Page 68 of Boys Who Taint

“Levi!” he yells in my face.

“Oh …” I don’t have a problem with that.

“Oh? That’s all?Oh?”

“Look, I hate him just as much as you two do,” I respond. “But I doubt he’ll let himself get killed that easily.”

“That’s exactly my point!” He’s still shaking me. “Levi’s family will intervene before she has the chance, and they won’t fucking hesitate to kill her. They’re that crazy.”

I don’t doubt him. If the rumors floating around the school are true, these three families were wreaking deadly havoc all around Crescent Vale City as well as the university back in the day, and they never stopped. They’re just masking it better now.

“I’ll protect her with my life,” I say.

“You’d better.” Xavier points at my chest. “I want to trust you, Grey. Don’t make me regret it.”

I place my hand on his shoulder to calm him. “There is no one more important to me than Aspen. Trust me.”

If only he knew how far I was willing to go for her.

He nods a few times and then releases me, straightening his back. “Good.” He clears his throat. “Sorry about that.”

“I get it. You don’t want to lose another sister.”

“Our families are … difficult to say the least.” He wipes his nose. “Doesn’t help that one was already fragile to begin with, but now that we lost one of us, I feel like we’re slowly being ripped apart, and I just can’t allow that to happen. I can’t.”

“Fragile?” I ask.

I don’t want to snoop, but any information that will help me better understand Aspen is welcome.

“It’s Melody. She’s not healthy.” He swallows. “It’s complicated. And I’m not sure I should be telling you, so maybe you should ask Aspen about it. Or Mom and Dad.”

“Right. Sorry.” I nod.

“Are you guys coming?” Aspen yells from around the corner. “We have class.”

Xavier checks his watch. “Oh shit. I’m so fucking late.”

We walk back to the exit of the cemetery, where Aspen is waiting for us. Xavier and I walk back to the car, but Aspen suddenly stands still in the cemetery’s gates, staring at the ground beneath her feet.

I pause as I open the door to my car. “Aspen?”

She bends over to pick up a bunch of pebbles, staring at them intently.

“Are you coming?” I ask.

She turns around, her face losing all the redness it usually has, the freckles on her face standing out like beacons.

And I wonder what has gotten her so rattled all of a sudden.

After all, they’re just three pebbles out of a million scattered across the path.

Aspen

I throwthe pebbles up and down in my hand as I walk through the university’s corridors on the way to my next class. They’re coarse, much thicker, and heavier than the ones used on the Spine Ridge University campus. These pebbles are maybe a couple among millions scattered across Crescent Vale Cemetery, but the second I looked beneath my feet, I knew I recognized them from somewhere.

These are the same pebbles strewn across the ground beneath my window after my first encounter with Ghost.

And every time I toss them up and catch them, the twitch on my face gets more and more… twitchy.