Page 106 of Beautiful Sinners

What did I wish for? To come face-to-face with the constellation man. I want to carve his flesh from his bones, bit by bit, while he watches. I want it to hurt. I want him to suffer. Then I want him to die.

“If I tell you, it won’t come true.”

The front door opens with a loud creak as I step into the warmly lit foyer. Patterns of color projected through the stained-glass windows decorate the eggshell-painted walls in various hues of reds, yellows, blues, and greens.

“Hey! I’m home!”

No one answers back. The house is quiet.

Closing the door behind me, my sandals make hushed thumps on the floor as I slip them off. I dig my toes into the soft, worn threads of the foyer rug, a trick I learned from the movieDie Hardthat helps you to de-stress. Checking to make sure the alarm is disengaged, I enter the code just in case, then head upstairs. After dropping my backpack in the doorway of my room, I peek inside each of the guy’s bedrooms. Nothing. Not even a shower running.

Leaning over the top of the banister, I call out, “Hello?”

Silence greets me once more. Where is everyone?

When I get back downstairs, I poke my head into the living room, expecting to see Tristan asleep on the couch with a football game playing on mute on the television or Constantine reclining back on the cushions, looking at something on his phone. When I don’t find them, I go to the kitchen, already knowing Hendrix isn’t there because I don’t smell any delicious aromas of dinner cooking.

Just as I’m about to take out my phone and text them, I’m halted in my tracks by a strange noise. Dormant instincts kick in and before I realize what I’m doing, I reach for the knife block on the counter. My senses become hypervigilant, but the hard pounding of my heart overwhelms my ears until all I hear is a loudwhoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Keeping my back to the wall, my bare feet are silent as I take one careful step after another. The noise comes again, muffled but close, and any semblance of calm evaporates into vapor when I hear an enraged Bostonian cadence coming from the backyard.

My hand tightens its grip around the handle of the knife, and the haunting voice that used to plague my nightmares chants its destruction inside my brain. I give in to my deadly impulses, letting that dark part of me take over.

Tristan can’t be shouting at Aleksander since I just saw him in the quad. Doesn’t matter. I’ll kill anyone who touches my boys.

Time seems to slow to the incremental flow of glacial ice, the five feet it takes me to reach the back door feeling more like hundreds of miles.

Trying not to make a sound, I slip outside onto the patio.

“Ow! You evil little fucker.”

A flurry of orange and black blurs past, with a dirt-streaked Tristan chasing after it, cursing up a storm.

Is that—?

I carefully set the knife down on the patio table. Hands on my hips, I survey the backyard and find Constantine and Hendrix sitting on the ground, laughing their asses off as they watch Tristan run around like a deranged idiot, chasing after my pet rooster.

My heart absolutely melts into a ball of goo when I see the wooden chicken coop that now stands in the place where the bush used to grow. Tristan wouldn’t tell me why he cut it down.

The coop is adorable. Made out of gray wood, it looks like a small house on stilts with chicken wire enclosing the perimeter.

“Surprise,” Hendrix says, finally seeing me standing on the patio.

I look over at him and Constantine with tear-glossed eyes. I don’t know how they did it, but they did this for me.

Fuck, I love them so damn much.

Tristan stumbles when he skids to a stop at the base of the steps. Bent in half with his hands on his knees, he breathlessly grumbles, “That thing is an asshole.”

Taking in the sight of him, I burst out laughing when I see a feather sticky out of his messy hair.

Hearing me, Cocky Bastard makes an ear-splitting squawk and changes direction. When he gets to me, he struts a happy dance back and forth at my feet. I crouch down, pick him up, and snuggle the shit out of him.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I coo into his soft feathers.

Tristan glares at me. “I love how we did all the work, and the damn demon bird gets all the fucking hugs.”

I set Cocky B down and leap from the top step into Tristan’s arms, then proceed to pepper kisses all over his dirty, sweaty face.

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