Page 14 of The Hallows Boys

Cries, screams, pleas, breaths, moans.

Commands, grunts, whispers, groans, smacks.

Flesh on flesh, skin on skin, lips on lips.

I take another breath in, blowing it out slowly as I check over the room with my gaze, making sure everything is tidy and in its right place. The bed is made, the pillows and thick down comforter tucked in tight and covering the satin sheets. Everything else will be moved from the Hallows Crypt the night of; whatever supply or toy we so wish to bring. The things we’ll use with Sage to make her worst nightmares and deepest desires come to fruition.

I go back outside, locking the door behind me, before I head back through the graveyard.

The night is quiet, only the brief noises of bugs or animals ringing far away in the air, along with the sounds of my sneakers crunching on the earth once again. I turn my flashlight off, finally allowing darkness to swallow me up and consume me. It’s a feeling like no other – the darkness of this place. Anything could happen, anyone could be lurking in the woods beyond the cemetery. I close my eyes, intensifying the feeling of being gobbled up by the night, letting my skin pebble with goosebumps and my lungs to expand with every shallow breath as I test my senses. I let myself fall into the mindset I need to be in for Halloween night: A Hallows Boy, through and through.

We’ll be in control, one of us at all times, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy the risk and thrill the darkness brings. There’s something about relying on your other senses – taste, smell, sound – that makes a sensation run through your entire body that’s unlike any other. It’s unparalleled. Who will touch you next? Whose mouth is caressing your skin? What is everyone else doing in the darkness around you, and who are they doing it with?

It's burning hot fire, running over your skin and seeping into your pores in the form of moans and cries, teasing every part of your flesh and soul.

I find myself back at the main road quicker than I want, my eyes finally cracked open to see what’s ahead of me. Pulling my cigarettes from my pocket, I slide one between my lips and light it.

Taking a deep drag off the filter, I pull my phone from my pocket and type out a message to the boys.

Me:Done.

I savor the rest of my walk home, smoking my cigarette slowly as I stare up at the dark sky. The town of Blackmore is empty at this hour, but stars hang above my head in the sky so bright that they light up the entire road.

I can feel Halloween approaching in the chill of the air, the sounds of the night. I can taste it on my tongue with every inhale.

And this year, is going to be fuckinglife-changing.

ChapterNine

SAGE

I’m starting to find my groove after a week at Blackmore High, not that it’s a groove I’m necessarily comfortable with. I eat lunch with Juliet every day, which earns me the cold shoulder from the rest of the students. It feels weird not being social, to be honest. I’ve lumped myself with the school outcast.

The constant stares calmed down around day three, and I’m no longer the shiny new toy, which gave me the opportunity to spend my days people watching and observing behaviors from the sidelines while simultaneously concentrating on my studies.

I underestimated how different things would be here compared to back in California, butIfeel fucking different here too. I’m quiet, focused, antisocial. A homebody. Gone is the girl that once spent days laughing and playing with friends, the girl whose smile lit up a room because it was so joyful and energized. Goodbye Queen Bee, hello shadow in the halls.

I’m blaming it mostly on the fact I’m the new girl in town while secretly shoving depression back down my throat most moments of the day.

The calls and messages from my friends have grown thin and empty, making me feel like last night’s leftovers that get shoved to the back of the fridge, never to be touched again. The depression sneaks up on me at night though, crawling under my covers to spoon me all night in place of any rest. My mind is too preoccupied with the misery that I can’t get to sleep. I’m plagued with memories of my parents, my old life, my old friends – desperate to blink and wake up from this nightmare. I ache for my mother’s hug, my father’s love, my friends’ attention, the California sun.

I used to hold such materialistic and insignificant things close to heart. I was the head cheerleader, most popular girl in school, dating the football god, Student Body President, the perfect little Prom Queen.

But here? In Blackmore? I am nothing.

I am nobody. I blend into the background like a little doll waiting for someone to pick her up off the shelf to play.

But I wonder, late at night, when my eyes have run dry and my limbs ache with unslept hours, do Iwantto be somebody here? Do I want to exist in a town that was shoved upon me, instead of a life I’ve chosen for myself? I went from a place that I was taught to believe was mine, to a place I was forced into because nobody else wanted me, and there’s something so fucking depressing about that.

I want to be me. I want to dig deep inside of my soul and figure out who Sage Lindman really is underneath it all, underneath what’s beentold, taught, or shoved upon.

“Are we the type of friends that hang out on the weekend?”

Juliet’s voice pulls my attention from the lunch I’ve been picking at instead of eating, and I give her a look of amusement. “Are you trying to ask me to hang out?”

She scrunches up her face. “No.”

I laugh. “Okay, then.”

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