Page 112 of Vile Boys

BANG!

I jolt up and down against the ground.

Was that a …

Another shot goes off.

My eyes burst open.

Someone in a hoodie tucks a gun away and pulls out two big knives, slicing into the men one after the other like he’s cutting through butter. With ease, he fights them off, jumping around their attacks, cutting into their flesh instead. Their screams fill the void ofthe night.

One by one, they all go down, blood spattering all around me, and I close my eyes, waiting for my impending doom.

I can hear the clicking of the metal before it goes off, and I open my eyes to await my final moments.

BANG!

My heart jumps along to the sound.

The guy who was on top of me, holding me down, has a giant hole in his head.

I shove him off me, and he flops onto the road like a sack of potatoes.

But now I’m staring straight into the barrel of a gun.

A puff of smoke appears from beneath a hoodie, and the gun is retracted, replaced by a hand covered in tattoos.

“Get up.”

I can’t even properly process what happened as my legs move on their own, my whole body shaking as I crawl up from the ground.

Unsteady, I fall into him, but he holds on tight.

Two familiar hazel eyes bore a hole into my head when I look up. And for a second, I almost forget how to breathe … until he reminds me.

“Breathe.”

I blow out a single shell-shocked breath. “Caleb? What are you doing here?”

I gaze at the bodies surrounding me, and my knees begin to quake. There’s blood everywhere, on the ground, on his Aston Martin, and even on my dress.

He tucks away his knives.

“Saving your ass,” he replies as he opens the car door. “Now get in.”

“What?” I mutter, utterly lost in the violence that just happened.

“I said get in,” he grunts.

When I don’t respond, he grabs me and shoves me into the passenger’s seat himself. “That wasn’t a fucking question, Crystal. Get in.”

One of the bodies gurgles and groans.

“Wait,” I say, pointing at him. “He’s still alive. We gotta—”

Caleb pulls out a single small knife and throws it at the man, piercing his bone right between his eyes.

“Not anymore.”

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