Page 40 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Grey

Thirty minutes ago

One minute, I’m adjusting my tie in my own damn room so I can go to dinner with my girl, and then the next, a bag is thrown over my head, and my hands are tied together.

I scream into the muffled bag, trying to breathe.

A hole is punctured into the bag near my nose, and I suck in the oxygen, then scream.

Someone picks me up and throws me over their shoulder.

“No one’s going to help you now.”

That voice …

“Levi?!” I growl, and I kick the air as best I can.

The laughter that follows is unmistakable.

It’s him. It’s fucking him, and he’s taking me out of the Phantom Society?!

I thought Phantoms weren’t supposed to fucking touch other Phantoms?!

“What the fuck?!” I scream.

“You thought you could get away with what you did?”

“Let me go, or I swear to Mavis’s fucking grave I will reveal every single fucking detail about your petty little mistake to Aspen.”

“Go ahead and fucking try,” he retorts. “You don’t know shit, and she won’t fucking believe you anyway. Now sleep tight.”

TWHACK!

Aspen

Present

Still in my little black dress, I storm toward the Phantom Society, a bag filled with weapons slung across my shoulder.

I’m done with these motherfuckers trying to ruin my relationship, the only good thing in my life.

Someone’s going to die.

I don’t even wait for the doorbell to ring before I kick in the door.

“Open this door, right now!” I scream, incensed.

When I’ve nearly broken it down, someone finally opens up. “Jesus, fuck, Aspen. What the fuck are you doing?!” Talon barks. “Have you lost it?”

“Let me through,” I growl, before pushing past him.

“We just got our door repaired. What the hell is going on?”

I fish one of my knives from my bag and point it right at his face. “Where’s Levi?”

He holds up his hands. “Whoa, you don’t have to threaten me with a knife.”

“Answer me!”

“He’s out there somewhere.” He points at the forest behind me. “He left with a big bag and didn’t tell us what he was gonna do. Just that no one can follow him.”

“Fuck,” I grit, as I run right back out the door.

“Don’t bring your fucking fight to the Phantoms. I don’t want the whole house to be suspended!” Talon yells after me, but I’m already long gone.

I run toward the woods right across from the Phantom Society, Priory Forest, a place haunted by feverish memories of dreadful mistakes and death.

Even the soil smells of sex and bones. People only come here for two things; to party in secrecy, or to murder.

And I don’t intend to become part of the latter.

But if I must … I will kill Levi to protect Grey.

He went too far this time.

Took something that I wasn’t willing to give.

And I refuse to let him kill the last inch of my happiness in this world.

The trees cast an eerie darkness over the ground as I rush into the forest, not giving a shit about the dangers ahead. Spiders and crickets crawl across the leafy bedding, and I shiver as I steady myself and look around for clues where they could’ve gone.

The forest is gigantic, surrounding the entirety of Spine Ridge University, serving as a wall to surround the property. But this wall is a never-ending nightmarish domain filled with terror, and my heart is nearly banging out of my rib cage.

Where could he have taken Grey?

I stop moving and listen.

Up ahead, a screech catches my attention.

I step closer toward the sound, masking my presence by hiding behind the trees every few steps, hoping Levi doesn’t see me. He’s at as much of a disadvantage as I am in these woods. If I play my cards right, I may be able to get the upper hand and save Grey and free him from Levi’s grasp.

My breathing comes out in ragged breaths as I pause, and another yelp echoes through the woods.

Grey .

I run past some trees and bushes, only to come to a clearing in the middle of the woods. In the middle is a lonely chair, wrapped with ropes, and along with it the boy with pearly white hair who stole my heart.

A shriek nearly rolls off my tongue, so I slap my hand in front of my mouth.

God, I want him to know I’m here so badly, but if Levi hears me, I’ve lost, and Grey is done for.

Swallowing the scream, I look around the area, but I don’t see anyone or anything out of the ordinary. He’s hiding somewhere.

Suddenly, a knife slithers underneath my chin.

He’s so close to me that I can feel his breath against my skin. “Don’t move.”

Sweat drops roll down my forehead. “Levi,” I say through gritted teeth. “Let him go.”

“I don’t think so. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t stay away from him,” he grits.

“He has nothing to do with this,” I say.

“He has everything to do with this,” Levi growls back, his hard abs pressing into my body. “Don’t you understand?” A maniacal laugh follows, and he pushes me forward, snatching the bag right off my shoulder.

I immediately sidestep and steady my knife, spinning on my heels to stab him, but the second I lay eyes on that scary white mask on his face, my hand begins to quake.

“Do I remind you of someone, little Firefly?” he says, a filthy smile forming beneath the mask. “So is this what your stalker looks like?”

“This isn’t a joke,” I growl back. “You don’t even know what he looked like.”

“You’re right. I’m missing something …” He taps his temple. “Ah, red eyes, right? Apollo told me.”

He’s mocking me.

“How dare you,” I grit.

His smile immediately dissipates, unlike the smile on the black skull printed on his white shirt. “ You made me do this.”

He throws the bag away, and I slice the air between us, but he grabs my wrist and knocks the knife straight out of my hand.

“You fucking monster!” I yell, jerking free before running toward Grey.

“Me? The monster?” Levi laughs callously. “You’re looking at him right now, and you don’t even fucking see it when it’s right under your nose. News flash, he’s lying to you!”

I don’t know what he means, but if I can’t escape his sight, I’ll focus on freeing Grey before he gets to me.

I pull my last knife from my pocket and rush toward Grey. He throws me a side-glance, his eyes unhinged, lips smacking together, screaming against the cloth bound around his mouth.

I immediately start cutting through the ropes. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

CLICK!

That sounded like …

I abruptly stop.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Frowning, I turn around toward the other side of the forest’s clearing, where another masked individual has a gun pointed right at Grey.

My eyes widen.

Apollo .

They’re conspiring together.

“You caught me in a moment of weakness, I admit …” Levi says as he sways the knife around that he stole from me. “But you forced my fucking hand.”

“I didn’t do shit!” I yell. “You’re a fucking psycho. First you kill my sister, and now you wanna kill my boyfriend too?”

“No … not yet anyway,” Apollo says.

His strut is pompous, muscles bursting through the thin black fabric of his shirt, in his hand a gun with the safety off.

“Don’t you lay a single fucking finger on him,” I growl, grabbing Grey’s arm.

“Too late,” Levi says. “How else do you think I could’ve dragged him out here into the fucking woods?” Levi sways the knife. “Look around you. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. No one will ever … ever … know.”

I swallow back the lump in my throat, and I look over my shoulder at Grey, who’s begging me with his eyes. I don’t want to lose him too, no matter how bad things get. I need him. I can’t let them do this.

“Now throw away the knife and I promise you won’t get hurt … I can’t promise you won’t enjoy what’s going to come next, though,” Apollo says.

“Bastard,” I say under my breath as I chuck it in his direction.

Apollo laughs as he picks it up. “Freckles, there’s no need for nicknames.”

“You promised!” I yell back at him.

Suddenly, his face tightens, the smile underneath the mask fading into oblivion. “And you didn’t show up in my room with your boyfriend like I told you to.”

Fuck.

I couldn’t believe he came to me at the fountain with a demand like that.

I thought he was just testing me.

And now that I declined, he sided with Levi.

“This was your choice, Aspen. Not mine,” Apollo says.

“He needs to be punished, and I want you to watch.” Levi points the knife at Grey. “So what’s it going to be, Aspen? Are we going to hurt him?”

Grey screams into the shirt that muffles his mouth, his hands jerking at the ropes in an attempt to be freed.

“No,” I say, shaking my head as tears well up in my eyes.

“No?” He tilts his head a faint smile appearing in a flash before it disappears again.

Dread begins to fill my veins. There’s no way we’re getting out of this. They made that pretty clear. Not without a sacrifice from either Grey … or me.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“Isn’t it fucking obvious?” Levi pulls off his mask, briefly showing the diabolical grin on his face along with the murderous glint in his eyes. “The end of you as he knows it.”

I shiver in place as all the hairs on my body stand up.

He pulls the mask back down and pulls up his balaclava until it covers his mouth. “Now make your fucking choice, my little Firefly.”

Grey…

He’s innocent and he’s here, trapped in this hellhole, because of me.

I have to save him, no matter what it costs me.

Levi

I’ve lost it. Completely lost it, and I don’t even fucking care anymore.

I had no other choice.

That fucker has been flaunting her in my face, pretending to be a saint when he’s the devil incarnate. He lies to her about something so fucking vile, and she doesn’t even believe it.

But she will after tonight.

I will fucking make it so.

My nostrils flare as I glare at her through my mask, the disdain in her eyes not easy to miss.

I have nothing left to lose.

Hatred is all she has left to give, and it’s all I have left to yearn for. I destroyed everything I was, everything I will ever be, because of her. She is my obsession, my sole reason for existing, and I don’t care how badly the world hates me for it.

She averts her eyes. “Fine.”

Even now, she’s still willing to go off the deep end … for him .

I approach her and tilt her chin up with her own damn knife I picked up from the ground. “How far are you willing to go for him?”

“I’ll do anything,” she replies.

Of course she will.

I force her to look me in the eyes. God, those pure blue eyes will be the last thing I’ll see while on this earth. “For a liar?”

She grimaces. “He’s not a liar. You don’t know him like I do.”

“No … but I will,” Apollo muses, as he grips Grey’s face and squeezes his cheeks together. “We’re going to have so much fun together, aren’t we? Just you and I.”

“Don’t touch—”

I grab her cheeks the same way. “You answer to me now.”

“Fuck you,” she hisses.

Still so fucking fiery, even in the face of evil. “Fuck me? I can grant you that wish. But you won’t like how and I’ll make sure you fucking know whose cock has a chokehold on that fucking pussy of yours.”

She gasps at my words.

She’s only ever seen me as some kind of nice friend she had somewhere deep inside her memories, a distant past where everything was easier. Fake.

She never truly knew me.

Not really.

Not like this…

Obsessed.

I could never show her, could never put my finger on it or describe it in a way where she wouldn’t run like hell. I’m obsessed with the idea of breaking her … so she’ll fit me.

My thumb slides across her lip slowly, meticulously. “You said it yourself … you were willing to do anything to save your boyfriend. I want to see how far you’ll go for him.” My jaw tenses. “Do you love him?”

She nods without hesitation.

Brave girl.

A filthy smirk grows across my face. “Then show me. Show me how much … and I might let him live.”

Apollo slaps Grey. “This fucker here is eager to please, aren’t you?”

Grey screams through the cloth in his mouth, like he wants to say something, and I’m so glad we decided to muzzle him like the dog he is.

Anything he says is poison straight into her veins.

She sucks in a breath. “Whatever you want. I’ll do it. And you let us both go.”

“So easily persuaded to give your all for a liar,” I say, sliding the knife down her pretty neck, hovering dangerously close to her veins. I could pierce her within a second and put an end to it all, just like that.

The true end of Levi Torres and Aspen Caruso.

Just like we fucking deserve.

“Fine … I’ll grant you your fucking wish.”

Fuck it.

SLICE!