Page 35 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Apollo

I’m just pouring myself a drink after having the time of my life, when the ruckus near the front door catches my attention. A crowd gathers in the hall, and I take a sip, preparing for the worst.

But when Silas motherfucking Rivera, along with his buddies Max and Heath, and a dozen other Skull and Serpent Society fuckers burst through the crowd, I’m on high alert. He shoves people aside and pulls out a gun, shooting into the ceiling.

BANG!

The crowd disperses, and chaos ensues near the entry halls.

Motherfucker…

“LEVI! Where the fuck are you?” Silas screams, storming toward the dance floor. “Better show your fucking face right now or I’m gonna burn this place to the ground!”

Well, isn’t this a nice fucking surprise?

I peer around like a hawk until I find Levi disappearing into the crowd, stealing a sweater off a chair to disguise himself as someone else, and to hide his neck tattoo, which makes him stand out.

But Silas’s enraged shoving and pushing through my crowd of party people ticks me off.

“Silas?” Ivy steps out of her little group of friends and approaches him. “What are you doing here? I thought you didn’t wanna come?”

“I don’t, but you didn’t fucking tell me my own goddamn sister would be here, at a fucking Phantom party!”

He’s completely off-his-rocker angry, the type that really gets me going, and my muscles begin to twitch.

Grey appears from the bathroom, oblivious to Silas’s sudden entry. When Silas spots him, he immediately goes for Grey.

“Oh my God,” Océane mutters, clearly taken aback by the violence.

“Let’s go.” Talon steps in and pulls her away from what is obviously the start of a fight.

Skull and Serpent Society members are grabbing our Phantoms left and right and punching them in the face when they don’t like what they have to say, and it gets me riled the fuck up.

“Y’all better stop right now or I will pound you all into the fucking floor,” I growl. I grab one of them by the neck and shove him into a chair, which breaks on impact.

BANG!

Gunshots make the crowd panic even more.

They ruined my fucking party.

I swiftly find the owner of the gun and knock it out of his hand by twisting his arm so badly it breaks, and he shrieks out loud. I laugh in his face. “Silas should’ve told you there’s a price to bringing a gun here.”

“Motherfucker!” he retorts, hiding behind his buddies.

“Coward,” I yell.

Silas has found Grey and grabs him by the shirt. “What the fuck were you thinking bringing my sister here?”

Grey jerks free. “Get your hands off me.”

Silas shoves him in the chest. “You have some nerve. I let you hang on my sister’s arm only because you seem like a non-threat. But you just got upgraded to untrustworthy asshole.”

“Silas, calm down, please,” Max tries to soften his rage. “This isn’t helping.”

The crowd of people is still panicked and scattering while another gunshot reverberates through the halls.

“The fuck I will!” Silas roars. “Where is she?”

He’s lost it.

“I don’t know. She went to get drinks, and I haven’t seen her since,” Grey mutters.

He grabs Grey’s shirt again. “You let her out of your sight?”

“I’m her boyfriend, not her watchdog,” Grey retorts.

When Silas raises his fist, I intervene.

Lightning fast, I hold up my cup right when he hits my fist, smashing it to a pulp, meeting my open palm instead. It doesn’t hurt, doesn’t even make me flinch, and I hold on tight despite his attempts to pull away.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Get out of my fucking way, Apollo,” Silas grits.

“I don’t think I will,” I reply. “I’m not going to let you hurt Grey.”

“Why do you fucking care? You don’t even know him.”

“Because Aspen asked me to. That’s why.”

Everyone looks at me like that’s strange.

“What?” Ivy mutters. “When?”

“None of your business,” I reply.

I’m not about to tell these Skull and Serpent fuckers what kind of dirty deal I made with the sister of their leader.

“What the f—” Silas grits, pulling back his fist.

“Unhand Grey.” I glare into his eyes. “Now.”

Silas’s nose twitches, but he still lets go, and I do too.

“Let’s not let this get out of hand,” Max says.

“It’s already out of hand,” Silas grits back, pulling his fist back as he focuses on Max. “Are you on their side now?”

“No, no,” Max mutters.

Heath focuses on me. “You got anything to do with this?”

“Who, me?” I muse. “Fancy seeing you here. Don’t remember inviting any of you. You damaged the house.”

“I don’t fucking care. Where is my sister?” Silas growls.

But when he spots Levi sneaking off into the crowd, his eyes flicker with absolute hatred.

Oh shit.

Off he goes, like a light switch got flipped, and all that’s left is destruction.

The gun in his hand is pointed right at my fucking cousin.

Not on my fucking watch.

Aspen

I bolt out of the door and rush down the stairs, but stop midway when I spot Silas with a gun pointed right at Levi.

Oh God.

People are in the way, so Silas can’t kill him without hitting other people, which is probably the only thing stopping him from firing that goddamn gun.

Everyone on the dance floor is screaming as a massive exodus is on the way.

People are rushing to the exit, flooding the hallway.

From the top of the stairs, I spot Grey trying to talk sense into Heath and Max, while Apollo storms through the crowd of Skull and Serpent Society members, ramming his head into their chests like he’s a goddamn bull on a mission, searching for something … Or someone .

“You thought I came alone?” Silas roars.

Suddenly, knives fly all around inside the building, and I duck for cover as one of them nearly hits the banister beneath my fingers.

“Fuck!” I scream.

What the fuck is going on?

I peer through the banister, watching the onslaught down below.

Guys I recognize from the Skull and Serpent Society bust through the hallways, throwing knives left and right at well-known Phantom members.

Silas brought a whole damn army of Serpents.

“Heath, Max!” Ivy screams from the sidelines, and they immediately rush to her and secure her in a different room.

Silas is still laser-focused on someone exiting the dance floor with the crowd, and the Skull and Serpent Society members are quickly blocking off every exit until there’s no way out.

But Apollo finds one of them, grabs him by the head—his actual head—and grinds it into a hard wooden table where all the food was, shattering it on impact. “Now we’re talking!” he barks out loud as bits of brain splatter onto the food. “Come at me, then!” He grins like a maniac.

Blood splatters all around, and while some other Skull and Serpent Society member jumps on his back, he grips the guy’s shirt from behind him and throws him over his head like he’s just a tiny bug crawling on his back.

“Join your fucking friend!” Apollo laughs out loud.

And all I can do is stare in abject horror as the two houses begin to fight each other with fists and weapons and all the frenzied rage they’ve kept boiled up inside. Knives are thrown back and forth, while I’m trying to find Grey in the midst of it all.

Instead, my eyes find the scorpion tattoo and immediately home in on Levi. He’s in the opening leading to the hallway, where five Skull and Serpent guys have him surrounded. His dark hair falls over his face as he turns around, pulls a gun from his pocket, and aims it right at one of them.

“Touch me and I’ll erase you.”

Levi

Snakes surround me at a party in my own goddamn house. Silas has apparently found his limit, and now he’s come to claim my life.

Fine.

He wants a fight? He can have one.

I keep my gun aimed at one Serpent while I throw off my mask, and I pull out a knife with my other hand and throw it at the nearest Serpent I can find. It lodges into his knee, and another one comes at me from behind, so I pull it out and ram it into his gut.

People all around us are running for their lives, but I ignore them, focusing solely on the uninvited Skull and Serpent members who have infiltrated this party. But from the corner of my eye, I can see Silas coming right at me.

Apollo suddenly storms at him from the left side, and Heath actually steps into the fray to protect Silas, whose house he belongs to.

“Don’t get in my way, brother,” Apollo warns.

“I can’t let you touch Silas,” Heath says.

“He came into my house and wrecked the place!” Apollo growls.

Heath pulls out a knife. “Don’t make me use this.”

Apollo grins. “Fine. You want to have a go, brother?” He holds up his fists and steadies himself. “Come on, then. See if you can take me on and keep that pretty face of yours intact.”

They start fighting right in front of me, throwing fists left and right, barely avoiding each other’s knives, which are thrown in between. But another one of those fucking snakes attacks me from behind, and I can barely dodge the knife plunged into the air.

“Heath! Please stop!” Max yells from the sidelines, but no one is listening.

Silas shoves one of his own guys aside and finally comes to face me, and I raise my gun at the same time he does.

“You kidnapped my sister. This is the end of you,” Silas growls, pushing the barrel into my forehead while I push mine into his chest.

“Levi!”

A terrifying, soul-haunting scream fills the room, shattering my ability to focus.

And even though a gun is embedded in my skin, I still turn my head around until it’s lodged right into my temple while my eyes find the siren. The girl whose voice will always call to me, even when death is imminent.

Aspen .

She runs down the stairs in her glittery green dress, skipping several steps.

A pang hits me in the stomach at the sight of those pretty ocean eyes whose colors have been swept away in the darkness. The darkness I brought into her life.

This stand-off will never end well. And if I kill Silas … it’ll destroy her along with me.

Sighing, I lower my gun and my eyes, awaiting judgment.

If this is it, then so be it.

“You give up this easily?” Silas grits.

“Just fucking get it over with.”

But someone knocks the gun out of his hand.

“Are you all out of your goddamn minds?”

Aspen’s voice makes my eyes burst open, renewed by her mere presence.

She goes around the circle enveloping me and knocks the knives straight out of the hands of all the fuckers threatening me. They don’t dare to fight back for fear of hurting their leader’s half sister.

“Felix is gonna kill us!” she yells at them all.

Apollo finally lets go of Heath’s shirt right as he was about to hit him with another fist.

“Heath, oh my God, your face!” Ivy says as she finally makes her way through the crowd and finds him, tugging him away from Apollo.

“I’m fine,” Heath says, still eyeing down Apollo. “He’s not.”

“I warned you not to,” Apollo says, and I’m thankful he tried to protect me.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Silas growls.

“A fucking party, that’s what. And you crashed it.” Apollo spits out some blood on the floor. Guess Heath landed a couple of punches too.

“I told you to fucking stay away from my sister,” Silas growls at me.

“I invited her,” Apollo says, wiping the remaining blood off his lips. “This was my call.”

Silas violently grinds his teeth together, and every time he tries to spit out words, it’s all a garbled mess as if he’s trying to find ways to still pin this on me.

Suddenly, the doors burst open again, and guards storm into the house, along with the dean himself, Felix Rivera, Silas’s dad. He has never looked more pissed than now.

Great. I just survived the son only to be killed by the father instead.