Page 36 of Dirty Tricks

The shadow snags my focus again. I hear a boy call out, “What’s that?”

A thump sounds above me as Finn nudges at my lips, slaps my face, then pulls the pistol from his jacket pocket.

A boy yelps with surprise, stepping back from my line of sight as Finn lays the barrel along my cheek, the metal grotesquely warm from nestling against his body. “You open your fucking mouth, or I’ll shoot you and we can take turns fucking your corpse.”

Fear loosens my jaw and his cock surges into my mouth again. Behind me, Todd places his hands on my hips, holding me steady as he nudges at my arse.

There’s so much pain and fear and anger my body shuts off, going numb. And I wonder why I’m trying to save my life when there’s nothing here for me. I wanted a night out to carry me into the darkness ahead and instead I’m being tortured.

Well, fuck that and fuck Finn.

I snap my teeth together, my incisors chomping through skin and flesh and tissue. My molars take their grip and refuse to relinquish it as blows rain against my head. A high whine fills the world.

The sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.

A man screaming because of whatI’vedone tohim.

He staggers, then his feet slide from the stool, his body crashing to the floor, his penis tearing off in my mouth.

A gunshot rings out and I tense, expecting to feel the pain or stop feeling anything at all.

But another boy screams. To my ringing ears, it sounds like Todd. When he falls silent, others take over, an exhilarating chorus. I hear his body thump to the ground.

Granted a reprieve, I chew, my molars mincing Finn’s dismembered dick, ensuring he can’t just go to the hospital and reattach it.

My stomach rebels and I spit it out before it can choke me, coughing and spluttering, his blood and my blood dripping from my sagging mouth.

A window smashes above me, glittering shards of glass tinkling to the floor as a figure jumps from the ledge, an electric chainsaw roaring to life in his hands.

CHAPTERELEVEN

XANDER

I land hard,lurching forward two steps before I find my balance, sweeping the thrumming blade of the chainsaw ahead as a boy runs towards me.

My smile is wide and vicious as I step forward, enjoying how his savage grin falls away, how he abruptly reverses direction, scrambling for the door. For a second, I worry he’ll escape, then he plants his foot against the wall and tugs, the endeavour fruitless.

The door is locked.

We’re all trapped in here together.

I laugh, the sound bouncing off the stone walls.

A foot away from me, Todd lies slumped on the floor. A river of blood stains his chest. I think he’s dead then his eyelids flutter.

I lower the blade of the chainsaw, cutting straight down the middle of his head.

The machine whines as the teeth catch on the hard bone of his skull. Flecks of blood and brain matter spray across my lower legs.

When its motion stutters, I put my foot on Todd’s shoulder and tug, my smile broadening as it comes free and more splatter flies in the air.

Fucker touched my girl when she didn’t want him. I step on each arm slicing through his wrists, the vibrations shaking through me as the whirring chain cuts through joints and tendons and bone. The blood sprays and the chunks of flesh fly, the scent of a fresh kill thick in the air.

I cut off his hands because that’s a fitting punishment for a thief. A boy who stole touches from a girl who didn’t want him.

And when I’m done, enraged that it was so easy, brought so little satisfaction, I shove the nose of the saw in his mouth, tearing through his lips, loosening teeth. Shoving it deep into his throat until the blood would choke him, the metal chain would choke him if he still drew breath.

Around me, red-masked boys scream, running in circles, piling up behind the locked door.

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