Page 8 of Devil on the Lake

After tonight, she’ll never fucking cross me again. She’ll know what happens when she pisses me off.

I waited until her guard was down, lured her into a false sense of security that she was wanted here. That she was safe from my wrath.

“Do you think you can hide?” I shout.

Willow makes a terrified sound like a rabbit scampering from the jaws of the predator about to snap its neck.

“I know every goddamn inch of these woods, baby. You’re done for.”

“Fuck you, psycho!” Willow screams.

I chuckle and track her frantic movements around some boulders. I used to climb these with Phoenix and Luna as kids. My muscle memory kicks in, finding the holds with ease in the dark to scale them, even with the mask on. Keeping quiet once I reach the top, I peer over the edge and the corner of my mouth curls.

Bingo.

Willow leans into a crevice between two smaller broken boulders. Her ragged breaths are music to my ears. I could catch her right now, pin her against the rocks. But it’s too soon, too simple. I want her choking on her terror before the night is out.

The planning for this took me weeks. Lowell, Ryder, and Easton drove out with me to lay my traps. All to tear her the fuck down. To make her feel a fraction of what I’ve gone through since the suspension.

My teeth grind at the memories and a fresh wave of hatred for her rises. I’ve imagined this moment of payback for so long.

“Suspended? I see. So you have failed to uphold your end of our agreement. That is a shameful disappointment.”

I stared at Grandma, feeling the crack of her icy tone as if she’d struck me. I wished she hit me, but she was more cunning than that. Her anger bred itself in cruelty, not physical violence.

It began that night at dinner. She forced me to sit there every night through my suspension without food while she ate. She allowed me water, but no food, as if I was her prisoner.

From there, things only went downhill. My home became my hell.

Willow is smart as hell. I know she gets straight A’s, no problem. She couldn’t take an F on an assignment—no, the bitch had to say something. It barely would’ve affected her GPA. Christ, she probably could’ve made it up.

I wasn’t given that option. The teacher was one of the few hardasses who didn’t give anything I turned in higher than a D. If I didn’t get an A, I wouldn’t pass.

Unlike Willow, my grades are shit. I need to pass every single class to get my demented crone of a grandma—my only living legal guardian—off my back. She made me a deal when high school started. I pass and I get to choose what I do after graduation. No failing grades, ever.

Now the old cunt has my balls in a vice grip because I got caught, and I’ve had to kiss my dream of entering professional motocross goodbye. If I don’t do what she says, she’ll disown me and cut me off.

It feels like she has already given everything she’s taken away from me. My races now are the last time I’ll get to experience my favorite feeling in the world

And it’s all Willow’s fault, because she couldn’t handle one bad grade. She had to make a big ass fuss that ended with me and Lowell suspended for plagiarizing our assignments.

Since the suspension, life at home has been complete hell. According to Grandma, I brought shame to her name with this mark on my permanent academic record. It was enough to invoke wrath I had no idea she was capable of. She was never overly affectionate, but now she’s proven I don’t matter to her.

She’s never physically abused me. She wouldn’t risk what that could do to her reputation, but she doesn’t have to. She finds other ways to hurt me with her words and the basic necessities she strips away.

On the last night of the suspension, Grandma studied me over the rim of her wine glass. “I warned you. I gave you my expectations and you promised to obey them. There are no second chances in the real world, Dante. This will be a difficult lesson to learn.”

It was all she said. Stomach growling from the lack of food, I nodded. I thought it was over and things would return to normal.

When I got home from school the next day, everything was gone from my room, leaving me only with the bare mattress. Everything I owned was burning in a pile on the back terrace while Grandma smoked a cigarette.

Shock and rage tore through me.

“What the fuck?” I yelled. “Why did you do this?”

“I told you. The lesson has begun.”

“What lesson?” I sank my fingers into my hair and tugged until the roots stung.

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