Page 286 of Boys Who Taint

Maybe there’s still time before I die.

Just one more touch.

One more shared breath.

“Don’t you fucking hurt my kids!” Penelope shrieks from the woods behind me.

BANG! BANG!

I groan in agony as one of the bullets lodges into my abdomen.

She shot me.

Silas suddenly jumps on top of me and forces me to the ground. He pulls out the knife I poked him with and aims it at my face, so I grab his wrists mid-air as it’s about to penetrate my skull.

“NO!”

Aspen’s scream is like a siren’s call, beckoning me to come … begging me to stay.

I can’t die. I don’t want to die. Not yet.

But if this is my time, I don’t want her to see me go down either.

“Aspen,” I murmur as I briefly glance at her. “Run.”

Aspen

No.

I can’t fucking let him die alone.

Overwhelmed by the need to protect, I grab Silas from behind and hold on tight. “Stop!”

He fights me off. “What the fuck—no! He’s a killer, Aspen! Stop fucking defending him!”

I hold on as hard as I can, pressing my full body weight into him so he can’t move.

“Let me go or I will cut you, Aspen,” he warns.

“Do it.”

But he doesn’t slice me.

“That fucker is not worth the pain he caused you!” he yells. “Let me hurt him back!”

My eyes widen.

Silas wanted to avenge … me?

BANG!

Another shot fires from Lana’s gun straight into Silas, and it hits him in the shin.

“Fuck!” Silas slowly sinks to the ground with me. “Let me go!” he roars. “Let me kill that son of a bitch!”

Lana’s closing in, and I don’t want to lose Silas, but I don’t know how to make him stop either.

“Please, Silas, you have to stop.”

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