Page 215 of Vile Boys

“I thought we’d made a deal with her, not that you were secretly scheming behind our backs to make her fall for us.” Caleb grabs the chair and flings it across the room. “You fucking used us!”

“No,” Ares retorts. “I didn’t force you to do anything. You bothdid it all on your own.”

Caleb marches up to him and slaps him in the face. Hard.

“I fucking loved you. And you betrayed me.”

Ares’s face contorts. “I know you don’t believe me, but I loved you too. I still do.” He grabs Caleb’s hand and caresses his own cheek with it, pressing soft kisses on the top, and I can see Caleb melt to his charms. “I can’t do this without you. Don’t leave me too. Please.”

“You wanted to die for her,” Caleb says, frowning.

“I knew she’d be my end. I always did,” Ares says. “Nothing will change that.” He pulls Caleb closer. “But I would die for both of you. Believe me.”

He grabs Caleb’s face and kisses him so passionately I feel like I’m intruding on something, so I leave the room to go grab my clothes.

But before I close the door, his voice looms in the background.

“Don’t try to convince her to stay. It won’t work,” Ares warns.

“I’m not,” I reply, clearing my throat. “But you should know I was ready to kill you for her if she needed me to. The only thing that stopped me was my life debt.”

There’s a pause. “I know.”

And I close the door behind me and walk off, wishing I could chase her while knowing deep down she’ll never forgive me for intervening and stopping her from taking his life.

My fist balls.

Ares has ruined us all.

She’s perchedover The Edge near Priory Forest at the top of the hill, which overlooks Crescent Vale City and the sea beyond.

I step closer, but a twig underneath my feet gives me away.

“Don’t come closer.”

“I just want to talk.”

“I’m not going back to that house,” she says staunchly without even looking at me.

“I won’t ask you to,” I reply. “And I don’t think Caleb or Ares will either.”

“So … I’m free of the deal that never existed in the first place.” She scoffs with disdain. “How did you find me?”

“I followed you the minute you walked out the door,” I reply.

She snorts. “Figured. Stalker.”

“I couldn’t let you walk away without letting you know someone still cares,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“Right. Even after I admitted that I used you two to get closer to Ares so I could kill him?”

I chuckle. “Even then. Besides, I kind of already knew you wanted him dead, darling.”

I approach her even though she said I shouldn’t. I can’t stay away.

“I know you still want to kill him,” I reply.

“I should have.” Her fist balls, collecting grass in the palm of her hand. “He deserved nothing more than a painful death for what he did to my father.” She crushes the grass in her hand and lets it blow away in the wind. “Yet I couldn’t do it.”

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