Read No Quarter (NOLA's Own #2) for Free Online

you?”
    Lili liked to spring unsuspecting and sometimes inappropriate questions on people, hoping that if she caught them off guard, they would reply with an honest answer.
    “He’s mad at me for wanting to wait until he’s more healed up before having sex with him,” Sheri replied without batting an eyelash.
    “Oh. I guess having you pegged for a nympho was the wrong assumption,” drawled Lili.
    “Fucking A, Lili!” I hissed venomously. “What the hell?”
    “What?” she piped back. “It’s not like she’s kept her sex life with them a secret or anything. I admire her honesty. Don’t you ?”
    “That’s not the point! You don’t just say shit like that—”
    “Oh, come on, Kenna. This is Lili we’re talking about. She does , in fact, just say shit like that to people,” said Alys, turning her face to Sheri. “You have to excuse Lili. We think she might have a strange form of Tourette’s—”
    “I do not!” Lili huffed. “Why do I have to watch what I say with you guys? It’s never been an issue before. Sheri’s a friend, right?”
    “Yes, she’s a friend, but she’s not used to you busting out in rude —” I said heatedly.
    “It’s okay,” Sheri assured us. “I’ve had a lot of ruder things said to me than that.”
    “See?” snapped Lili. “She understands.”
    Sheri set her empty bowl on the patio table. “I’m not a nympho although I can understand why you would think that. I—”
    “Sheri,” I said firmly.
    Her gaze met mine. Inside her gray eyes, I saw fear, a healthy dose of self-loathing, and the strongest desire to be accepted that I’d ever witnessed.
    “Are you sure you want to talk to us about this?”
    “About what?” demanded Lili.
    “I think I need to,” she replied softly. “It’s been eating away at me for so long, and I’ve only told three people about it—my grandparents and my shrink.”
    “You’ve never told the guys what happened to you?” That was not a good sign.
    She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears.
    “What happened?” Lili whispered, looking at me.
    I glared back. “I don’t know. I just know something did, all right? In any case, it’s for her to tell us. I wouldn’t tell you if she’d told me something in confidence. You know that!”
    “I never want the guys to know,” she told us. “I’d rather they think I’m a loose nut than a… victim. ”
    “Oh my God,” Alys said in a hushed voice. “This is bad, isn’t it? Like, really, really bad.”
    Sheri shrugged. “I was born in Lafayette, and we moved to New Orleans when the law firm my dad worked for transferred him here. I was about a year old, and my brother was three,” she said, her voice taking on a deadened monotonous ring.
    “My mom used to be so beautiful. She was a pageant queen, and she had this ideal for a lifestyle, you know? Everything had to be perfect—perfect lawyer husband, perfect house, perfect kids. I guess my family was perfect at some point, but my dad…I’m not sure if he was always a pedophile…or if it was for some other reason.”
    “Oh, holy shit,” Lili whispered.
    “He started molesting me when I was four. It wasn’t all the time or, like, on a daily basis then. Just here and there. But it was scary. I loved my dad, and for him to touch me like that…I didn’t understand back then, and…
    “One night, my dad came into my room, and…he touched me and put his”—she made a weird little gesture—“in my mouth.” She paused, took a sip of iced tea, and then inhaled a calming deep breath.
    “When I was nine, my brother walked in on him and me. Instead of stopping, my dad made…he made my brother touch me, too. He said we should practice for when we were older and that he should watch to make sure we did it right. My brother didn’t want to. He knew it was wrong—we both did—but Dad was terrifying. He said that if we ever told our mom or anyone else that we were practicing, he would beat us, and whomever we told