Page 19 of The Hallows Boys

I press my mouth closed, unable to find anything to respond to his words. He continues to lead me farther away from the party, the headstones becoming few and far between, most of them so old that you can barely read what they say, some of them even broken and missing pieces. Trees pop up from the earth, creating an umbrella of leaves and branches above us that cut off any view to the moon. Darkness becomes blackness, cloaking us from everything around us.

I squeeze tighter onto his hand as my senses go into overload, screaming for me to turn around and run. My limbs turn from gelatin to smoke, and I get the urge to pinch my eyes shut from fear. My head is floating, like there’s nothing inside of me to hold me to the earth, almost as if there’s no substance to my body and gravity is having to take over. I’m light, the loss of my eyes making everything seem bigger, smaller, louder, quieter. The dark is playing tricks on me, almost as if I could reach my arms out and find nothing to grasp onto for miles. Except him – Kaiden Thorne.

He chuckles when I grab onto him harder, probably making the flesh of his hand red with the force.

“Maybe we should turn back… I can’t see anything.” My voice sounds different now, like a little girl afraid of the monsters under her bed.

“You haven’t seen the best part yet, Sage.” His voice is deep and gravelly, rubbing and scratching over my skin. But he doesn’t have a worry in the world, like he’s at home here in the pitch black of the night.

I can barely hear the party anymore, the music is faint and far away, but it still gives me the reminder that I’m not alone. I focus on my legs and feet, counting silently in my mind every time I take a step, but the noises of leaves, twigs, and dry earth crunching keep startling me.

The insects and animals that accompany the summertime have long fallen silent for the autumn, making the atmosphere feel still and empty.

I let myself trust Kaiden not to let me walk into anything, hoping and praying that he knows his way around well enough in the blackness to keep me standing upright.

After another couple of silent minutes, the party noise is gone completely, and the only thing filling the space is the sound of my heavy breathing. Nerves pump through me, and I feel moisture lick at the back of my eyes as the cold air kisses my skin.

“Where are we going, Kaiden?” I whisper, my voice almost echoing.

His hand releases mine, pulling from my heavy hold the moment the last syllable of my question has passed my lips. My palm feels cold and empty without his in mine, making me slam my hand into my chest out of fear. I stop walking, my legs feeling heavy with nothingness, and whip my head around to find something to lay my gaze on. There’s nothing though, it’s so dark that I can’t even see my own hand when I hold it up in front of my face. “Kaiden?!”

I can’t hear him breathing anymore, and the heavy presence of him is gone. I swing my arms out to my sides, hoping I will smack into him with the rotation, but I come up empty. Silence is the only thing that answers me, aloneness creeping into my lungs and strangling me. “Kaiden!”

My heavy breathing fills the silence as panic snakes around my throat, fear consuming me entirely when I start imagining any and all scenarios that might fall upon me in the dark.

I don’t even know where I am anymore; we walked too far, and I won’t be able to find my way back to the party by myself. My fight-or-flight kicks in, sobering me like a cold bucket of water over my head. I don’t know if there’s anything to fight, so I flee. I turn, hoping I’m facing the right direction and hold my arms out in front of me.

I start walking, focusing on the feeling of the cold air against my hands, and the sounds of my sneakers along the ground. After twenty steps, my hands connect with something rough and cold, making me jump as a squeal slips from my lips on reflex.

I take a deep breath, blowing it out as I run my hands along the sharp and jagged edges of a tree, trying to let the feeling of the texture reroute my brain so I can breathe steady again.

“Fuck me,” I whisper, sighing as my chest heaves.

I hear movement behind me, my entire body freezing in place as my heart pounds in my chest, then a body is slamming into me from behind and making my front press against the tree. I scream at the top of my lungs as my face makes contact with the bark, the bite of pain making me wince.

“Are you scared?”

My stomach sinks, my throat constricting on the next scream, because the voice that’s just spoken does not belong to Kaiden.

A face falls into my hair, breathing into my ear through the curtain of blonde as hands press into the sides of my waist so hard that it almost hurts. I cry out, unable to stop the noise.

“Are. You. Scared?” Another voice joins in, breathing against my opposite ear and making me jump the most I can with someone still pressing against my back.

Moisture stings the backs of my eyes, so I squeeze them shut to prevent the tears from falling. I swallow thickly through the lump in my throat, my voice coming out as a scratchy whisper when I finally answer my attackers. “Yes.”

“Good,” Kaiden’s voice responds from my other side, making my stomach burn. This was his plan all along; lure me out deep into the cemetery where no one can find me. Part of me feels foolish for willingly going with him, and part of me wonders if my uncontrollable lust and desire for the three of them has been a huge mistake. What if it isn’t desire, but fear of bad men? What if instead of being a mystery I need to figure out, they’re actually monsters?

“Please don’t hurt me,” I whimper as my mind races through all the possibilities. My pride has abandoned me as visions of violence and death flash through my mind. I don’t know these people, I don’t know anything about them, and I was stupid to let my intense attraction to them bring me to this moment.

“Hurt you?” Kaiden teases, clicking his tongue. “The last thing we want to do is hurt you, Sage Lindman.”

The body at my back pushes into me harder, making me groan with the weight as my face scratches against the tree again. I push back, eager to get away from the pain, but my entire body ignites with fire when I feel a thick and long erection press into my ass with the movement. I pull away again, gluing myself to the tree, but the body comes with me, grinding against my ass.

“The darkness doesn’t have to be about pain,” the voice at my right whispers. “Submit to us.”

“Beckham?” I ask, my chest sinking as I take a guess.

Kaiden laughs behind me, making me feel stupid.

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