Page 50 of The Hallows Boys

Looking back, maybe I have always been this person. Maybe the bright, cheerful, peppy cheerleader that was born and raised in California was all because of experience and environment.

Maybe the girl that was born in Blackmore, the one that finds peace in a cemetery and likes the attention of three dark, twisted, sinister boys – maybe that’s who I was supposed to be all along.

That girl? She’s the one left standing after her parents have died for a second time.

The water heats to a near burning temperature, making me drop my hands to my sides and lean my head back to feel the rapid spray against my face. I try to clear my mind the best I can, even for just this minute, and let the heat soak my aching muscles. Exhaustion creeps deeply, and I can feel it in my bones, making me lean my weight against the tiles.

I wash myself meticulously, keeping my back against the wall as I shampoo my hair and scrub my body.

When I’m clean, I twist the knob to turn the water off and step out onto the bath mat, wrapping myself in a towel. The skin of my back stings as I press the towel tight to the wounds the Hallows Boys gave me only hours ago. My pulse picks up as my mind travels back. I picture Beckham’s soft hands thread into my hair as he fucks my face. Vinny’s talented tongue on my nipples as I ride him. Kaiden’s palm slapping down on my cheek as he grits his teeth through pleasure.

I sigh, pleasure racing through my veins.

When I look up into the mirror above the sink, reality starts to slip back in. It’s almost sitting in a split frame with the Hallows Boys, and my eyebrows kick up in realization.

Did they know all along? Did they know who I was – what I am – and choose me for the games as some sick little joke?

And what do they know about my father?

“Your dad is Andrew Blackmore?”

Beckham said it with such certainty, a level of respect and importance lingering in his voice. Like my father was someone of nobility to them…

Questions roll around in my head with such speed that I start to feel my sanity slip.

Who the fuck was my father?

Everything I once knew about him is being called to my attention, making me question everything. He’s a Blackmore. He’s from the family that the town is named after, a town laced in lies and ominous secrets that looks pretty in the light, but as soon as night comes, monsters lurk the streets, coming out to play.

I flick the light on in the bathroom and drop my towel, a gasp sucking the air from my lungs.

There are marks all over me, decorating my flesh like displays of ownership. Bruises, bite marks, welts, cuts, and scratches cover me from neck to ass. There’re hickeys and bites on almost every inch of my chest, trailing down to my nipples like a little pathway. I lean closer to the mirror, examining the slice on my throat, then I spin around when curiosity creeps along my skin. Looking over my shoulder, I catch sight of the letters carved into my back – B, K, V.

I shudder as I remember how hard I came when they marked me, how loud I screamed and how quickly I bucked my hips at the taste of bloodshed.

My eyes roll back a little, and I bite down on my lip.

Taking a deep breath in, I trail my gaze down to my ass, where there’re long, red welts from Kaiden’s belt marked across my creamy skin. Somehow, they make a smile pull up my lips. As a placebo feeling of pain ripples through me, I groan deep in my throat.

The marks on my body only solidify my previous thoughts, because Sage Lindman would have never done what I did last night… She would have never fucked three guys at once, she would have never been sent flying over the edge of an orgasm from being whipped, cut, or choked.

I experienced more after one short month in Blackmore than I did after a lifetime in California, and I don’t ever want to go back.

Bending over, I pick up my towel and wrap it around my body again. As I walk back to my room, I hum one of my favorite songs, refusing to let my mind become overtaken by the dark and depressing thoughts of my parents.

All I want is to spend the day under my heavy comforter, sleeping through this headache until I have the strength to conquer everything that’s been handed to me in the last hour.

I drop my towel to the floor before I crawl under the covers on my bed so I can finally let my body and mind relax.

ChapterTwenty-Two

KAIDEN

“What did you find?” I bark the second Vinny’s ass hits the bench next to me, his face an unreadable expression.

“Not shit.” He drops his phone on the wooden tabletop of the picnic table, propping his elbows on the surface so he can hold his head up. “I’m fucking exhausted.”

Displeasure runs through me, and when he yawns, my anger cranks up another notch. “You didn’t find a single thing?!”

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