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Neon purge-style masks cover their features, each a different color. Red, white, green, yellow, and orange.
Red Mask’s fingers circle a baseball bat that’s resting nonchalantly on his shoulder.
Kill
Green Mask is holding a bow and has arrows with rubber points in a quiver that’s slung over his back.
Gareth
White Mask strokes a huge chain that’s draped around his hands like a snake.
??
Orange Mask’s gloved hand rests on top of a metal golf club that’s propped on the ground.
Jermey
Yellow Mask has no weapon at all, but his fists are balled.
Nikolai
I try to gauge faces from the masks or the builds, but they’re all similar—muscular, and tall—except for White Mask, who’s a bit leaner.
Through the branches and leaves, I make out the dragging of a golf club on the ground before Orange Mask comes into view.
Six goes to punch him, and Orange Mask not only ducks, but he also hits him across the face with the club.
Five and Seven run in different directions and Orange Mask throws his golf club at the back of Five’s head, slamming him against the tree, then runs after Seven. His movements are sure, oozing with a frightening amount of control.
He didn’t even wait for his club to hit Five. He knew it would, and it did, as evidenced by the participant’s motionless body on the ground. Something tells me he chose to run after Seven for a reason, and curiosity gnaws at my insides to find out what that reason is.
The speaker says numbers six and five are eliminated, and I wait for number seven, but it doesn’t come.
Orange Mask heads toward them with Red Mask following. They send them flying in no time, and their unconscious bodies fall to the ground.
Orange Mask rises to his impressive height that nearly eats up the horizon, then slowly, too slowly, his head tilts in my direction. The neon stitches glow in the near darkness as eerie silence stakes its claim. My spine jerks when his rough, deep voice echoes in the air. “I know you’re hiding. Come out and I promise not to hurt you. Much.”
Or more like, I’m trapped by Orange Mask who’s standing about thirty meters away nonchalantly holding the club that rests on his shoulder.
“Fuck me first,” I whisper, my voice so low that I barely hear it. His entire being pauses, like when I slapped his hand earlier. “Fuck you first?” he repeats slowly, almost as if he’s tasting the words on his tongue. I nod. He releases my hair, hand snaking down the pulse point in my throat, leaving shivers in its wake before he cups a breast through my shirt. His touch is savage, almost punishing as he digs his fingers into the skin. “Why?” It takes everything in me to remain collected despite the throbbing and the dull ache in the sensitive flesh of my breast. “I don’t want to die a
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We look in that direction and see White Mask and Yellow Mask chasing a group of people and Yellow Mask laughing maniacally.
It probed the forbidden fantasies that I’d tucked in the dark corners of my consciousness, hoping they’d be forgotten.
I love my father to death, and some would argue that I’m Daddy’s little girl—or I was before my life took a sharp dive to hell. Before he put his trust in me and I betrayed it in the worst way possible.
Enter your limits below (please be as specific as possible). Gagging. Drugging. Any use of an enhancement drug.
Those are the only things that make my skin crawl. They bring back memories of when I breathed wrong, existed wrong, and fought but found no way out.
“Wait a minute.” Ava snatches Anni’s phone to stare at the picture. “How come there are five masks? I thought the Heathens was composed of Jeremy, Gareth, Nikolai, and Killian. Who’s the fifth member?”
The revving of a motorcycle nearly deafens me and I realize that’s what she must be on.
“So this is how good girls like you get off. Does being used in the middle of the night like a worthless fuckable hole turn you on, Lisichka?”
“I might consider letting you go if you answer the question you ran away from last night, Cecily.”
My thoughts are confirmed when he stares at me over his shoulder, his eyes still in tune with the night, tapering and shimmering with that mystic darkness. If anything, they appear more unhinged. “Come back when you’re ready to be fucked properly.”
Headquarters, as in, his parents or my father. If they find out the Serpents, whose leaders are the offspring of men who sit with them at the inner circle table, are after us, they won’t let this slide.
A familiar sight at the building in front of me makes me slow to a halt beneath a large tree that camouflages me and my bike. It’s an animal shelter. The one my sister volunteers at because she’s an advocate of everything pretty and small. But it’s not my sister I’m looking at. It’s the annoying existence. Cecily Knight.
Xander Knight is my father, my first best friend—Ava came later—and the greatest dad on earth.
When we went on a school trip at thirteen, Papa kind of convinced all the other fathers to rent out a holiday house near our camp.
No matter how old we get, we’ll always be their little girls who they wish would remain young forever.
“I’m still worried. I wish you were still my little Cecy who hugged my thigh and rode my shoulders.”
“Ah, fuck. So you really have a boyfriend? Name? Family name? Age? Address? IQ?”
Kimberly Knight is the most beautiful woman I know, with her lithe figure, her bright smile, and the green highlights in her brown hair. Even the cut marks on her wrists give her a different type of unconventional beauty.
My heart swells whenever Papa calls her that. Green. It’s a homage to how she likes everything green, from the color to pistachio ice cream to green M&M’s. It’s become a part of her personality.
Two guys lie on the ground, their noses and mouths bleeding while they twist and wriggle in pain. Over them stands Jeremy, his fist bloody and his expression blank and freezing.
“If you want to run, go for it. But you should know that I’ll chase you, and I can’t guarantee what I’ll do to you the moment I catch you, so if that’s an option you’re willing to gamble on, by all means, go ahead and run. If not, I suggest you hop on, peacefully.”
After clicking on Lan’s profile, I pause, then type a DM. I want to be chased and ambushed. In the dark. Where you can use me and no one knows. He reads it. But no dots appear.
“No wonder you like to be chased when you touch yourself this gently. How about I show you how it’s properly done, Lisichka?”
Cecily might be finally ready to act on her fantasy. And when she does, I’ll show her who the actual monster is in this equation.
Cecily: What does that mean? Lisichka? Jeremy: Little fox. You looked like one that day at the initiation. You still feel like one with all the cunning.
My gaze meets with that of one of my classmates, Zayn. He’s quiet, like me, definitely studious, and has a peaceful aura like a Buddhist monk’s.
“I’ll give you a head start.” He tilts my head back further using his knife. “You can either run or hide, it’s your choice. But if I find you, I fuck you. You’ll bleed and scream, and beg, but nothing will stop me from claiming you, breaking you, and tearing you apart. Either put an end to it now and leave or agree to my terms and run.”
“I could tell you do. Your green eyes become the color of the forest at night, all dark and needy with dangerous lust. You fought me, but it wasn’t so you could push me away.
It was to drag out the beast you saw in me. You hunger for that beast, don’t you, Lisichka?”
I shake my head—or try to. I’m not sure if it’s visible as I mutter, “Lan…” is the last thing on my mind right now.
