Page 71 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Aspen

“We have to go. Now.”

“Why the rush?” Mom asks as she suddenly peeks into the hallway too.

“Um … we’ve made other plans tonight, and I don’t want to miss it,” I lie.

I don’t want her involved in this if I can avoid it.

“Your food was delicious, ma’am,” Grey says while he puts on his coat.

“Good to hear. I’d love to see you again.”

“Of course.” Grey smiles with his usual charm.

“See you soon, Aspen?” Mom asks.

“Sure,” I reply.

“I’m gonna go clean up the mess.” She waves and walks off, while I swiftly put on my coat.

But before I can open the front door, Xavier suddenly blocks my way.

“Oh, c’mon, Xav, I don’t have time for this. Move, please.”

“Where are you really going?” he asks.

I narrow my eyes. “You think I’d tell you?”

He folds his arms. “Yes. I’m your brother.”

“Sometimes you really get on my nerves, you know that?”

He frowns. “Don’t care. Tell me. Now.”

“Nothing!”

“It’s not nothing if it’s dragging you away from a family dinner you know means the world to Mom. That’s dangerous. You don’t play dangerous games unless it’s serious,” he says.

Goddammit. Of course he can see right through me.

“Didn’t you hear her?” Grey grabs his shirt. “Move. Now.”

“Get your hands off me, Grey.” He narrows his eyes. “Before I cut them off.”

Oh, fuck no, no more fights.

“Let. Us. Out.”

“Why? I thought you were going to be an actual fucking chivalrous boyfriend to her,” he says. “You’re already letting her fuck with Apollo, and now this.”

Grey leans up close and hisses, “If you care about your sister, you will let us leave. Now.”

“Give me one good reason.”

“Guys, what’s going on in there?” Dad shouts from the dining room, and I can’t help but feel the urgency.

“Please, Xav,” I mutter.

“Listen here, you asshole, you may be her brother, but I will fuck you up if you don’t step aside and let me save her fucking heart before it’s crushed into oblivion by Silas.”

Oh God.

Xavier’s brows furrow. “What did Silas do?”

“Nothing,” I quip, quickly grabbing Grey and hauling him off.

Xav sidesteps, allowing me to pass, and I rush out the door with Grey.

“Aspen! Tell me!” he yells after me.

I run to the car, and we open the doors, jumping inside.

But as Grey starts the engine, the car door is jerked open again, and Xavier growls at me, “Goddammit, Aspen, you know twins don’t keep secrets from each other.

You trust me. I trust you.” He hops inside, sits down on the back seat, and slams the door shut.

“And if you won’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going with you so I can see for myself. ”

Grey looks at me while I glance at Xavier through the rearview mirror, wondering if we can do all this on our own … or if we could use his help.

“You gotta promise me you won’t tell a fucking soul,” I say.

“What do I gain by telling anyone if it hurts you?”

I swallow. “Silas is going to torture Levi.”

He grimaces. “Since when is that news?”

“Apollo just called to tell us Levi is missing. Silas probably already took him,” Grey replies.

“Good riddance then,” Xav says, folding his arms. “Mavis deserved better.”

“I’m not letting Silas kill Levi,” I respond.

“Why not?”

Of course, he’d ask me that.

But could I ever say the truth out loud?

“Because it’s going to unleash a fucking war between the Torreses and your family,” Grey says.

Xavier’s eyes widen.

Grey suddenly locks the doors, sealing us all inside, right as Xav was about to grasp the handle.

“And now that you know what’s going on, you’re not going anywhere except with us.” Grey leans sideways and holds out his hand. “Now give me your phone so you don’t do anything stupid.”

Xav narrows his eyes at him but still does what he says. “Fine. But if you get us fucking killed, I’m haunting your ass.”

Grey sports a half smile. “Get in line.”

Apollo

“God-fucking-dammit!” I scream into the phone, before I chuck it at the school’s wall, right before my sister Cecelia exits the doors.

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters as she picks it up from the ground. “You’re lucky only the screen is cracked and not the whole damn phone.”

“I don’t fucking give a single shit about my phone!” I retort as I stomp to my car.

“Wow, wow, wow, hold up.” She blocks my way. “Tell me what’s going on?”

“Silas is going to torture Levi to instigate a fucking family war,” I growl as I move past her. “I have to find him. Now.”

Her eyes widen. “Holy shit, really?”

“Really,” I say, as I open my car door and sit down behind the wheel. “I don’t have time to waste.”

“Do you know where Levi is?”

“No. Silas probably already took him. But I know a few places to look.” I close my door.

She runs around to the other side. “Wait,” she says, ripping open the passenger door. “I’m coming with you.”

“What the fuck, Sisi? No. You’ll only get in the way.”

“Bullshit.” She puts her seat belt on. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to get hurt, but I can handle myself.” She turns my key until the car begins to hum. “Now drive.”

I glance sideways at her cheekiness, but her big smile always makes me roll my eyes. Goddamn princess always knows how to get her way.

“Give me your phone.”

“For what?” Cecelia asks.

“Call your brother.”

She frowns but still dials Heath’s number. “Okay…” she says, as she puts it on speaker.

After a while, he finally picks up. “What do you want?”

“Where did Silas take him?”

“Dude … please don’t ask me to interfere.”

“He’s my fucking cousin, Heath. I’m not letting Silas rip him to shreds. Do you know what we’re risking here?”

“I know, but he’s my best friend.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re both fucking Ivy,” Cecelia says, and I’m proud of her. Definitely my sister all right.

“It’s not just that. I owe him my loyalty.”

“Bullshit, Heath. You’re my brother. You owe me too.”

He sighs out loud. “Goddammit, Silas is gonna kill me for this …”

“Just tell me before I make Max tell me instead!” I shout while driving.

“All right, all right. He’s probably at the Shack, if I know him well enough.”

“The Shack?” I mumble.

“The abandoned house, when you drive down from the mountain. You know, the one people think is haunted.”

“Oh … the druggie house,” Sisi mutters.

“Got it,” I reply.

“Don’t tell him I told you. I don’t want to ruin thin—”

“Call Max and Ivy, tell them to come to the Shack,” I interrupt. “You too.”

“What? No, Max is Levi’s half brother. It’s insane to put him between Silas and Levi, that’ll destroy him! Not to mention Ivy.”

“Listen to me, if we don’t nip this shit in the bud before it explodes, our families are going to kill each other,” I growl back. “So get everyone to the Shack, now .”

I turn off the phone and focus on driving there as fast as I possibly can.

“Open the glove compartment.”

Cecelia presses the button and out falls my gun, right into her lap, and her eyes widen. “Apollo, what the fuck are you doing with this?”

“It’s for emergencies.”

“Does Dad know you stole this from him?”

“No, and I wanna keep it that way,” I say, looking at her intently.

“What are you gonna do with this?” she asks, hesitation in her voice.

“If it comes down to it …” I say as I grab the gun, making sure it’s loaded and ready to go. “You’re gonna have to pick a side. Pick the right one.”

Levi

Ten minutes ago

I stare at the grimy walls as a mixture of saliva and blood drips down my lip.

I don’t know how long I’ve been strapped to this chair or how many times I’ve been hit with Silas’s baseball bat.

In this decrepit, old wooden building, kept together by rot and maggots, time easily slips away.

The pain doesn’t faze me anymore. Each hit is a little harder than the one before.

Hard enough to make me bleed, but not hard enough to knock me unconscious.

It’s like he knows exactly how to meticulously strip someone from their existence, piece by piece.

Like a true psychopath.

And I kind of envy his ability to turn it all off.

“Are you going to cry for Mommy yet?” Silas growls, gripping my hair so I look up at him.

When I don’t reply, he spits in my face. “Fuck you, Torres. You don’t deserve to keep your life.”

I snort. “You’re right about that…”

His eye twitches. “We’ll see if you’re still laughing like that when I’m done with you.”

He pulls out a knife and jams it right into my thigh, and I howl in pain.

He chuckles. “That’s more like it, Torres. Cry like a little bitch!”

He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of me, the blinding light making me squint. “There. For keepsake, after I’ve pulled your brains out of your ass.”

“Fuck you,” I hiss.

THWACK!

He hits me in the stomach, and I groan as more spit and blood roll off my tongue and onto the floor.

He chucks the bat away. “You think you have the moral high ground here?” Silas growls as his fingers squeeze around my throat, suffocating me. “You’re a fucking murderer who deserves nothing but hell. So let me fucking give it to you.”

He pulls the knife out only to carve up a piece of my chest, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. My nails dig into the wood of the armrests I’m strapped to, to keep the screams at bay.

“How long do you think you can last against me, hmm? Two hours? Five?” He keeps carving, leaving scars everywhere he goes, like he’s marking me. “I can draw this out for however long I want to see you bleed.” His teeth grind together. “Just like you let my fucking sister bleed after you.”

Finally, he releases my throat, and I suck in a breath. “I didn’t make her do anything.”

“You fucking pushed her off the cliff and killed her!” he roars. “And after I’m done with you, I will throw you off that same fucking cliff so you can taste her fucking blood like you wanted!”

He punches me in the face, and my nose bleeds profusely. But I still laugh my way through the pain.

“What’s so fucking funny?!” he yells, grabbing my throat again. He squeezes so hard I can barely even think straight. “Cat caught your fucking tongue?” He puts the knife against my lips. “Maybe I should slice it out.”

Between his squeezes, I manage to breathe out, “Do. It.”

His eyes narrow again as the knife inches closer and closer. “Why are you so eager to die, Torres? You wanna meet death so badly already?”

“Nothing you do can hurt me more than I already hurt myself,” I reply.

He snorts and shoves me back, circling the room. “Can’t believe you hit me with an empty platitude.”

“Not a platitude. It’s the truth.”

“You think you know what pain is?” he shouts back halfway across the room, pointing the knife at me. “You think you know what it’s like to watch the strongest woman you have ever known crumple right in front of you because her daughter is dead?”

I swallow.

I can’t change what happened, and I know what I did was wrong.

But I can’t sit here and lie any longer.

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Stop lying!” he yells, storming at me to shove the knife under my throat. “Admit it. Fucking admit that you murdered Mavis in cold blood. Say it to my face how you wanted her to die.”

“And then what?”

“So eager to prove me wrong on how long I can torture my victims …” He scoffs. “You think this is my first time?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think it’s smart to lie to my face?”

Blood rolls down my neck. “I didn’t kill her. She fell.”

“Again with the fucking lies …”

“You want the fucking truth? All right, here it is. We made a fucking pact to jump together,” I say.

“Why the fuck would she do that?” he snarls.

“Because we were both in love with someone who didn’t love us back, and she decided she was going to start over and stop yearning.”

“What? That makes zero sense,” he replies. “Who the fuck would she be in love with—”

“Your buddy Heath,” I fill in.

It takes a few seconds for it to finally land with him. “No way. She would never—”

“They were together constantly.”

“She wasn’t into him!”

“Says who?” I retort. “You? You think she told you everything?”

He steps back, disdain on his face. “You’re lying. You’re trying to get into my head.”

I shake my head. “It’s the truth.”

“Then why the fuck is she dead?”

“Because I couldn’t fucking jump, that’s why!”

He laughs. “Bullshit.”

THWACK!

Another punch hits me right in the face.

“Fuck you. Fuck you for killing my sister. And fuck you for lying about it.”

I chuckle. “Fine, then don’t believe me. Become the killer you accuse me of being.”

THWACK!

“Fuck you. I’m protecting my family and getting my revenge.”

I snort. “Protecting? This is what you call protecting?”

“At least I’m protecting my other sisters from the likes of you,” he says, spitting on me again.

He punches me again and again, but all I do is laugh.

If I can’t win this fight, then neither can he.

“What are you fucking laughing about?” he screams in my face.

“Too late,” I mutter under my breath.

“Too late for what ?”

I look up at him from underneath my eyelashes. “Aspen is already mine.”

His whole face slowly begins to twitch as he leans away, fingers quaking around the knife. “You fucked my sister?”

And I don’t think I’ve ever heard his voice become more unhinged.

He grabs the bat again, fingers curling around the handle so tightly I wonder if the wood is going to break, his eyes bloodshot, lethal, and bone-chilling in a way I’ve never seen before.

So this is what he looks like when he truly intends to kill.

He raises the bat and swings, so I close my eyes and think of her.