Page 55 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Aspen

Is he truly here, or have I lost it?

Suddenly, the lanky one lunges at the figure, and the two throw knives at each other, swiping left and right so quickly I can barely keep up. The man is barely a match for Ghost as he sidesteps him and jams his own knife underneath the guy’s ribs.

He gurgles as Ghost pulls out the knife and aims for his neck next, tearing a hole from one end to the other.

I shiver on the ground as the blood sprays from his body.

“You motherfucker!” The bar guy pulls out a gun.

I scream, “Watch out!”

Ghost turns around just in time.

BANG!

He sidestepped, and the bullet entered the wall beside his face.

I don’t know why I helped him.

Why I’d trust him with my life, but I do.

He grabs the guy’s arm.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The gun is knocked from his hand, and Ghost pummels him in the face, then puts him in a chokehold, hooking him tightly before throwing him on the ground on his back. The guy groans as Ghost straddles him.

“Touch her and you die,” he says with a low voice, before stabbing him right in the heart, twisting the knife a couple of times.

I crawl to my feet to see what’s going on, but Ghost’s hoodie blocks my view of a nightmarish scene as he pulls out the knife and thrusts it under the man’s chin and through his tongue.

In the darkness, I gaze at a dead man walking, his eyes bulging out of his face as they slowly fade into nothingness.

Ghost stands up, pulling the knife out of the body, as the rain begins to pitter-patter down onto our heads. The blood will soon wash away from the metal and his hands, but the violence will never be erased from my mind.

His explosive rage … feels strangely familiar.

I step closer, tilting my head as the images are still blurry from all the alcohol I drank. But there’s one thing I know for sure. He protected me.

When I touch his arm, he suddenly spins on his heels, the penetrative stare that follows swallowing my very breath. But then he picks me up from the ground and throws me over his shoulder like a rag doll.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I ask as he marches out of the alley.

He doesn’t respond.

“Put me down.”

“No.” His voice is soft, unlike before, as if he’s trying to whisper while still allowing me to hear. But I don’t know why.

“I can walk.”

He keeps going farther away from the scene of the crime. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can.”

His grip on my body tightens, fingers splaying against my thighs. “You’re drunk.”

Why does it all feel so … familiar?

“So what?” I mutter.

He makes a tsk sound. “You know better than this. This isn’t you.”

I frown. “You don’t know me.”

“Yes, I do. I told you.”

Right … I remember. He’s always been there, even when I didn’t want him to be.

My Ghost … is someone I know.

Someone I used to trust.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

It takes him a while to murmur back. “I always know how to find you.”

Always.

He’ll always find me.

Even when I don’t want to be found.

My body flops around on his shoulders while he keeps on walking, my mind slowly lulled by the swaying movement.

Maybe it’s not so bad to be stalked.

And I flop down completely as the darkness envelops my eyes.

When I come to again, I’m with my head in a bucket, throwing up everywhere. I don’t know how much time has passed or how I even got here, but I recognize my own bathroom from the sorority house.

How did I get home?

I fade in and out of consciousness, my head banging like hell. But those red eyes follow me everywhere, and I don’t know if I’m hallucinating or if it’s real, but I can still see them in front of me between the short bursts of sleep.

I know he’s here.

I can smell his scent.

Feel his presence.

And I wonder when the time might finally come that he’ll hold up his end of the deal so everything finally comes to an end.

“Will you kill for me?” I murmur, half awake, half asleep.

He shushes me and caresses my shoulder. “Tomorrow.”

I don’t know if I really heard that or just dreamed it all up.

Warm arms comfort me, a hot breath fanning onto my hair, lull me into a dreamless sleep.

He turns his head and pulls down his balaclava briefly, pressing a soft, affectionate kiss on my cheek. “I love you. I always have.”

The whisper is gentle like a sigh of the wind. Barely audible, but it lingers in the mind. And I have never felt more seen, more acknowledged in my misery, despite still not knowing his name.

As the darkness fades and the morning returns, I blink a couple of times to adjust to the bright light shining through my window. The headache finally lost its strength, but my body still feels like a complete wreck.

I really put myself through the wringer yesterday. Somewhere deep in my mind, I believed it was better to destroy myself before those boys did it for me.

But I couldn’t even do that properly.

I shake my head, and the cold draft makes me shiver. The warm arm that I swore was here before is gone, replaced by an empty bed, the fabric still crinkly from where he lay.

I crawl out of bed and look around, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Ghost?”

I check the bathroom, but it’s empty too. Even the bucket has been cleaned. And when I look in the mirror, I’m clearly wearing a nightgown that I didn’t put on myself.

What the …?

Frowning, I open the door and check all my fellow sorority girls’ bedrooms until I find someone who’s there. “Hey, did you see me come in last night?”

“No,” she says.

“Did anyone else?”

She shrugs. “Not that I know of. I didn’t even know you were back.”

“Oh …”

So he did it in secret.

Did he come in through the window? Or did he break in through the front door?

I shiver at the thought.

He knows me, more than I’d like to admit, and I could swear he whispered something in my ear last night … something about … love.

My heart throbs in my chest, and I plant my hand right there to feel it as the warmth begins to flood my body.

Could it be?

A phone buzzes, and I head back into my room to find it vibrating on my nightstand. I pick up the call.

“Aspen? Where are you?” It’s Ivy.

“What? I’m home, why?” I rub the sleep from my eyes.

“You’ve got economics too, don’t you?”

“What about it?” I mutter, yawning.

“That’s now. It started five minutes ago.”

My eyes widen, and I spin on my heels to check the clock on my wall. “Oh shit!”

Grey

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I keep writing and deleting the same words over and over. I want to say something, anything, but I don’t know if words will ever be enough to describe how I feel about her. How I wish I could undo the damage I’ve done out of spite, out of jealousy.

My phone nearly breaks under the palm of my hand, so I tuck it back into my bag and turn away so I can force myself not to check it every five minutes, hoping for a sign of life.

I breathe out a sigh. I’m not even listening to the professor standing in front of class.

All I can think about is Aspen and how hurt she must be.

I didn’t want to hurt her, yet I ended up doing just that by being a possessive asshole who couldn’t stop collecting pictures of her like an addict.

Goddammit.

If only that fucker hadn’t found those cameras.

What was he doing in her room anyway?

He still can’t fucking let her go, and that’s exactly why I’m so obsessed. He never stopped trying to take her away from me, and in the end, he won.

My teeth grind together.

If I can’t have her, he can’t either.

I zip through my laptop files through my phone and find the one piece of evidence I saved all this time. The smoking gun. A video with proof of what really happened that night.

This could save my relationship…

And obliterate Levi Torres.

Levi

My phone keeps buzzing, but I ignore it all.

I didn’t even bother showing up for my classes today, so it’s probably my sister scolding the shit out of me. Whatever.

What is the point when my life no longer holds any meaning?

I turn off the shower and walk out, the droplets of water rolling down my skin a gentle caress to a flawed body like mine.

The man in the mirror stares back at me, and I step closer just to have a good look at what he’s become.

The scars clearly visible a mark of honor, whether they’re on top or underneath the skin.

Maybe finally it’ll all be over now that she no longer wants to let us all live.

Maybe now, I can finally rest.

Apollo

I’m exercising in my room with a dumbbell in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I don’t smoke often, but after the shit show, I’ve been dying for a hit.

We only barely managed to put out the fires on time, but some of the curtains and paintings still got damaged, and that’s gonna be a fortune to fix. That fiery vixen definitely cost me more than just a bleeding heart.

My phone buzzes, and I set the dumbbell aside and put out my smoke before I pick it up.

Aspen: Are you my Ghost? Come to the Crescent Vale Cemetery, 9 p.m.

I frown, staring at the message on my screen, but the longer I stare, the bigger the smile becomes.

Well, how could I ever decline an invitation like that?

Aspen

I put my bag down on the pebbled path near Mavis’s grave and fish out some knives, tucking them into my pocket. I wanna be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

My heart is nearly beating out of my chest as I wait here in my baggy pants and blue butterfly shirt. I hold a flashlight in one hand and my phone in the other. This place is poorly lit, and I can barely see a thing among the many trees on the premises.

But I definitely recognize the red-beaded eyes up ahead, slowly weaving their way through the myriad of graves.

I swallow away the lump in my throat as the figure comes closer and closer, the mask on his face still making the adrenaline pump just from the memories of all the filth he did. His towering presence crushes the pebbles beneath his feet, and when he’s close enough for me to see him, I say, “Stop.”

He pauses, tilting his head as he gazes at me, and I wanna know what he’s thinking. If he knew I would find out who he was in the end.

“So … you got my invitation.”

No sound. No words. No nothing.

“You brought me home last night,” I say. “I remember you saving me.”

I can hear him suck in a breath through his nostrils, and it makes me take a step back and clutch Mavis’s grave. Even though I know he did something good, he’s still my stalker and the man who haunts me.

Can I trust him?

“You said you were someone I know.”

He doesn’t respond, and I know I didn’t ask a question, but I’d hoped he’d fill in some new information for me. “You’re not going to tell me?”

He shakes his head slowly.

“Fine.” I clear my throat. “You know, I lost the plug. But I already gave you what you wanted. Now, I need you to hold up your end of our deal.”

He steps forward, and I hold my breath as the space between us evaporates. All that’s left is those haunting eyes and that mask separating me from the truth. He’d never let me rip it off. He’d never let me see what’s behind the mask, not even if I begged.

“Plea—”

“Kiss me.”

The whisper is soft, like a breath in the wind, but it stops all the raging thoughts in my head in an instant.

“Kiss me … and I will kill him tonight.”

A kiss? That’s all he wants after all the dirty demands?

A kiss … and all of it is over, just like that?

I swallow away the lump in my throat as I look up into his soulless eyes, my lips parting. “Can I lift your mask?”

He doesn’t stop me as my fingers slowly reach for his chin, tugging down the balaclava as slowly as I can, so I don’t give him a reason to stop me. I can barely see a thing in the dark, but I can feel the stubble right above his lips as I push the mask up far enough for me to lean in.

And as my hands slowly coil around his face, I press a kiss onto his lips so gentle it makes my eyes tear up.

After tonight, it’ll all be over.

Just this one kiss.

The last on his list.

My lips on his, his hands on my waist, sliding farther and farther across my body, as I slowly begin to lose myself in the moment while his calloused lips kiss mine back for just a second.

Just one second.

And I nearly forget the world even exists.

His lips part against mine mid-kiss. “You flutter around a fire so happily, forgetting it can destroy you in an instant … Firefly.”

Firefly?

My eyes widen.

No.

This is a trick. It has to be.

Suddenly, he pulls out a knife.

Is he going to kill me now?

Whoosh!

He chucks the knife at a nearby tree, and I pull away from him, my lips still tingling from our kiss. Behind the tree, another set of red eyes appears, and my entire body freezes.

“What the fuck?” my kisser murmurs under his breath.

Another masked figure in a hoodie and with red eyes emerges from the graves beyond, zigzagging his way to us. “Seems I’m not the only one who was invited.”

“You …” My eyes narrow as I try to place the awfully familiar voice.

But who is the stalker now? Him or the other guy?

A crackling of a twig makes my head turn the other way as another masked man appears from the beaten path, red eyes and all. One by one, they pull out their knives and point them at each other.

Just as I expected.

One or all of them.

Someone’s a stalker.

Someone’s a killer.

Someone’s a liar.

And this will end tonight.