Page 93 of Masks and Mishaps

Dalton finds it first. “I’ll talk to him.”

“No.”

“Ess, I can—”

“You’re literally butt ass naked and wearing a ski mask,” I hiss, motioning wildly at Dalton before pulling my dress over my head. “Do you want to give him night terrors?”

“You can’t go out there. Not—”

“That’s my brother,” I remind him, pointing at the door. “That’smybrother, and—”

“My cum is on your face,” he interjects.

I freeze before I place my hand on my cheek. Sure enough, Dalton jizzed all over me like he was channeling Jackson Pollock.

“Here,” he offers, licking the pad of his thumb before pressing it to my skin. “Let me just.” He frowns. “One sec.” He licks his thumb again. “Sorry, it’s just, like, a lot of cum—”

“Stop using your thumb!”

“You’re right,” he concedes, before grabbing his discarded boxer briefs.

Gasping, I step back. “You’re not wiping my face with your underwear.”

“That’swhere we draw the line? You’ll squirt on your own panties, take them off, and shove them into my mouth while I film you, but you won’t let medab the corner of your mouthwith my boxers?”

“Use the mask or something!”

He glances at the mask in his hand. “It’s kind of hard to clean. You have to air dry it…”

“For fuck’s sake,” I hiss before I take his shirt, wipe the cum off my face and neck, and throw it back to him. “And how the hell do you have that much cum in you?” I question as I head toward the doors. “You spend all day working or coming. How is there any left? You’re like a goddamn cum forge.”

***

Christian isn’t in the bedroom where he’s staying for the week or in the twins’ rooms either. I’m about to call his phone when I hear a clatter down the hall where there’s a slim band of light under my bedroom door.

When I enter, Christian is dropping a handful of my toiletries into my open suitcase on the bed.

“We have to go,” he whispers when he spots me in the doorway. “Shut the door. Lock it.”

“What are you doing? Wait.Christian.” To my mortification, he’s holding a fistful of my bras from the dresser.

My brother lifts his chin and peers over my shoulder before he focuses his dark eyes on me. “We can’t stay here.”

“Why?”

He looks at the door again before he focuses back on my face. “I saw something in the library,” he continues, speaking hushed Spanish now like he’s afraid someone might be listening. “Something I wasn’t supposed to see.”

I hesitate, knowing the next words I say will be critically important.

I’ve known Christian his entire life. One of the first faces he saw when he came into the world was mine, and I know this kid better than anybody. I know his mind: the capacity for detail and the tendency to see things I don’t expect him to notice. “Understood. Tell me what you saw.”

Christian takes a deep breath. “Essie,” he murmurs, lowering his voice even more. “I think—and I don’t say this lightly, but I think…”

I swallow, waiting for everything to fall apart.

“…I think our stepbrother is a serial killer.”

Thirty-Three

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