Page 41 of Runaways

"Good," I say. "Let's do that. We'll have to be quick about it. I want to record it on his phone. We'll schedule it to post later—once we're long gone. Everyone can watch him die, too.I'm going to cut off his dick and shove it down his fucking throat."

"You can hit stop now," I tell Silas. "Speed it up and add some music to it—something uncomfortably upbeat, like you'd hear on an old, silent film."

He laughs a little. "That's disturbingly perfect."

I look at the corpse tied to the chair. "Well, this is my masterpiece."

Carved into his chest and abdomen—and I mean, really, really carved in there—are the wordsFOR MIA. And even though he passed out from the pain and blood loss, which made it a little less fun, I still sliced his dick off and shoved it down his throat, and he still choked on it until his heart stopped.

"I scheduled the post for late morning," Silas says. "That should be plenty of time for us to get to where we're going."

"See you later, fucker," I say before kicking over his chair. "Let's go get Noah."

"We could get caught."

I know there's logic behind what he's saying, but I don't see it. I feel like a god right now; I'm unstoppable. I can have whatever I want, and right now, I want Noah.

I want to watch the light fade from her eyes for the last time. I want to feel her body go slack and lifeless in my armsand finally stop carrying the weight of her. I'll brush her hair away from her face and tell her it's too bad it had to end this way—that we could have burned the world down together, but she was too fucking scared.

And I want her to tell me she understands why I have to do it; I want her to accept it. After all, there are worse things than death, like she said. Then we'll both be clean.

"But we won't get caught," I tell him. "Can't you feel it? We're gods now, Silas. They can't stop us." I run a bloody hand over his chest and then down to the waistband of his jeans, using it to pull him into me. "We can do whatever the fuck we want."

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, okay."

"So, what do you want, Silas? Do you want Noah?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's okay. I saw the way you were looking at her—do you miss her tight little body? Do you miss her mouth?"

I run my hand over the ridge of his cock, growing harder by the second.

"Tate…"

"It's not a trick question," I say. "There's no wrong answer. We could have some fun with her first. It won't be wrong if she likes it, and you know she likes it. Do you want Noah, Silas?"

"Yes…" he finally says in a gravelly tone. "I miss her a lot."

"Then let's go get her," I say, kissing him hard before releasing him.

Silas doesn't do well with teasing. When I step back, his eyes darken with lust.

"If we go now, we should still make it there before she does."

We leave the bedroom, and as we pass the living room's floor-to-ceiling picture windows, light from outside catches my attention. With the power now on, the pool is illuminated with LED lights, changing colors while three bodies float at its surface. Dark blood stains the water around one of the bodies—the girl with the pixie cut, Brielle. I watch it turn from red to deep purple to something closer to black with the alternating colors. It's the most serene shit I've ever seen. If I had more time, I'd stay and watch for a while, admiring Silas's work. Since I don't, I take only an additional second to commit it to memory before closing the door behind me, leaving them to their respective tomb.

Once we get to the car, we open the trunk and change into clean clothes before getting in and starting the engine. Silas is quiet, which is typical. But tonight isn't typical.

"She looked really pretty," he says as we drive.

He's not wrong; she did look pretty. I hate her teeth, but not because I don't think they look good. I just don't like that she felt like she had to change them. It's not what I wanted for her. And the bruises—I didn't want that for her, either.

"She has a tattoo on her shoulder—did you see it?"

"Yeah," Silas says. "A butterfly."

It's fitting. They're beautiful, but fleeting and deceptive in a way. If you crush their wings, they're no different from any other pest you wouldn't bother looking at twice.

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