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KALEB

H uman connection.

Such a foreign fucking concept.

Small touches. Hushed conversations. Lingering eye contact.

I never understood them.

And not for lack of trying.

Silently, I’d watch them. People on the street. Kids in school. I’d be curious to understand what they saw in it that I couldn’t.

Eventually, I got bored. I kept to myself.

Then, I became Shiloh’s stepbrother.

Then everything clicked.

Every bone in my body craved that connection. Her nearness. Her smiles.

The trust she placed in me whenever her father stepped into the room. It was more than a feeling. It was a metaphorical blanket that she cast over me .

Just like her serious expression when she looked at me when I wore my mask. She was the only one to ever see through me.

The only one who wanted to make sense of the kid behind the mask.

Shiloh had no ulterior motive. She wasn’t doing it so she could point out and laugh at the soulless freak she’d find underneath.

She cared about me, and I wanted that. From her and no one else.

Shiloh reached into my marrow. Worked her magic. Changed the genetic map of my distorted DNA.

She still does that.

I still want it.

That’s why I’ve been soaking up every ounce of her attention over the past few days in the Davis’s apartment, where we’ve been cocooned together. Where we connected and fucked and talked and breathed each other in.

I couldn’t get enough of her. Her sweet gasps. Her voice. The adoration in her glinting blue eyes. Her attentiveness when I told her about my years at Berkshire.

Her tight cunt. How it squeezes me when she comes.

Making her come is one of my favorite things to do.

Doing her is my favorite of them all.

“It’s not fair.” She lets out a nervous giggle. It rings in the small space of the Davis’s car, filtering through her mask.

Yes, hers.

Dark with red Xs for eyes. A red smile .

A mask identical to the one I’m wearing, except mine is neon blue.

My old ones wouldn’t have worked for this particular mission. We needed something new for our fresh start. We bought them online, choosing the creepy masks together.

We’ll kill our parents together, too.

As soon as we start walking.

It’s a short distance to get to their home. Less than a few dozen feet, really.

We pulled up behind one of the bigger houses. The license plate of our getaway car will stay hidden that way. Away from their cameras and motion sensor lights.

Shiloh huffs, and it’s adorable. She’s expecting me to ask her what isn’t fair?

She has things she wants to say to me.

Before I ask her, I stare outside the windshield and onto the street.

Letting her wait is another sick, fucked-up turn-on. Her anticipation tastes as sweet as everything about her.

So yeah, I look outside.

There are people everywhere. Adults, teenagers, and kids in costumes. They don’t spare a glance our way. They are busy prancing around as skeletons, witches, andghosts.

They’re buzzing the intercoms so the people in the other mansions fill their pumpkin buckets with candy.

Celebrating Halloween without a care in the world.

This won’t be the case for our parents.

Confusion will come first. Shock second. Terror will be the last thing on their minds before they die .

Shiloh’s hand clutches onto mine. I’m done making her wait.

“What isn’t fair?” I trail my fingertips over the edge of her mask. Thread them into her hair that she’s left down. So thick. So smooth. Begging to be tugged.

Later.

“That you can pull off any mask.”

Poor thing, she’s nervous as hell. I’ve studied enough people to catalog this as anxious babbling. Clipped words. High-pitched voice.

She’s talking for the sake of talking. Because it soothes her.

No need. That’s what I’m here for.

I decide that, after all, this is the right time to yank on her hair. Shiloh rewards me with an erotic gasp that has my cock jerking.

Later. For real this time.

“Kaleb, what are you doing?” she asks, but doesn’t swat my hand away.

I tilt my head. “Do I have your attention, little sister?”

“We’re going to be late.” She’s talking about the meeting her dad’s secretary arranged for her at his home. “He’ll notice something’s up and?—”

A harder yank it is, then. She cries out, and I angle my body over the console, towering over her. “Do. I. Have. Your. Attention?”

“Yes,” she whimpers, and her pain gets me harder. Her pain turns me into a vicious man. I love that her anxiety is eating her alive, yet she can’t help but lean into me. The monster. The man who gives her what she needs instead of what she wants. “Yes.”

“We’re going to go in there.” I relay the plan we ran through at least ten times today. It soothes her. Helps her focus.

“Yes.”

“We’ll get the safes’ combinations. We’ll kill them.”

“What if?—”

Like a snake, I slither a hand around her throat. Squeeze.

Silencing her.

“Anything can happen once we’re there.” I groan at her rapid pulse, how it flutters beneath my fingertips. “It won’t change the outcome. Both of them will die, and we’ll get out of there no matter what. And, yeah, they might wound us if they try, sure.”

A shudder sweeps through her. I choke her harder. Showing her the only thing she should worry about is me.

“We could be harmed. But we’ll live. We’ve gone through too much. Spent years apart when we should’ve been together.” The twinge of pain in my heart isn’t self-pity. I ache for her. For what she’d gone through in my absence. I didn’t realize the impact it had on her until I returned to her life. Never again. “We’re ending it now. Any threat to us will be eliminated tonight. It’s you and me for fucking ever. This is it. Understood?”

Hesitation shifts into confidence. Her shoulders square, hand clutching my black hoodie. “Understood.”

“Good girl.” I rub her neck with my thumb. Loosening my grip on her hair .

We climb out of the car, pull our hoods over our heads, and blend into the street.

The colors are more vivid from this up close.

Orange, purple, and red lights hang on the gates and houses. Fake cobwebs, skeletons, and giant spiders decorate every home in the street. Frankenstein, Anabelle, and life-size vampire dolls are scattered around.

A persistent undercurrent inside me demands I do something about the people walking around us. Catch the closest adult by the throat, strangle them, then hang them up on the nearest gate.

Strange how the need is stronger than it was when I was a kid.

Now, all I see are potential victims.

My hunger should’ve been sated after killing so many people since I left Berkshire.

It hasn’t. If anything, it’s multiplied.

But it’s not out of control.

Besides, I’ll have plenty of blood on my hands soon enough.

Shiloh squeezes my hand. “You’re quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing good.” I squeeze her head back, staring at the red Xs on her mask. The red smile. The color of blood.

“Hmm.” She nods, understanding me through our silent communication. “You were looking at the houses.”

“They’re nice. ”

She’s still nervous. I gesture toward the expansive lawns, the people. Pretend that we’re anormal couple strolling through the neighborhood to distract her.

“I don’t hate it. I didn’t have any of it growing up. Then we moved in with you, but I got sent away to Berkshire right before we could decorate. So, yeah. They’re nice.”

“Oh.”

I’m trying to calm her down. That’s why I’m rambling. In the process, I’ve opened up too much. I don’t hate it. It’s just fucking weird that I want to explain myself to her.

“Dad didn’t allow Mom to go to work.” A few more feet, and we’ll reach our old home. In the meantime, I talk to her. “He never earned much. That’s why we couldn’t afford decorations or anything like that. Not like anyone ever cared to celebrate anything in our home.”

Talking time is over. We’ve made it to the Talbots’ gates.

She could’ve done this by herself. She’s strong and fierce as fuck.

She thinks she needs me.

She doesn’t.

It’s me. I need her to need me.

Pressing a hand to the small of her back, I play the role of her personal bodyguard as I tower over her. I’m her human shield while she punches in the code on the digital screen that will let us through.

The gates open seamlessly.

“Shi.” I press two fingers to her chin, tipping her face up to me. We can’t go in there if she’s feeling off. After all, this is for her. The beating of my heart. The squeeze and release of my lungs. This revenge. “I’d rather have you in there, but if you’re not up to?—”

She flattens her gloved hand on my chest. Cocks her head to the side.

Mimicking me. God, what a fucking turn-on. “We won’t get caught.”

An assurance. That’s what she’s asking of me.

I shouldn’t be relieved that this is what’s bothering her. That this isn’t about her having second thoughts.

I’m repulsed by how relieved I feel. I surrender to it.

Shiloh is my twisted little thing.

She wants me just the way I am.

Faulty. Broken. Murderous.

“Never,” I reassure her, taking the first steps inside and guiding her alongside me. “We’re never getting caught.”

Manicured lawns line either side of the driveway. Sweeping gardens, bushes, and flowers look like they came out of a magazine.

Floodlights illuminate our way to the mansion that grows closer and closer. The brick walls are right there, about thirty feet from where we are.

The familiar arched wood and glass door come into view, engulfed by two sconces on the walls.

Years-old hate twists my chest.

This view is the last thing I saw the last time I was here. When police officers dragged me out and thrusted meinto one of the cruisers on the property. My mother stayed inside, barricaded in her room where Shiloh’s dad had ordered her to wait for him .

She wasn’t there.

Shiloh was.

She followed us out, stood in the doorway. Backlit by the blaring lights from inside the house.

Pink pajama set. Wide blue eyes. Hand reaching out to me.

Please , she mouthed. Please, don’t go .

Then her dad grabbed her forearm and threw her back inside.

Fucker. I would’ve killed him if it wasn’t for the goddamn cops.

“You and me. Forever,” she vows.

Our hands squeeze one another at the same time.

“Forever.”

She rings the doorbell.

Footsteps echo on the black-and-white marble floor.

Trick-or-trick, motherfuckers.