck don’t deserve your love. It’s because of me that you’re fucked up, don’t you see that? Don’t you understand everything was my fault? All I can hope for now is to pay penance so I’ll be forgiven.”

“I forgave you a long time ago.”

“As grateful as I am for you, Asmodeus gives me what I need to survive, and when he can’t, I take up the mantel. I need the pain, Abaddon. I need the reminder. I have a longing for the euphoric bliss only the pain can release. An anchor which keeps me from going off the edge, a reminder of what I’m capable of if the two of you ever turn away from me. But as much as I long to be punished, I worry that a part of him will hate me forever, that the pain he makes me suffer is beyond what I need but fueled by his incapacity to forgive me.”

Abaddon takes a breath as if trying to maintain his composure with a persistent child. He remains silent for what feels like an eternity. The sting of alcohol and brushes of cotton abruptly replaced his soft kisses. “He’ll come around.”

“He hasn’t forgiven me in almost twenty years.”

“He has, Iblis. If he hadn’t, you’d be dead.”