The Lies We Steal (The Hollow Boys, #1)

by Monty Jay

I always knew I was born with a ravenous appetite for violence. Destined to be the black sheep of my family. They should learn to warn others about the children who are left to cultivate with the absence of light. When you take away their luster, the darkness doesn’t just become a part of them, they become the darkness.

Thatcher’s veins were constantly pumping with ice water and mine were always boiling.

“Don’t be naive, Rook. Silas doesn’t sleep anymore. When he does, he sees her. We all know that,” Thatcher interjects, reminding us all why we are here in the first place.

Like an angel who’d gotten lost and found herself in Hell.

Rose was not only Silas’s girlfriend, she’d become…one of us. Slowly she’d weaseled her way into our group, making herself a friend. We wouldn’t admit it out loud, but we all cared for her like a sister. Her death was eating at all of us.

A promise to one of our best friends, that we’d figure out who did this to his girl. Left her dead and dirty. All of us giving up our plans to leave this toxic place for an entire year, just to get the revenge he needed. Not even God could save the people who got in the way of that.

We're all thieves. We steal air from the atmosphere so that we can breathe. We steal happiness. We steal lighters. There is no such thing as, “Hey man, can I just borrow your lighter?” If you believe they are going to give it back, well, you’re just an idiot with one less lighter. But most of us, all of us really, steal time.

When life gives you lemons, steal a fucking juicer.

It wasn’t in my nature to be nervous or scared. When you live the life I’ve lived. The one where you have to fight for your survival, the meals on your table, the roof above your head. You don’t have time to be afraid of anything. You do what needs to be done.

We were a good contrast, he and I. He was cold and calculated. I was instinctive and hot-blooded cruelty. The perfect pair of sociopaths.

“You see, with this knife, I could use this tiny hook here and embed it into the flesh of your back before peeling your skin clean off. I’ve been in the market for a new pair of skin boots.”

Mercy is no more.

He was filled with ruckus, anarchy, he was violence personified and it struck a chord in me that hadn’t been plucked in a long time.

He was an apex predator on the prowl for something to feast on. Something he could sink his teeth into and shred apart by the seams, stoking his need for the hunt and curing his hunger.

“Oh, don’t be modest, Alistair. We all know you have more money than God. One of the perks of having your last name on everything in town.”

“Love is real. A tangible thing you can run your fingers over, warm and safe. Obsession is living a fantasy in your head, over and over again. Obsession is living in a nightmare, but never wanting to wake up.”

They walked out, one after the other like demonic dominos, falling in perfect alignment. Each of them so different, yet they look like they meshed so well. Like knives and blood.

“His name is Rook. Rook Van Doren. Son of the district attorney. He’s the most…approachable of the four. You’d think his boy next door features would make him the sweet one. But the match is there for a reason,” She mumbles like she’s telling me a spooky story around a campfire. “People joke that the match is there to light his short fuse. Last year, he burned down the town’s oldest willow tree. No reason behind it. Just did it because he likes to watch things burn. Every fire, every arson crime, everyone knows it’s him. But that’s just what I’ve heard.”

“Thatcher Pierson. Death manifested into one perfectly-made human.” Lyra breathes the same way she does when she’s admiring one of her dead bugs. With excitement. “Capable of choking you with his bare hands and not feeling anything in his cold, dark heart. He is incapable of feeling anything. Which is why it’s believed the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. His father was Ponderosa Springs’s one and only serial killer.”

“Uh, Silas Hawthorne,” she nods. “Heir to a technology empire. Diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was twelve. Of course, his parents tried to cover it up, but there is nothing that stays quiet in Ponderosa Springs. Not forever, anyway. He never used to talk much, but now, since Rosemary, he’s practically a mute.”

“That’s Alistair Caldwell. They’d never say it out loud, but everyone knows he’s the one calling the shots. His family owns half the town, one of his great- grandparents founded Ponderosa Springs. He fights at The Graveyard every weekend, and he’s never lost. I doubt anyone has even laid a hand on him.”

“The sons of the torturously wealthy. Ponderosa Springs’s worst nightmare. They are the Black Death of this town. Not because they are popular, but because they have the power to scare people. Legends. Pretentious and they own every single bit of it.

“Lay hands on me again, and I’ll stick my fist so far up your white-trash ass you’ll lick my fucking knuckles.”

Rook’s father, Theodore, was not an enemy people made lightly. His father was once a judge and Theodore was well on his way from Ponderosa Springs’s district attorney to Your Honor in just a few years. And like his father before him, he’d slowly become his own son’s worst nightmare. But letting him go to jail wasn’t going to happen. That would taint his name too much.

It's his smell. It's rattling me. Not just a glimpse of it, like at the party, but his entire scent. Spicy, like clove, and carnal. It’s the smell of black magic at midnight. When witches stand around their brew at night with the moon and candles burning the room. Incense wisping in the air. Ancient spells and occult sorcery sting my nose. It’s smoke and timber, and I hate how much I love this smell.

Alistair is gorgeous in a sinister kind of way. Reckless abandon, turmoil, broken hearts, but you'll never leave him because the way his mouth travels on your body while you’re chained to his bed is enough to make any woman stay.

“They are not scared of me because of my money, they fear me because I could, and would, kill them if they crossed me. You should think about that before opening those cock-sucking lips again.”

I find it almost unfair that the boys stitched together with dark magic and cruel intentions always have the prettiest eyes.

Everything inside of Thatcher is dead. All emotion. Feeling. Remorse. Everything.

there are some things daddy’s money can’t hide and that’s pussy bitches.

The only real power in life is fear.

My little red riding hood running from the big bad wolf. Our story is inevitable. I catch her. I feast.

“You should know what happens when you run. It only makes me want to chase you more.”

I wanted beneath her skin. On top of her body. Between her legs. Feasting, conquering, showing her how hard she could come when she was shaking from pleasure and fear.

My mind knew how crooked it was to be pulled to a guy like him, my brain understood the consequences. The destruction he would do. But my body. My body loved the flow of electricity. The endorphins.

Alistair Caldwell’s hands felt like the worst kind of relapse.

I’m coming for what’s mine, Little Thief. Until then, keep quiet.

When you get over the obstacles your brain gives you when a fearful situation is present, when you face the panic head-on, fear can become the best aphrodisiac in the world. It's called the flood.

Timebo mala on the left. Vallis tua umbram on the right. It’s Latin for, “Fear no evil. The shadow and valley are yours.”

I was going to take everything from her. Her joy. Her friends. Her secrets. Her fear. It was all mine to take. All mine to steal.

There was just something about Alistair Caldwell that made me panic. Something inside of him was so dark, so damned, that it called to the deepest parts of my soul.

I was in the hands of death and I felt so fucking alive.

I was done being the puppet. I was done being the mouse in this cat-dominated game. If they want to play, then fine. I’ll play, too.

I was sketching her because she was another reminder of something beautiful that did nothing but make me bleed. My entire life was spent surrounded by shiny things, by stunning people with glittering smiles and beautiful homes. All they did was take from me, hurt me, until there was nothing left to take, nothing human to hurt.

I would have to take a girl who thought she knew everything and show her what life was really about. Yank her into the darkness, into the shadows where I liked to hide, and show her exactly why she should be afraid of someone made of nightmares. Someone like me.

“Just tell me what I want to hear. Tell me you’re afraid of me, bum,” he mutters against my lips.

“Rot in Hell, trust-fund bitch.”

“You don’t get to use me. Not to make your tight, pink cunt come. Not for silly games with your friend. Not for anything. I will get what is mine, Briar. Even if I have to kill you for it,”

Whether on purpose or by accident, my parents had named me after the chief executioner and torturer from Hell. Before I was even able to cognitively think, I’d been given a name that predestined who’d I’d become. Someone who brought pain to souls. A name given to evil spirits and foul-tempered individuals. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Family wasn’t who you were born with. It was who you’d bleed for.