Page 91 of Lust

“Wait, wait,” Seth says. “Shouldn’t we do like, ago teamor everyone puts their hand in or something?”

“You know we’re not actually playing football tonight, right?” I remind him.

“Shut the fuck up. It’d be good for morale.”

It’s not gonna hurt anything, so I put my hand in front of me, and Luke finally shakes free of the grip the statue has on him before joining us.

“On three,” Seth says, and he counts us down before we all give varying levels of feigned enthusiasm for the moment. Despite how dumb it seemed, I must admit it gives me a much-needed boost of confidence as we brace ourselves for a night of uncertainty and impending doom.

“We’ll text if we need backup,” I say.

“Or…” Seth begins, “scream like you’re being ripped from the inside out by a creature from another dimension.”

He searches our faces to see if his joke landed, which it didn’t. Then he and Cody head to cover the other side of the house, disappearing into the darkness.

“Here we go,” I mutter, turning to Luke, who scans his phone around the darkness, already alert. I consider asking him how he’s feeling, but I don’t really have to.

We wait in silence, watching from the distance as Alpha Alpha Mus usher guests into the backyard for drinks and games. Gradually, more and more people step into the backyard, which makes Luke and me even more on edge, knowing how many of them could become the Slasher’s victims.

It’s a little over a half hour before we accept that this could be a long night. I sit on a fallen tree, facing the woods, searching around via the night-vision app.

It’s not like us to be around each other without speaking, but the chatter and bass of the music has kept it from being awkward. Besides, why chat when we can spend our time imagining all the different ways a monster might tear through this crowd, decapitating and tearing out entrails?

Luke eventually sits down beside me, and I notice that despite his jacket, he’s rubbing his arms, so I hook my arm around him and pull him close.

“Fuck,” he whispers.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered I have a paper due on Monday.”

“You think you can get an extension?”

“Yeah, but my professor has a policy about deducting the grade for every day it’s late. It’s nothing. This is the last thing I should be worried about right now.”

“You still have tomorrow.”

He shoots me a look I read as,You know damn well I might not have tomorrow.

He pulls his gaze away and searches around before adding, “I talked to Dan today.”

The comment seems out of nowhere, like mentioning his paper.

“Just wanted to make sure I told him I loved him and appreciated everything he did for me growing up. And as I was telling him all this, I kept thinking about when Mom and Dad died. This is gonna sound fucked up, but I felt like they abandoned me. Even knowing the circumstances, it was like part of me believed they’d done this on purpose. Like they’d just left me one day without notice. And I felt so guilty every time I had that thought. I hated myself for so long because I know that’s wrong. And it wasn’t fair to put that on them. I know neither wanted to leave me, but that’s how it felt.”

I hold him tighter. “Luke, you can’t help how you feel through shit like that.”

“I’ve told myself that so many times, but earlier, when I was talking to him, all I could think was how many times I was mad at them for leaving me, and now here I am, putting myself in danger. And he cares so much about me, and I don’t want to leave him with that awful feeling…”

Tears flow freely from his eyes, and there’s relief in seeing them. I prefer this to when he feels like he has to be strong or tough.

I kiss his cheek, his warm tears pushing up against my flesh.

As I pull away, he turns to me, really looking at me for the first time since we came out here. “If anything happens to me tonight, promise me you’ll meet him. He’s a great guy. I think you’d really like him.”

And now he’s got the waterworks going for me.

“Luke—”

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