Page 7 of All Hallows Game

“I don’t have the time or energy for this.” Any time I wasted here, Virgil was suffering. I didn’t know what was happening to him, but my imagination was happy to provide a smorgasbord of torture. “Give me the fucking basket.”

“This basket?” I didn’t like the curve of his mouth, the way dimples cut into his cheeks. Misleading, and every bit as much armour as my numbness. The difference was I used my armour to hide the fact I was breaking down, and Alastor used his to hide the poison that rotted his soul.

When I was three steps away, he snagged the block of cheese from the basket and bit into it with gleeful satisfaction. I froze. Shit. I was supposed to deliver that to Everard Tower; what would Nightmare do when she found out some jackass had taken a bite out of her offering?

“Why are you so obsessed with tormenting me?” I demanded, my hands curling into tight fists. “Accusing me of working for Nightmare was an excuse before; you just want to scare me. Does it make you feel big and strong to intimidate me?”

The darkness inside me whispered louder. He’s nothing, a shrew to your mighty lioness. Snap his fragile bones and snuff out the poisoned light he calls a soul.

“Is this you standing up for yourself?” Amusement made Alastor’s eyes sparkle. “That’s all you’ve got? God, you’re so pathetic, Cat.”

“I’m pathetic? I’m not the one stalking a girl through a forest to steal a picnic basket, you fucking loser.”

I strode closer, anger making my posture sharper, pulling my skin tight over my bones. End him, end him, rip out his spleen and bathe in his blood, the darkness sang. “Give me the fucking basket.”

Like he existed just to piss me off, Alastor uncapped the silver thermos and took a deep swig. I was the one smirking when he spit it out, spraying the grass with red wine.

“That’s fucking vile.”

“Too refined for your cheap tastes,” I said with sweet venom. “Give me the basket.”

There was a droplet of wine on the edge of his chin, more staining his striped polo like a spray of crimson blood, but that didn’t stop him giving me a mean smile. “What are you gonna do if I don’t?”

My hands started to shake, my breathing faster, sharper. “What’s your game, asshole? Drive me to madness? Force me out of Ford? Get me away from Honey so you can have her all to yourself?”

His nostrils flared on the last one. Bingo.

“So that’s what this is about,” I mused, and watching a muscle twitch in his eye. He hadn’t planned to give that fact away.

With a sneer, he threw the basket and thermos to the ground between us; I scrambled to pick it up, catching as much wine as I could with the lid and screwing it on tight. It was only half-full, but I prayed Nightmare didn’t notice.

When I put everything back in the basket and looked up, Alastor was so close that I fell back with a sharp gasp.

“I don’t know why she likes you anyway,” he said with disgust. “Anyone can take one look at you two and see you’re bringing her down. Honey’s beautiful and smart and free, and you’re like a black hole sucking all her happiness away.”

I swallowed, holding onto my rage by the tips of my fingernails. Every anxiety I’d ever had rose, ready to devour me. I couldn’t blame him for wanting Honey to herself; she was amazing, and she was all the things he said, but she was my friend, and I wasn’t about to let some closet psychopath isolate her from her friends.

“Our best friend just died, you heartless piece of shit,” I spat, satisfied when flecks of saliva hit his face. Good. It was gross and he deserved it.

Alastor laughed as he wiped his face on his shoulder, his sneer deepening. “She’s better off without that fag anyway—”

I was moving before I’d processed the intent, my hand swinging, knuckles crunching cartilage until blood sprayed and Alastor cried out. More, the darkness whispered. He deserves so much more. End him, lioness.

He did. He deserved death. But not a quick, merciful death. Alastor deserved to suffer the way he’d made me suffer, and the way he’d no doubt made others suffer before me. Monsters like him never had a single victim.

Pain cracked up my hand like a lightning strike when I hit him again and again. Blood splattered. His rough cries echoed through the woods like dark, twisted music. A chorus of victory and justice. I would have kept hitting him if he didn’t drive his elbow into my gut and shove me away.

I landed on the floor hard enough to jolt pain up my elbow into my shoulder and neck, my own shout joining Alastor’s chorus of pain. I gritted my teeth against a hiss as I scrambled onto my knees, the darkness swelling, hungry, eager for more—but the bastard was gone.

My upper lip curled back. Coward. “Don’t pick fights you can’t finish, asshole,” I muttered, holding my shoulder awkwardly to my side as I got to my feet and retrieved the gift basket.

Alastor might have interrupted me, but I still had a job to do, and my brother was relying on me.

CHAPTER FIVE

CAT

When the darkness receded, a tremor started in my knees, my legs turning to jelly as I walked back through the campus, warily scanning the dark spaces between tree trunks for Alastor waiting to ambush me again. My shoulder throbbed, already becoming stiff.

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