Page 1 of Twice as Twisted

prologue

SECOND WARNING: If you have a trigger, ANY trigger, stop reading. It is in this book.

When people talk about love, they make it sound like this great thing. They say you never forget your first love. That love makes life worth living. That it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

They’re right about one thing. I will never forget my first love as long as I live. I won’t forget my second love, either—the brother of my beloved, my monster.

I’ll never forget the way they became fuel for my nightmares. They dragged me to the depths of hell and made me confront the twin faces of evil.Their faces.

Loving them didn’t give me a reason to live.

It gave me a reason to die.

one

Mabel Darling

Cat in lap, I sit down at the computer and check my settings, the way I was taught. I never mess up, but even so, I always double check before I get started. If it weren’t for a crash course in high school, I wouldn’t know the first thing about IPs and VPNs and what it takes to be truly invisible. I thought I did, but back then, I was a naïve little hatchling who thought incognito mode made me disappear online and wearing no makeup made me disappear in person.

I have Baron Dolce to thank for my true education.

Once I’m reassured that I’m untraceable, I pull up a message board and scroll, searching for a topic that might be fun. Finally, I enter a gamer chat. A lot of the guys are younger, but not all of them, and I haven’t hunted here before. The minute I post my age and avatar, they come swarming like sharks to fresh blood. I smile absently and stroke my orange tabby as I drink in the hate and lust that flow like honey when a hot girl enters their space. It’s almost too easy.

Thirty minutes later, I hook one and move over toOnlyPics,an app where we can video chat.

“God damn,” says the doughy-faced creep. “I was afraid you’d be some fat forty-year-old in real life.”

Like you?

“Nope,” I say, smiling brightly. “I’m the real deal.”

I don’t like looking at him, with his thinning hair and pale, watery eyes. His skin is waxy and gives the illusion that it might melt off at any moment. Instead, I watch myself as wetalk, like any good narcissist. The picture of me in the corner of my screen smiles with me—white teeth, a dark red bob with bangs, a tan face contoured to within an inch of its life with pounds of makeup and hours of work, inch-long black lashes, black liquid liner as thick as my pinky finger tapering to a cat-eye as sharp and lethal as the blade of a dagger.

With all that on my face, I could be forty and he’d never know. But I’m only twenty. Still probably too old for him, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

A bridge.

A terrifying leap.

A boy with hate so cold it froze the fire they set inside me.

Shaken by the flood of memory, I excuse myself and walk to the window after setting down Seeley Boots. I look down over the street, where cars are parallel parked along each side. I don’t close my blinds. I never do.

Blinds don’t protect a person, don’t hide them. If they want to find me, they will.

A shiver builds along my spine, creeping slow and then racing quick as a spider up my back, prickling the hairs at the nape on my neck. I let out a gasp and wrap my arms around myself.

They will.

I smile softly and turn away from the window when I don’t see any sign of movement. They’re not here yet, but they will be. And when they arrive, I’ll be ready.

I’ve been expecting them.

*

It takes two weeks for Geoff to ask me out. I don’t mind. I’m a patient girl. I’ve waited far longer for far better men.

I spin my web slowly, each thread intentional, drawing him closer. At last, the night arrives. I fix myself at the mirror, then stand back, surveying my work. I look like…Bait.

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