Forty minutes earlier
I happily chomp away at my apple, not giving a care in the world while I enjoy the shade up here in the tree. It’s such a good fucking day that nothing could ever ruin it. Especially not some messages from Kai and Nathan asking me if I’m coming along tonight.
For just a minute, I’d like to pretend we’re all just students trying to make it through college without all the serial murdering shit.
Though I have to admit, Nathan does look fucking sexy when he’s covered in blood.
My blood would be better, but still.
I take another bite of the apple, but the piece barely makes it down my throat when I spot the girl in high heels waltzing across the pavement, headed straight toward me in that short black skirt and red button-down top that barely keeps her perky tits together.
And I must say, I can never, ever fucking get used to just how good she looks in real life compared to the videos and images Kai collected.
My dick twitches in my pants, still thick and filled with unmet desires from our previous encounter. Especially after Nathan added some tickling on top to make me extra squirmy. He loves seeing me unstable and on the fucking edge.
But I get the feeling she might be just as vindictive, if not more. And that alone makes it worth all of my time to ruin this perfect day.
Lana
I check my phone to see what and where my next class is after my break, but the second I walk past the biggest tree on campus, I shriek as something falls out of the branches.
An actual fucking dude.
Dangling upside down.
With an apple in his hand.
And it’s not just any guy … it’s Milo.
“What the f—”
“Hi, Lana!” he says with a cheerful smile.
I’m too shocked to even take another step. How the fuck is he even here right now?
“Headed somewhere?” he asks like it’s totally normal to hang from a tree. Upside down.
Talking to me.
The girl he and his friends used in a dark alley and left all alone to deal with the mess.
Rage bubbles up to the surface, and I follow my instinct.
PUNCH!
Right in the fucking face.
His eyes roll into the back of his head, and he tumbles out of the tree while I step back to avoid any damage to my expensive Manolo Blahnik shoes. With a loud groan, he falls onto the grass all crooked and fucked up, but I guess he’s still alive, considering he’s still making sounds.
Too bad.
“Fuck …”
The apple rolls across the ground in front of me, and I kick it away. “Serves you right,” I retort, folding my arms.
“God, that felt good.”
I frown.
What is up with him?
“Are you insane?”
“Maybe. Do you like insane guys?” he muses as he scrambles up from the ground, patting himself down. “Because if so, I’m as crazy as they come.”
I roll my eyes and waltz right past him. “Whatever.”
“Hey, wait up!” he yells.
“No, thanks,” I reply, keeping my head held high while I continue to strut.
But he keeps following me around, to the point that it gets me so fucking pissed I punch him in the face again when he’s right behind me.
He groans, but it swiftly turns into a high-pitched moan as he clutches his bloodied nose.
“You made me bleed.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t keep following me around then,” I retort. I fish my small knife from my pocket and point it at his stomach real close-up so no one can see. “I can make you bleed a whole lot more right now if you don’t walk away.”
“Oohh …” He practically giggles and presses his body farther into the blade. “Don’t tempt me, please.”
My brows furrow, and I just stare at him, utterly confused by his reactions to my violent nature. He should be scared, mad, angry, hell, maybe even upset, yet he’s the opposite.
I push the knife farther into his stomach and watch him hold his breath.
“For you, I’ll happily bleed,” he murmurs.
“Is that your way of apologizing for what you and your fucked-up buddies did?”
“I’m not sorry,” he says. “But I am sorry you hated it when I loved it … so fucking much.”
“You’re sick,” I hiss.
“I’m not the only one.”
The sparkle in his eyes makes it hard to look away.
What does he mean with that?
“Are you insinuating—”
When I attempt to punch him again, he catches my fist midair, and a wicked smile forms on his lips. “Yes. You like to cause pain.”
I gasp, too flabbergasted to speak. In a rush, he suddenly pushes me all the way to the wall of the school building, pinning me to it.
“Don’t act so surprised. You already knew how sadistic you were. You just never thought others would find out.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t like—”
“Not the mental pain.” He grabs my hand and puts it against his reddened cheek. “Physical pain.”
I slap him again, but even my second hand is caught midair, and now I’m truly trapped between him and the wall.
“You stopped me again. Why didn’t you stop me earlier?”
The grin on his face only becomes bigger. “Just because I can doesn’t mean I want to.” He leans in so close I can feel his breath on my skin as his hand slowly lowers from my wrist to my face. “Now are you going to try to slap me again just for saying hi?”
I expected him to hit me back.
What I’m not expecting is the sweetest caress I’ve ever felt, and it knocks the oxygen out of my lungs.
“Or are you going to let me kiss you?”
His lips are so close I can almost taste them, his eyes on mine as though he wants to see my reaction.
But when his lips connect with mine, I bite.
He inches back and brings his fingers to his lips, showing the blood. “Fuck … You know that only makes me want you more, right?”
“You enjoy pain,” I rasp.
“Only realizing that now?” he jests.
“What do you want from me?” I growl.
He plants his hands beside me on the wall. “I want what you gave them.” He tilts his head and whispers into my ear, “I want your body in exchange for the secret to be kept.”
Rage boils up inside me. “You’re despicable.”
He raises his brow. “Is that a no?”
“You were there in that alley too.”
His hand slowly slides down my face and across my chest. “I was there …” He goes all the way down to my nipple and pinches it between his fingers so harshly I almost cry out with a moan. In broad daylight. In front of the entire school.
“But I’ve not nearly had my fill of you.”
“Fuck you,” I grit.
“Oh yes … I would literally let a girl like you fuck me,” he groans, lips hovering dangerously close to my neck. “I would be a beggar on his knees praying to your goddamn pussy like I’m going to heaven.”
Jesus. I didn’t know he was that desperate for me.
But why the fuck did that make my pussy throb?
“You’ve got balls, I have to give you that,” I growl.
“Big blue balls,” he jokes. “But I know you’re more than willing to help me out with that …”
Wow. He’s really asking for a punch in the balls. “Why in the fucking hell would I?”
His hand covers my boob again, and he groans in my ear. “I can give you information.”
Now he’s got my attention.
I lean away to look into his playful eyes. “What kind of info?”
He looks around to see if anyone’s watching us before he leans in to whisper, “I know where our next kill will be.”
I suck in a breath at the thought of catching them in the act again.
If I can get there on time and take pictures, I’ll have just as much dirt on them as they do on me. And then I won’t be the only one with a secret on the line.
But I don’t trust him.
It’s too easy.
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
“Why not?” He shrugs, casually running his fingers through his short red hair. “I mean … you’re just as violent as we are. I say, why not share the fun?”
“You’d betray your friends for me?”
He puts his hand up against the wall and leans in. “Well, it’s not really betraying if they don’t know you’re there because of me.”
I take in a deep breath and think about it for a second. “Okay, tell me.”
A smirk spreads on his lips. “I will … for a price.”
My nostrils flare. “Fine.”
I grab his face and slam my lips on his, putting everything I have into this single kiss. And even though I hate him and his slinky ass with every fiber of my being, I still kiss him like my life depends on it. But when his lips part to kiss me back, his tongue swirls inside and claims mine like he’s wanted to kiss me since the day he set his eyes on me, and it catches me off guard.
Suddenly, his hands move away from my breasts, and he grips my face, slamming me into the wall as he kisses me so hard my brain goes numb, and for a moment, I’m too consumed to care I’m kissing one of the three worst boys on campus.
He groans into my mouth, tongue circling as he lavishly licks me, desperate for more. It’s as though my mouth is the sole reason for his existence, and something about that makes my heart jump into my throat.
I pull back and stare at him for a second, confused by what just swirled through my body. Was it overpowering rage or something else? Something more dark and disturbing … a type of hunger only satiated when I thrust a knife into a fucker’s heart.
But this kiss … it was nothing like the one he gave me in the Phantom Society.
“Satisfied?” I ask, wiping my lips to rid myself of the taste of him because I don’t want to be reminded of what I just felt.
“Fuck no … but it’s a start.” He grins. “I don’t just want your lips, Lana.” His hand drops down to my red top, and he pops one of the buttons, practically salivating at the mouth. “I want all of you.”
I frown. “Out here?”
He bites his lip and pops another button. “I’ll go naked with you anywhere, anytime, but if you want some privacy, I know a place.”
Before I can even say a word, he’s grabbed my hand and drags me into the building. “Wait!” His firm hand clutches mine so hard it’s impossible to shake him off. I never knew a guy as thin as him could have that much strength. Then again, those fucking veins and that fighting skill do kind of give it away.
He pulls me up the stairs to the second floor, where there’s an out-of-order bathroom, and he pulls a key from his pocket and shoves it inside.
“How do you have that?” I ask.
“Stole it from the concierge,” he muses with a smile like it’s the most normal thing to do on a college campus. “They haven’t been able to get in here since I got ahold of it.”
“There’s only one key?”
“It’s one of the older non-renovated bathrooms no one ever uses,” he says. “So it’s been a perfect place for some potheads to get high and wasted.”
“You mean you and your friends.”
I roll my eyes, but when he opens the door, he pulls me inside and shuts it behind us, trapping me inside.
There’s a bunch of stalls to the right, and a whole room to the left filled with showers that haven’t been used in ages. The place is grimy and smells like weed, and the small window in the back is barely large enough to let the fresh air in, let alone to sneak through.
A loud burst of steam exits through a vent in the back, and I shriek from the sudden noise.
Through the fog, he approaches like a stalker in the night, eyes lowered like a predator searching for prey, and my heart begins to race as I step back farther and farther until my butt hits the broken radiator.
And I worry for a moment this is gonna get rough.
A jacket slowly slips off his shoulders and falls to the floor as he loosens his cuffs and rolls them up. He reaches for his tie, a black one this time. The suits he wears are always a distraction to my eye because it makes him look sexy even when he shouldn’t. He takes it off slowly, the top button on his white shirt coming undone too, tattoos peeking out from below. I swallow, unable to look away as he stops in the middle of the bathroom, clenching the tie.
“Are you going to tie me up again? Use me like your friends did?” I ask, contempt lacing my voice.
He tilts his head forward and suddenly wraps the tie around his wrists, making me gawk. “No …” His knees slowly cave in on him, and he sinks to the cold, hard stones right in front of me. His eyes gaze up at me like he wants to worship me like I’m his goddess. “I want to submit. To be punished, to be hurt … to be used. Command my body. I am yours.”
