Page 73 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Apollo

Silas laughs out loud. “You thought I was gonna call the family for backup?” His teeth gleam. “No bitch, I sent them a picture of the carnage.”

“What?!” Max screams as he gets up, hands in his hair. “Oh no, this is bad. This is so fucking bad.”

Ivy looks around. “Wait, where’s Levi?”

“Away from Silas,” Grey says. “Safe.”

“You think you can keep him away from me? I’ll fucking hunt that fucker down like I always have,” Silas growls, attempting to attack Grey, but I keep him at bay with a single hand. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to get in my way!”

“Exactly why I can’t let you,” I say.

“Get your filthy fucking hands off me,” Silas growls back.

If he keeps going on like this, I’m going to pummel him through the walls of this rickety house.

“Why the fuck are we letting Levi off the hook, and why are you protecting him?” Xavier asks. “He hurt her!”

I furrow my brows at him. “You don’t know anything. Shut up.”

“Well, I would if someone would fucking tell me! All I know is a violent killer was just shoved into a car, and my sister drove off with him,” Xavier shouts.

“We gotta get out of here, now,” Max mutters, nearly ripping out his own hair. “Oh God. If my mom finds out you tortured Levi, she’s gonna kill you.”

“That’s the whole fucking point!” Silas grins.

“You got a death wish or something?” Heath asks.

I pull Silas closer, hissing right up in his face, “You did this. You messaged his mom. Why?”

Silas pulls his phone from his pocket and shows me the message, along with the picture he sent of Levi covered in blood from the wounds he gave him, like a proud son of a bitch. “I didn’t just fucking send it to her. I sent it to everyone .”

“Fuck,” Heath growls.

Silas bursts out into laughter. “I sent that to the whole fucking family, my own included. My mother is going to kill you all for trying to get in my way.”

The motorcycle shoots across the road and stops near us, screeching wildly. Levi’s mom, Lana, raises her visor. “Where is he?” Her voice sounds deranged. Like she could just about knife us all down if we don’t respond swiftly enough. “Where is my son?”

When she locks eyes with Silas, Ivy, Max, and Heath immediately jump in front of him.

“You …” she hisses, and she pulls a butcher’s knife from her bag that makes all of our eyes widen collectively.

Suddenly, two more cars skid across the road, stopping right in front of the bike when Lana was about to hop off and swing her knife. Levi’s dad, Kai, Milo, and Nathan all jump out to stop her from flinging it at Silas while she roars out loud.

What a fucking nice-ass family reunion.

“What did you do to my son?”

“Levi’s gone, Mom,” Max says.

“Shut your damn mouth,” I growl at him.

Kai’s eyes widen. “Gone, as in…”

“You MURDERER!” Lana shoves them all aside and aims at Silas, but Ivy grabs him and ducks for cover. The blade flies past them and strikes the ground.

“He’s not dead!” I scream over the ruckus.

Kai marches over to me and grabs me by the neck. “Tell me where he is, right now!”

Silas throws out a stifled laugh as he gets up from the ground. “Aspen took him.”

“Where?” Kai grits.

“Don’t look at me,” I reply with a smug smile. “Unless you wanna start a fight with your nephew.”

He releases me again and homes in on Silas. “Tell me where he is!”

“You think she’d tell me?” Silas growls back.

Lana roars out loud and fishes out another knife. “That’s it. This ends now.”

Xavier, Heath, and Ivy stand in front of Silas, while Nathan and Milo back up Kai and Lana, pulling out their knives and guns.

“I’ve let this shit go on for far too long. You think you can just hurt my family without repercussions?” Kai growls.

“Motherfucker, try to hurt him, and I’ll gut you like a fish,” Heath growls back.

“Stay out of this, Heath,” Nathan growls at him.

“No. Ivy loves him, and I won’t let you fucking harm anyone she loves,” he replies.

“Max, get out of here, now,” Milo tells him.

“Nuh-uh,” Max says, blocking access to Silas too. “I’m with them.”

This thing is going to go sour real quick.

Right as Lana attempts an attack, more cars race up the mountain with screeching tires. Too late, because the fight has already broken out. They’re tearing each other from limb to limb.

“Motherfuckers,” I growl, watching them fight it out like animals, and I jump in just to keep them from cutting each other to pieces. I love a good brawl, but this isn't one of them.

I snatch a knife out of Nathan’s hand and chuck it away, and he punches me in the face for it.

“Don’t fucking interfere, Torres!” he growls.

“Then stop trying to fucking destroy each other!” I retort, before I grab his head and shove him so hard he falls back onto his ass.

“Fuck,” he groans.

“C’mon then!” Silas screams, as he grabs Lana’s knife with his bare hands. “Try to kill me!”

The cars come to a stop, and Silas’s mom, Penelope, rushes out with a gun.

BANG!

The bullet ricochets from the ground into a tree nearby, but the sound is enough to make everyone scramble.

“Stay away from my son, bitch!” she screams.

Alistair and Dylan jump out of the cars too, while Penelope approaches the group, her gun still aimed at Lana.

Behind us, more than a dozen vans all come up the mountain.

“What the …” Cecelia mutters.

Xavier’s eyes widen. “Mom brought her men?”

“I came prepared,” Aspen’s mom yells.

“I’m not staying for this,” Grey mutters, and he jumps on Max’s motorcycle.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Max screams, but Grey’s already raced off.

I blink once, then bolt to my car. Grey is right. Whatever is gonna storm out of those vans, I gotta get ahead of them.

“Follow that boy!” Lana screams.

But I’ve already jumped into my car and raced off.

Aspen

I drive as fast as I can up the hill, realizing there’s no way out. I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that I have to get away from there.

Silas nearly killed him.

I can’t let him die. I fucking won’t.

So I hit the gas and drive up the mountain, but the groaning in the back of the seat makes me turn my head in shock.

Thank God, he’s still alive.

“Uhnn…” he murmurs. “What happened?”

“Shhh, don’t talk,” I say, tears welling up in my eyes.

“Where am I?” He crawls up to sit and leans against the back window. “Silas hit me with the bat, didn’t he?”

“Just try not to move too much,” I reply. “I’m gonna get you to safety.”

If only I knew how.

Suddenly, a motorcycle bumps into me from the side, and I screech and pull the steering wheel too harshly, and the car begins to veer…

Straight into a tree.

Stars fill my sight as the airbag explodes, and I try to breathe.

One. Two. Three seconds.

Just breathe.

Keep going.

I push the airbags down and open the door, sucking in a breath as I stumble out of the car. I’m not hurt, but the engine is destroyed. There’s no way it’s gonna drive.

Shit.

The motorcycle stops nearby, and my eyes widen.

Two more cars drive around the corner, bumping into the other cars like they’re in a fight who gets to be there first.

Did Silas alert the entire fucking family?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

I run to the passenger’s door, which is still open, and I grab Levi’s hand and drag him out with me. “C’mon! Run!”

As the cars drive up to us, I can hear Grey shouting from a stolen motorcycle behind us. “Aspen, here!”

BANG! BANG!

The person who came in on the motorcycle shoots at Grey, who ducks and crashes the motorcycle on the road.

“Grey!” I shriek.

“Go to him,” Levi says, releasing my hand. “Leave me.”

“No, I can’t.”

He pushes me away and falls to one knee. “Do it.”

I hesitate, just one second, before I dart toward Grey to pull him out of the active fire that’s engulfed his motorcycle.

Apollo’s car drives up to us from the distance, carrying Heath and Cecelia, whose heads peek out the open windows to see what’s going on. Another car races right behind it, with Max and Ivy sticking their heads out their respective windows.

“No, not my baby!” Max screams at the sight of his dinged motorcycle.

BANG! BANG!

Shots come from the other cars behind them as they drive closer, windows lowered.

It’s Mom and Dad shooting at the motorcycle lady who was trying to kill us, and she takes off her helmet, her long, black hair flipping out as fast as her middle finger.

It’s Lana, Levi’s mom. She thinks I’m out to hurt Levi just like Silas was.

She aims and shoots again, and I grab Grey and duck behind a big tree stump.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Fuck, it hurts,” Grey groans as he shows me the bullet hole in his shoulder.

“Stay put,” I say.

“Why is she shooting at us?” he asks. “We’re not the bad guys here.”

“She wants to protect Levi. She thinks we’re gonna kill him,” I reply.

BANG! BANG!

“You’re not going to kill another one of my kids!” my mom screams, aiming from the window of the other car. All of them hop out one by one to shoot at each other. My mom, dad, Alistair, and even Felix all shoot at Lana’s feet to keep her from shooting at me.

“Stay away from my fucking daughter!” Dylan growls.

But the other cars come to a screeching halt near the opposite side of the road. Kai, Nathan, and Milo jump out, pulling their guns and knives one by one.

BANG! BANG!

The gun is knocked from my mom’s hand, blood rolling down her arm from a shot that hit her.

“Fine, you want to do it this way?” Mom barks as she rids herself of her empty gun, only to pull out two knives. “We’ll fucking play a good old stabby game.”

“You motherfuckers have hurt our family enough,” Felix growls, approaching the group.

“Come and fucking get me then,” Nathan growls back, spitting on the ground. “Time for a fucking rematch, bitch.”

BANG!

A bullet ricochets against a tree, right near where I left Levi.

My eyes skid around to try to find the origin.

Silas.

He hops out of Heath’s car, which he borrowed, and joins the fight on my mom’s side, while Lana and her guys are on the opposite side.

Alistair is the first to strike, slicing off a piece of Kai’s sweater. “You hurt my girl … now you pay the price.”

Dad hops around with his knives, grinning like a maniac, before he cuts Kai too.

But Kai seems unfazed. “Fuck you, you fuckers tortured my son,” Kai growls, slicing away at both Alistair and Dylan, hitting my dad in the arm.

“Dad!” I scream.

But he can’t even hear me over the fight. They’re dodging each other expertly, dancing like they’ve fought out this war many times over.

Will it ever stop?

I look up from the tree stump, hoping Lana is distracted enough so I can reach out to Levi, who’s still somewhere in those woods, struggling on his own.

“You should’ve run with your family when you had the chance,” my dad growls at Lana. “Now you pay the fucking price.”

“He tortured my fucking kid!” Lana screams back. “That’s not a fucking price for an accident!”

“An accident?” Felix says through gritted teeth. “You think killing my daughter was an accident ?”

He strikes out from pure rage, hitting Lana with the back of his knife.

“That doesn’t mean you can just let your son take revenge!” Kai barks back.

Nathan backs him up with punches in Felix’s gut. The three engage in a three-way fight, and my dad jumps in to even the playground.

“He’s a killer. He deserves a painful, tortured death,” Silas hisses as he steps forward.

Levi’s dad, Kai, storms at Silas. “Over my dead fucking body!”

The fight grows even bigger as Max jumps out of the car too and tries to defend his dad, who’s getting his face pummeled by Felix. When Max gets struck with a knife to the leg, Heath screams and storms at them, punching his way through the adults.

“Don’t fucking hurt him!” Heath screams.

Ivy jumps into the fray too to protect them, and I just can’t keep track of who’s fighting with who.

Near the road, a bunch of vans come to a shrieking halt, and the back doors slam open as dozens of suited-up and decked-out men waltz out, guns at the ready.

Oh God. Mom’s men are here.