Page 275 of Heart So Hollow

“I hate to tell you this, hon,” I sigh over her shoulder, “but Bo doesn’t give a shit what we do to you. You’re only as useful as that wet ass pussy you brought up here.” I lift my eyes to Bowen, “If we decide to run a train on you right here in front of him, he’ll just go back down to Canaan and find another just like you…” I lean into her ear, “maybe someone who didn’t go to school with the last girl he brought out here…” Asher’s chest caves beneath my bat and her lungs deflate in horror. “Yeah,” I say with enough venom to kill an elephant, “you know who I’m talking about. So, why don’t you beat him back home and tell your friends what’ll happen the next time they want to get dicked down by a murderer.”

Alex circles Bowen’s Lancer, stabbing his knife through each tire as he passes. With a swing of his bat, Aiden shatters one taillight, and then the other.

“But how rude would I be if I let you go home without anything to remember him by?” I glance at Mason and give a sharp nod to Asher. Mason rises and steps behind her to take my place, jerking her against his chest with the bat. “Hold her legs,” I bark at Josh.

He does as I say as she starts screaming hysterically. I step around him and dig into my back pocket, producing a black Sharpie seconds later. At first, she doesn’t know what I’m doing, only that I’m grabbing her waist to hold her still. I bite the top of the marker and pop it off. Then, in sharp, jagged letters, I scrawl one word across her stomach, covering as much skin as I can and tracing over each letter three times to make sure the ink soaks in deep.

SLUT

The jeers from the rest of the guys get louder as I drag the last line down my T and I step back, admiring my work. Asher looks slightly relieved, but no less terrified.

“And just to make sure there’s no confusion…” I step closer and grab Asher over the top of her head, pressing her head into Mason’s shoulder.

She continues screaming, tears streaming down her face, while I hold her head steady and scrawl two more words across her forehead. And I make sure my handwriting is the neatest it’s ever been, just so everyone will know.

BO’S SLUT

After I’m done, I shove her face away and take a step back as I recap my marker, “Better get to walking, sweetheart,” I glance back at Bowen and his bloody face glowering at me, “before he catches up to you.”

Mason swings his arm back and sweeps it forward again as the bat falls from Asher’s chest. His palm lands with a smack on her ass, propelling her forward. She takes off with a shriek across the clearing with an eruption of hoots and howls at her back. In seconds, she’s gone, disappearing into the night.

The shouts turn to laughter as we start meandering back toward Mason’s truck, our work done for the night. I swing my bat onto my shoulder and backtrack, holding Bowen’s eyes.

“Did you get it out of your system?” he calls to me with a hint of a smirk.

“It’s never going to stop,” I shake my head, “not until you’re in prison or in the ground.” Then I turn on my heel and follow the rest of the masked demons back into the headlights.

???

Mason’s assumption turns out to be strikingly accurate. They don’t arrest all of us. Less than 48 hours after slashing Bowen’s tires and scaring the shit out of his little fuck toy, on the day before finals, I catch movement in the hallway outside Mrs. Slone’s English class. She glances up from her high-top chair behind the podium and freezes when two officers in black uniforms waltz through the door.

Wells Rhinehardt nods to her as he crosses the room, “Excuse the interruption, ma’am.”

He turns down the aisle on my right while the other one—the same one from Evie’s house—takes my left. Murmurs ripple through the room when they come to a halt at my desk.

“On your feet,” Wells orders.

“Are you lost?” I mutter with disregard, “This isn’t your jurisdiction.”

Wells flashes a brief, but annoyed smile before grabbing my t-shirt and hauling me to my feet. On reflex, I shove him in the chest, which only gets me spun around and slammed down chest first onto the desk.

“Hey!” I hear Mrs. Slone bark as the room erupts in gasps and everyone within five feet of me jumps out of their chairs to get out of the way.

“Colson Lutz,” he booms from overhead as he wrenches my arms behind my back, “you are under arrest for the crime of menacing by stalking and trespassing…” I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my jaw in frustration.

“That’s excessive force!” a girl shouts from somewhere on my right.

“This shit’s police brutality,” another guy calls from behind me.

But Wells and his underling don’t seem to be swayed, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” the other officer grips the back of my neck, pressing my cheek into the desk so I can’t move, “you have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you are being questioned,” I feel the handcuffs around my wrists and hear the zip as they’re locked in place.

In my limited field of vision, I see Sydney Van Doren still sitting at her desk two aisles over, knuckles white, her silvery blue eyes gaping at me in shock. She lives next door to me…kind of. She lives in the mansion behind the dense grove of trees next to my house, but our driveways dump out onto the road right next to each other.

“Sydney,” I lock eyes with her, my face still smashed against the desk, “tell Scott I’m in Canaan.”

She keeps looking back and forth between me and Wells, but nods frantically and starts rummaging through her bag for her phone.

Once I’m cuffed, Wells grabs the back of my shirt and hoists me upright, continuing to read me my rights as he marches me to the front of the room past a crowd of cell phones. Mrs. Slone is at her desk, on the school phone, angrily watching the scene unfold.

---