Page 54 of Boys Who Taint

For me.

CHAPTER 12

Ghost

From a distance,I watch her glance back and forth between the party in the woods and the wooden stool near The Edge, tempted by promises of revenge.

My devious little plaything … So easily persuaded by the idea of violence, as long as it doesn’t come from your heart.

But you know as well as I do that it’s all lies.

You want nothing more than to feel what it’s like to kill the one you want to hate so desperately, but you don’t want to feel the tsunami of guilt that comes after.

Because won’t that make you exactly like him?

I smile as she steps closer and closer, tentatively glancing around to see if anyone’s watching her approach.

And oh yes … am I fucking watching her.

The bonfire behind her makes her skin glow with heat, her red hair flittering in the dark, those freckles on her face like little soot particles floating in the wind. She creeps up to the stool when no one watches, like a tiny bug intent on crawling over the evidence, only to set it all ablaze.

Do it. Go on. Start the fire that roars in your heart.

Aspen

I takethe paper out of my pocket and stare at it for a second, my breathing growing more and more erratic the closer I get to my decision.

No one knows I’m here. No one knows what I’m about to do. Not even me, and that’s what makes it so terrifying.

Because that mask on that stool is definitely the same one I saw that night when my stalker first revealed himself. And even though I know I shouldn’t … we both know I’m about to let him into my life.

All for the sake of revenge.

I place the note down onto the stool, the weight of the world coming down on me the moment I let go. Because right next to the mask is a tiny, typed-out note waiting for me.

Good choice … now run as hard and as fast as you can.

Because my price will be your body … belonging to me.

My lip shuddersas the note falls out of my hand.

In the distance far beyond the woods, two sparkly, red eyes hidden behind the same mask meet mine.

I swallow.

A sudden short gust of wind blows soot from the bonfire all across The Edge, burning specks painfully igniting the fire on my skin. I tap them off, but the paper I placed down on the stool flutters away with the wind, down, down, down, toward the hollow grounds below, along with all of my demons come to life.

Because my masked stalker is still watching me through the thicket of the woods with a goddamn smile on his face.

Waiting.

Waiting forme…

Oh God.

I bolt off as fast as I can in the opposite direction, through the woods, beyond the bonfire party. Through the thick of night, into the forest, as my heart begins to pound.

Because the Ghost’s price for ending Levi’s life … isme.

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