Page 74 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Apollo

“Apollo!” Aspen’s angelic voice calls me from the woods, where she and Grey hide behind a tree stump from Levi’s mom and her gang of killer boyfriends. Aspen points at the vans on the road, along with the gun-sporting men who just came pouring out.

Penelope’s yell fills the air. “Find Levi! Bring him to me!”

Wait a fucking minute.

That’s not family. They’re only here to kill Levi.

And Aspen just begged me to save him.

A wicked smile spreads on my face.

Free meat.

I bolt toward the van, dodging a stray bullet, before I ram right into them like a fucking bull they couldn’t prepare for. “Yeehaw!” I punch the guy in the face until his nose is mangled and his eyes pop out, then throw him aside.

One of them jumps me, and I grab him off my back and swing him into the crowd of men. Three of them fall on top of each other, and when one of them wraps their hands around me, I grab hold, fling him over my head, and stomp on his face until his skull cracks on the pavement.

“He’s a monster!” one of them screams. “Kill him!”

But the men are meek, like scared little lambs facing the wolf.

I grin, waiting until at least one of them dares to step closer. “Who wants to die next?”

With a quick move, I steal his gun, aim it at his own belly, and shoot.

BANG!

Two guys aim at me, so I grab the guy’s body and hold it up as bullet-fodder until they’ve wasted all of their ammo, then I discard him like trash.

I lunge at the first one in sight, grab him by the skull, and shove him into another guy’s helmet until they’re both smashed into the van.

I snatch a big, fat knife from his hand and thrust it into both of them, skewering them alive, as blood splatters everywhere.

I laugh like a maniac because I’ve never felt more elated in my life.

“Yes, yes, yes! This is what I live for!”

One of them jumps on my back and tries to hit me with his empty gun, while the others scramble to find more bullets to load, but I tear him off me and toss him into the crowd too, then storm right at them before they even have the chance to reload.

I grasp the wrists of an unsuspecting fucker while he’s trying to grab his gun, and I twist them until they crack and splinter on all sides, breaking his bones. He screeches as I rip out one of the bones with my bare hands and shove it into his chest, straight through his heart.

I steal a knife from someone’s pocket and ram it into his eye socket, tearing it out only to ram it into the next one’s eye, shoving them both back into the van so I can pin them to the metal and make a nice fucking work of art out of the corpses of those who tried to hurt my family.

No one fucking touches my family.

And when Aspen calls … I will heed.

Aspen

“Holy shit,” Grey mutters, gulping at the sight of Apollo’s onslaught.

But I knew he was the only one who could stop them from going right for Levi’s throat while he’s at his weakest.

Mom’s out for blood, and she won’t stop until this is settled.

Suddenly, another motorcycle races down the mountain, black hair with green streaks fluttering beneath a helmet, and my blood runs cold.

“Oh no,” I mutter. “Sunny Reed is here.”

“Is that bad?” Grey asks. “She’s Levi’s sister, right? She can help us.”

“No. If she sees Silas, he’s dead.”

I peer up as she parks the motorcycle and hops off with Elliot, who she brought with her, and she immediately pulls out her guns, jumping into the crowd of men who came out of the vans.

BANG! BANG!

“Maxie-boy! You called me!” she yells between blowing someone’s brains out. “Where the fuck are you? Tell me who I have to kill!”

“What the fuck is my daughter doing here?” Nathan growls.

“Sunny, Elliot, just in time!” Max shouts. “Silas is trying to kill Levi.”

“WHAT?!” she shrieks, pulling two knives out of a body and kicking the dead person aside. “Where are you hiding that white-haired menace? No one touches my brother!”

“Sunny, over here!” Elliot yells, pointing at the forest through which I just saw Silas disappear, and he rushes after him.

“This is a mess. It’s all a bloody mess,” I mutter as the adrenaline spikes. “What do I do? How do I fix this?”

“We have to find Levi and get him out of here,” Grey says, looking around. “His mom will never let us get close, though.”

Still, I risk it and crawl up from the ground, away from the tree stump to try to find Levi in the midst of the conflict.

BANG!

A gunshot fires off, the stray bullet scraping my knee as it passes, and I hiss in pain.

Sunny actually fired a shot at me, but her eyes aren’t even aimed at me. They’re aimed at Silas, who’s running right past me.

“No!” I shriek at Sunny. “Don’t kill my fucking brother!”

Apollo’s right behind her, zigzagging through the woods, before he jumps right on top of her. He steals her gun, aiming it at her head. “You shoot at my girl one more time, and I'll put a bullet in your head.”

Sunny spits on his face and kicks him in the balls, then crawls off the ground to get away, but Grey runs after her instead, firing shots left and right from a gun he must’ve stolen off one of my mom’s dead men.

I turn to run after Silas, who darts through the trees to get to Levi first.

“Silas, stop!” I scream, swatting away the branches as I rush through the forest after him. But Elliot is on his tracks too, and he’s already pulled out a knife, ready to aim.

Shit!

Behind me, both Lana and my mom throw knives at each other while darting through the woods in our tracks. They’re all following us, along with all the dads and their kids.

Oh God.

If I don’t put a stop to this, they’re going to kill each other.

“Stop!” I shriek, but no one is listening, as shots and knives are thrown out left and right.

“If I find you, you’re dead, Silas!” Sunny screams.

We come to a clearing, the same clearing where I once found Grey strapped to a chair, and Levi is at the other side, dragging himself along out of pure will.

“There you fucking are,” Silas grits.

When Levi spots Silas, he pulls a knife from his pocket and turns around, propping himself up as best as he can for an incoming attack, defending himself with honor despite his wounds.

“Don’t touch him!” Lana shouts from across the clearing.

A knife suddenly flicks into the ground beside me, and I make the decision to pick it up and throw it right back at her.

I don’t know what possesses me. I don’t want to hurt Levi’s mom, but someone has to stop her from trying to kill both me and my brother.

“Silas, quit it!” I scream. “You’re gonna get us all killed!”

“I’m finishing what I started,” he growls back.

To my left, Kai is zigzagging through the woods, while to my right my own dad glares at him while bolting in the same direction. They’re both headed for Levi, trying to protect me and Silas, and someone’s going to die.

Fuck.

Felix pops out of the woods and jumps Nathan, who was running behind me, and he fists him in the face. But Nathan kicks him in the stomach, and they roll over. A knife flashes and Nathan cuts into Felix’s hand. A loud roar fills the woods.

BANG!

Kai fires a shot at my dad, and he strays behind in the woods, bleeding from a wound I can’t tell will kill him.

Anger fires me up, and as I catch up to Silas, I snatch a small gun right out of his hands and aim at Kai.

BANG!

The shot misses.

Silas has gotten away, and he’s already up close with Levi.

Shit!

Levi

Shots fire right above my head, and I duck, but Silas is right in front of me, swiping with a knife.

“I’ll fucking end you!”

I dodge left and right, jumping on my feet despite the pain, and I lunge at him with my own knife, stabbing him whenever I have the chance.

He hisses in agony when I cut into his shoulder. “Fuck you. I should’ve killed you back in that Shack.”

“You think you drained me of all my fight?” I growl back. “I fucking trained for this day. I won’t let you kill me in front of her.”

I punch him in the face so hard he groans and heaves, but he quickly recovers.

“Oh yes, you fucking will.” He points his bloody knife at me. “An eye for an eye, motherfucker. You will die like a miserable cockroach, along with your entire fucking family.”

He lunges at me again, and I jump backward, fighting through the pain. He swipes and swipes with the knife. Mid-thrust, I grab his wrist and knock it out of his hand, then kick him in the stomach.

“Fuck,” he grits.

Silas punches my leg in the exact spot he hit me with the bat, and I thrust my knife to answer for the pain he caused, cutting into his abdomen.

Aspen is so close, I can almost reach out to touch her.

Maybe there’s still time before I die.

Just one more touch.

One more shared breath.

“Don’t you fucking hurt my kids!” Penelope shrieks from the woods behind me.

BANG! BANG!

I groan in agony as one of the bullets lodges into my abdomen.

She shot me.

Silas suddenly jumps on top of me and forces me to the ground. He pulls out the knife I poked him with and aims it at my face, so I grab his wrists mid-air as it’s about to penetrate my skull.

“NO!”

Aspen’s scream is like a siren’s call, beckoning me to come … begging me to stay.

I can’t die. I don’t want to die. Not yet.

But if this is my time, I don’t want her to see me go down either.

“Aspen,” I murmur as I briefly glance at her. “Run.”

Aspen

No.

I can’t fucking let him die alone.

Overwhelmed by the need to protect, I grab Silas from behind and hold on tight. “Stop!”

He fights me off. “What the fuck—no! He’s a killer, Aspen! Stop fucking defending him!”

I hold on as hard as I can, pressing my full body weight into him so he can’t move.

“Let me go or I will cut you, Aspen,” he warns.

“Do it.”

But he doesn’t slice me.

“That fucker is not worth the pain he caused you!” he yells. “Let me hurt him back!”

My eyes widen.

Silas wanted to avenge … me?

BANG!

Another shot fires from Lana’s gun straight into Silas, and it hits him in the shin.

“Fuck!” Silas slowly sinks to the ground with me. “Let me go!” he roars. “Let me kill that son of a bitch!”

Lana’s closing in, and I don’t want to lose Silas, but I don’t know how to make him stop either.

“Please, Silas, you have to stop.”

“Give me one good fucking reason!”

My mom is swiftly approaching from the opposite side, while Lana is on the other side of the forest.

“My son does not deserve to die over a mistake!” Lana yells at us, her gun pointed at our heads.

Silas is on his knees in front of Levi, clutching his leg from the pain.

“He abused Aspen!” Silas’s roar fills the woods.

And my heart sinks into my shoes.

That’s what he made himself believe.

The final trigger that made him want to kill Levi.

“That motherfucker—” My mom rapidly approaches. “Killing my daughter was not enough, you had to go and violate my other daughter too?!”

From mere feet away, Mom raises her gun at Levi’s face as he crawls off the ground.

Between the violence of two mothers hell-bent on protecting the people they love, I do the only thing I can think of and throw myself into their aim, shielding Levi’s body and face with mine, raising my hand to meet the barrel of my mother’s gun.

“Step aside, Aspen,” Mom says sternly.

“You kill my son, and I will kill your daughter,” Lana warns, pointing her gun at me.

“No,” I say. “I won’t let you kill him.”

“I heard what Silas said. He hurt you. AND he killed Mavis,” she says.

“If you kill him, you kill me too,” I say calmly, holding on as tightly as I can.

She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, but I am not letting go. Not ever.

The others emerge from the woods too, slowly approaching with guns and knives at the ready, each waiting for the other to act first.

But I’m done fighting my own family.

Done pretending I can live with the secrecy and lies.

“Mom … I love Levi.”