Page 278 of Vile Boys

“So?” Blaine shrugs. “The more the merrier.”

“Where are your guns, then?” Felix asks him.

Blaine pulls out his umbrella, and Felix and Dylan begin to laughuntil he pulls out the katana.

“What the f—really?” Felix says.

“Don’t laugh, he’ll skewer you,” Milo muses.

“I didn’t ask you a damn thing,” Felix growls at him.

“You want to touch it?” Blaine asks, raising a brow.

Felix’s face contorts. “No thanks.”

“It’ll be gentle with you,” Blaine adds.

“Ew, gross,” Nathan says.

One of the guards storms at us with his gun pointed right at us, but Milo takes him down with his nunchucks. “Nothing’s gross about killing. I’m fucking excited!”

“I’m not,” Alistair says, pulling out his knives with a smug smile. “But I’ll make it work.”

A giant casino floor filled with slot machines is in our way.

“You go that side. We’ll take this side,” Kai says, directing each group. “Caleb, Crystal, Lana, Nathan, Milo you’re with me. Blaine, Felix, Dylan, Penelope, Alistair, you go that way. Meet us at the entry to the hallway in the back.”

“Got it.” Felix nods, and he pulls out his guns. “Time to get some fucking blood on our hands.”

And as I pull out a new magazine and shove it into my gun, I whisper to myself, “Ares, we’re coming for you.”

Ares

“What the fuckis going on out there?” my father growls, and I can hear him place the whip down somewhere and waltz off. The door opens. “Stay here and watch him. Make sure he doesn’t move.”

The door slams shut again, leaving me alone with a guard holding an automatic rifle.

But if he’d shoot me now, I don’t think I’d even care.

The momentary pause from the whipping makes me let out a sigh of relief. Every breath I take hurts like a knife to the lungs, so sharp, but I persist.

If they’re here … Blaine, Caleb, Crystal …

I have to see them.

Just one last time so I’ll remember their faces before I perish.

But dammit … they shouldn’t have come.

It’s too dangerous, and if my father comes back to gloat while telling me he saw one of their dead bodies it would be worse than death.

I couldn’t take it.

I’d rather die in horrible pain instead of knowing one of my friends, my lovers, got killed trying to save me.

“No …” I whisper to myself, wishing I could tell them instead to stay away.

Leave me to rot.

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