Page 43 of Sweet Sacrifice (King's Trace Antiheroes 3)

“No,” Heidi says, flipping Bea off. “You definitely were. Remember? We didn’t make the cheer squad, so we decided to show our school spirit by servicing the JV team?”

Bea laughs, tipping her head back. “Oh, right. Guess you’re alone then, Fi.”

I plaster a thin smile on my face, glancing down at the first page of the script. Olga doesn’t believe in explicit stage directions, so the entire thing is just dialogue reprinted, with an occasional note about setting and involved characters.

“So, are you gonna go out with him?” Bea asks.

“I don’t know.” My finger taps a steady rhythm, a faint sensation washing over me as they stare, waiting for a concrete decision.

“Personally, I think it seems a little crazy,” Heidi says. “You barely know him.”

Nodding, Bea nudges me with her shoulder. “Maybe not crazy, but you’ve been drooling over this man for years and he finally wants to take you out. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to see what happens?”

“Bea,” Heidi snaps, clearly unsupportive.

Resisting the urge to stab Heidi with the pen by my shoe, I just shrug noncommittally, promising to at least think about it.

And for the duration of rehearsal, it’s all I can think about. Boyd’s hands on my skin, how the contact burns and soothes somehow all at once.

How his kiss ignites flames inside me that otherwise lay dormant, and how he somehow pulls me from the spinning vortex I spend most of my free time in, how I can relax my hold on needing every aspect of my life to bend to my will and instead submit to his.

There’s this nagging thought, though, about his friendship with my brother and the work he does for my father. If my father’s words from a few weeks ago are true, and their employee roster is made up primarily of bad eggs, what does that make Boyd?

Is he darker than the wickedness inside of me?

After rehearsal, Bea and Heidi drop me off at home, and I continue staring at my phone screen, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to say to him. Torn between what I want to say and what I think I should.

‘Good girls should stay away from big, bad wolves,’ my mother used to tell me, even though at the time she was trying to keep me away from my brothers, who were much older and didn’t want to play with their baby sister.

When I walk into the house, Kieran’s lounging on the chaise by the main stairs, the white shirt he’s wearing covered in reddish-brown stains, hair askew. He glances at me over the book he’s reading, something thick with the spine nearly falling apart, and raises a dark brow. “You didn’t go with Heidi and Bea to get milkshakes today?”

I shake my head, hanging my purse and keys on their wall hook in the foyer. “No, I wasn’t feeling it.”

Both of Kieran’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline now, and he sits up, folding the book in his lap. “Are you sick? When have you ever not been in the mood for milkshakes?”

“Plenty of times, I’m sure.” Blowing out a breath, I walk over to where he’s sitting and flop down beside him, leaning my head on his shoulder. “Is that blood on your shirt?”

“Ah... no?” He pokes my cheek until I jerk away, and grins at me. “It’s ketchup. I had a messy burger for lunch.”

“That looks like a handprint,” I point out, gesturing to the blurred spot resembling fingers near the hem. I’m not supposed to know what he does for a living, but you don’t hear the rumors about your brother being the Devil incarnate without trying to discover why.

But he buys more into our mother’s claim that perception is reality, so he believes I’m ignorant.

Innocent.

Comparatively, maybe I am. But the fire inside me that rages, hungry for something more, says otherwise.

He ruffles my hair, standing up and racing up the stairs two at a time, ignoring my observation altogether, and then it’s just me alone in this part of the house. A chill passes through the air, making me shiver, and I wonder which ghost of our past is with me.

If they’re the good kind or the bad, as if I believe they’re really trapped inside these walls with us.

I head in the direction Kieran disappeared, passing his closed door and starting into my bedroom, pausing at the frame. Staring down the hall, I contemplate for a few beats whether or not I should go to the room at the end and check on my mother. I didn’t see my father’s car outside, and her lack of hovering when Kieran was just downstairs makes me think she must not be aware that he’s home.

Fear cuts through my chest as I tiptoe across the hardwood floor, my palm steady on the drywall to keep me upright. There’s no telling what I might walk in on.

My joints lock up when I reach the closed bedroom door, terror seizing the planes of my body and holding them hostage. As I push the door open with my knuckles, my fist shakes, and I struggle to regulate my breathing.

Flipping on the ceiling light, I find my mother sprawled out beneath her silken sheets, mouth agape with drool pooling from it, and a gardening magazine open on my father’s pillow. A harsh breath rips from my lungs, relief spilling like a waterfall from the depths it retreated to, and I cross the room to pull the comforter up over her bony shoulders.

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