Page 8 of The Ripper

~ Doubtful.

“Why did you choose this costume?” she asked as her fingers traced the contour of the mask.

I paused for a second, because I hadn’t given much thought to my costume. I just went to a shop and chose the first thing that caught my attention. The only reason I even wore the stupid thing was so that I could blend in with the college crowd while I was certainly much too old for this shit.

“Maybe we choose to dress as what we are,” I shrugged, “or what we want to be.”

She seemed to ponder my words for a few moments, then smiled.

“By that logic, I am either an ice princess or I want to be one,” she said, looking down at the ground where her dress swept across the glittering floor.

For the briefest of moments, I could read worry on her face, as if she actually saw herself as icy, as if she believed herself cold, freezing even, and I couldn’t take that.

I dared to trace the outline of her jaw with my finger, stunned by the smoothness of her skin, and stopped under her chin to tilt her head back up, just because I wanted to see those beautiful green eyes again, if only for a minute.

“You could never be ice,” I leaned forward until I was so close I could feel her warm breath sneaking under my mask and caressing my face. “You have too much warmth in you to ever freeze.”

“You don’t know me,” she whispered, her eyes boring into mine, a hint of mischief sparkling in her pupils.

“And if I say I want to, would you give me the honor?” I asked, even though I shouldn’t have.

My body went stiff as I looked into her eyes, searching for the answer as my thumb brushed small lines on her waist. She seemed a little surprised by my choice of words. She tried to cover said surprise with a shake of her head and a tiny shy smile, but she couldn’t cover the blush on her cheeks.

I should have left the moment she asked about the costume, because now I wanted to stay locked in that place forever, swaying to a soundless melody while the music neither of us seemed to hear played in the background, so engulfed in each other that we forgot where we were.

“I want to see your face,” she said, her fingers already pushing up the mask.

Right when I was about to grab her hand and stop her, my sister bumped into Arella, wrapping her arms around her neck, laughing, drunk out of her mind.

~ I swear to fuck, this kid is a menace on legs.

That, she truly was. My sister was trouble incarnate, but her timing couldn’t have been better, so I couldn’t hate her for it, because she was saving me from making a huge mistake, namely actually showing my face to the woman I had been stalking.

“Are you having fun, Ari, baby?” she stuttered her words, and I narrowed my eyes as the blonde ripped herself away from me to steady Willow.

“Not sure which one of us is the baby here,” Arella scolded, a hint of amusement coating her tone as she circled my sister’s waist to keep her from falling.

“I am not a baby; I am a b… what other b words are there?” she laughed.

Loudly. Annoyingly.

~ Here’s a b word: bitch.

~ That’s my sister, asshole.

~ Half-sister.

I gritted my teeth and suppressed the urge to smack my head.

“Okay, not a baby, let’s go get some water into you and put you down for a nap, shall we?”

Willow nodded her head, drifting her eyes to me for a moment, but then she went back to clinging to Arella for balance.

“I have to get her home,” she smiled, giving me an apologetic look, and I nodded, watching as she struggled to walk Willow out of the frat house.

As she reached the arch that separated the living room from the hallway, she stopped and turned her head to me.

“Hey, Reaper?” she called.

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