“I’m nothing like you,” she denied, but her voice was a whisper and there wasn’t much conviction in her eyes.
“You’ve had a taste of the devil now,” I countered, reaching out to wrap my hands around her waist and pull her closer to me. She didn’t resist and her hands curled around my biceps as she looked into my eyes. “And you like the way he feels inside you.”
“Why do you always have to make everything sound dirty?” she complained, but her grip on my arms said she didn’t mind it so much.
“Because life is dirty. I’m dirty. I couldn’t change it if I wanted to and I see no point in denying it.”
“You want the world to think you’re so tough, Kyan Roscoe, but I think it’s just armour. So many layers of it that you don’t even know how to take it off anymore. But deep down inside, you’re not so dirty. Right where it counts, you’re not so broken.”
“Do you wanna save me, baby?” I teased, drawing her in as my gaze lingered on her lips for too long.
“Do you want me to save you, Kyan?” she breathed in return.
“It’s too late for that,” I replied slowly. “Even if some deluded part of me hungers for it, I know in my heart that there’s no redemption for me. I wasn’t born broken, but I’ve lived enough to get fucked up every which way until there’s so little light left in me it’s a wonder I can even see through the dark.”
“I don’t believe that. I think we all get a choice in the people we want to be and you’re making yours by choosing not to be that man too.”
“What a pretty little world you must have grown up in, baby. Your daddy really did love you, didn’t he?”
“Don’t do that,” she said, frowning at me like I was disappointing her.
“Do what?”
“Push your issues onto me. You don’t have to bullshit me all the damn time.”
I barked a laugh and stood up suddenly so that my chest brushed against hers.
“You already called it - I’m so broken I’m un-fucking-lovable. So the least I can do if I’m gonna be living alone my whole life is fight until I can’t fight no more and fuck until I can’t feel all of that pain which festers inside of me and take as much pleasure as I can get in whatever way I derive it until I end up dead and forgotten.”
I pushed past her as I hunted for some Jack to take the edge off of my pain, physical or otherwise.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on with you today?” she asked, stalking after me with a tube of burn cream grasped in her hand like a weapon.
Fucking Saint had stashed all of the booze away down in the crypt again and I knocked the cupboard closed as I headed to the door which led down to the gym without answering her question.
The worst thing was some stupid, aching little part of me wanted to do as she’d asked. To turn to her and tell her about my family, about the shitty life they’d planned out for me and the fucked up things they’d subjected me to in their attempts to mould me into the perfect pawn as I grew up. I was tempted to try and explain myself and make her understand why I was the way I was and convince her that despite all that, I was still my own man. At least in part. At least with her.
But I couldn’t. And I wouldn’t. She might have told me once that I belonged to her, but no one deserved the burden of taking on responsibility for me. And no one in their right mind would want to anyway. Certainly not someone like her.
I jogged down into the crypt, passing through the gym and into the old prayer room we used for storage now. Just as I’d thought, my whiskey was waiting for me there and I snatched it quickly, ripping the top off and drinking down way more than a healthy measure.
“What would it take to get you to tell me the truth?” Tatum asked as she came to stand behind me.
“The truth?” I scoffed, looking at her as I drank more whiskey, enjoying a different kind of burn as it rolled down my throat. “There’s so much truth in me that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And once I started telling it, you’d wish I never had anyway. There are some things that you’re better off never knowing about me. Some secrets which would cut too deep.”
I made a move to walk past her, but her palm landed on my chest, carefully avoiding the cigarette burn, as she moved into my way and I fell still as that point of contact between us took up all of my attention.
“Start with something small then,” she said in a low voice. It was dark back here away from the lights in the gym, but her blue eyes still shone with intensity.
My mind whirled with all of the fucked up, world altering, impossibly devastating truths I could offer her and I landed on the smallest one I could think of.
“I kept the knife,” I breathed.
“What?” she asked, her palm hot against my chest as she kept it there, her body so close to mine in the dark that I was aching to move even closer.
I unclasped the hunting knife which was strapped to my belt, pulling it free of its sheath and offering it to her.
Her hand trembled a little as she took it and I watched her hungrily as recognition spilled into her gaze.
“You’re fucking crazy,” she whispered as if she thought the walls might be listening in on us. “This…we killed someone with this. Why the hell would you have kept it? It’s evidence!”
I ignored her concerns, Saint had cleaned the thing meticulously so I knew there was no DNA evidence on it and the body was long gone so I wasn’t worried about getting caught with it.
“Tell me baby, how good did it feel when you drove this blade into him?” I growled, leaning down to brush my mouth against her collar bone and making her shiver as my stubble grazed her skin.
“I didn’t enjoy killing him,” she protested, her breath catching as I moved my lips up her neck, laying the softest of kisses against her skin.
“It’s not about the killing,” I murmured. “It’s about survival. Knowing you’ve got what it takes.”
“I…” The cold blade in her hand pressed against my stomach as she touched me while still maintaining her grip on it and I growled with desire for her as I skated my lips up to her jaw.
“When you stabbed him, it broke those shackles in your mind which had painted the world in black and white,” I said. “And you realised that sometimes an act of evil is what it takes to destroy evil. Sometimes the darkest of creatures can be fighting things that are even darker. And that just maybe, the construct of good and bad, the lines drawn in the sand between one and the other aren’t as clear cut as you used to believe.”
Her back arched as I curled my hands around her waist, loving how delicate she felt in my arms while knowing just how strong she really was.
“So what does that make me?” she asked breathlessly. “If sometimes, I think I like the dark?”
“Powerful,” I said, my mouth moving along her jaw as I drew ever closer to her full lips and my heart pounded feverishly with the desire to taste them. “Beautiful,” I added, grazing my teeth along her skin and making her gasp. “And free.”
My mouth brushed the corner of hers and a soft moan escaped her as I fell still there, every piece of me aching to make that final move, to feel the press of those full lips against mine, to taste the desire on her tongue and open myself up to all the things I shouldn’t have been wishing she might be to me.
“Kyan…” she murmured, her voice husky, her chest pressing against mine as the sound of our heavy breaths filled the small prayer room and echoed off of the cold stone walls.
“Every good thing that’s ever gotten close to me has ended up destroyed,” I said slowly, my lips brushing against her skin as I stayed locked in place, desperate to claim that kiss from her and terrified of what it would mean for her if I did.
Liam already knew about her, had already guessed what she might mean to me. If I crossed this line, I was only dragging her in deeper, making sure I’d pull her under with me when the weight of my secrets finally drowned me.
“If this is about the things I said to you in anger, I-”
“Kyan,” she breathed again and I fucking loved the way my name sounded coming from her. She turned her head so that her lips brushed against mine for the briefest of seconds, but I pulled back before it could even resemble a kiss.
“The darkness in me is the type that breeds,” I said roughly, gazing into her eyes as I fought off the desires of my flesh in favour of what I knew was right. “And when it touches something good, it infects it. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep far away from me.”
I took a step back but she hounded forward, dropping the burn cream and catching my cheek in her grasp as she forced me to stop again.
“You just told me that the lines between good and bad aren’t clear cut, Kyan,” she said fiercely. “So maybe you should let me decide how much I want to blur them.”
“There’s dipping your toe in the water and then there’s drowning in an ocean of darkness,” I replied roughly, ignoring the ache in my chest as I used my grip on her waist to push her back. “And I’m not going to drag you under the surface with me.”
I prised my knife from her grip before she could try and argue anymore and snatched the bottle of Jack before striding away from her.
There weren’t many good things that I’d done in my life, but I could do this. I could shield her from the worst of me and try to keep my family’s attention away from her. I’d convince them that she was nothing to me and I’d do whatever they fucking wanted to keep them away from her and the other Night Keepers.
I’d been kidding myself to believe that I could really cut myself off from them and never go back there anyway. They had their hooks in me too deep. And it was time to admit that my life had never been destined to be my own.
Rain hammered against the window as I sat in the library with the Unspeakables in our usual spot. My gaze lingered on the dark lake under the heavy clouds, the water rippling and stirring beneath the onslaught. I loved the beaches of SoCal, but I couldn’t deny Everlake was growing on me. There was something so wild about this place, the way the weather changed ten times a day. Sunny one moment, then stormy the next. It mirrored the way I felt about the Night Keepers. I hated them with all the force of a hurricane, only to be caught off guard, laughing with them like the sun had broken through the clouds a beat later. It was a stressful way to live, but it made me feel wide awake too. Like I was living with every single ounce of my being, not just drifting along on autopilot.
My gaze fell on the rose-shaped scar on the inside of my forearm and my heart began to beat out of rhythm as I thought over everything my dad had told me again. Immune…how can I be immune? But it made sense. That looter had coughed right in my face and I hadn’t gotten sick. I’d thought I’d just been lucky, but no…there was a reason after all.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Deepthroat said – shit Ashlynn. I had to start thinking of them with their real names, but it was hard. Especially when they cringed every time I said their true names out loud.
Squits and Pigs exchanged a nervous glance, but Freeloader gave her an encouraging look.
Deepthroat sat up straighter and I noticed she was wearing a little more makeup than usual, like her confidence was slowly but surely seeping back into her. It made my heart swell to see it.
“What if we started a protest?” she suggested. “We could make signs and banners, chain ourselves to the tables in the courtyard at Aspen Halls and refuse to move until the Night Keepers give us our rights back.” She looked to me for approval and I chewed my lip.
“It could work,” I said thoughtfully, but Squits was already sinking lower in his chair and Pigs shook his head vigorously.
“What about wearing brighter clothes first?” Freeloader suggested, knotting her hand anxiously in her hair.
Deepthroat rolled her eyes. “Brighter clothes? What’s the point in that?”
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Freeloader pushed. “Not an all out protest where we’ll most likely end up outcast like Bait.”
“Shh.” Squits waved a hand frantically to hush her, his eyes darting to the aisles leading away from our spot. “Don’t mention Bait.”
“He used to be your friend,” I pointed out. “And I think he’s suffered enough.”
“Well, that’s not for you to say, is it?” Deepthroat said with a sigh. “Unless the Night Keepers are giving you extra privileges now?” Her eyes sparkled with hope for a moment, but I shook my head.
“No,” I huffed, sitting back in my seat. “What about the others? We need all of you together if we’re going to make a stand.”
“Pirate said he’s going to join us tonight,” Pigs said, sitting up taller in his seat and checking his watch. “He should be here any minute.”
I smiled genuinely, glad there was some progress being made at least. There were a bunch of Unspeakables whom I’d barely spoken to before. I figured they were too afraid of the Night Keepers, so was happy at least one more felt brave enough to join us.
Pirate finally arrived and I took in the slim, dark skinned boy whose eyes flitted left and right anxiously.
“Hey,” I said gently, pointing to an empty chair across the table. “Come join us.”
He nodded, dropping into it, but not getting anything out of his bag like he was considering leaving already.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked and he shot a look at Pigs who nodded in encouragement.
He cleared his throat several times, his fingers flexing. “Quentin,” he whispered and I held out my hand across the table.
“Nice to meet you properly, Quentin.” He took my hand briefly and I squeezed before sitting back in my seat.
“We were just talking about-” I started, but a cold voice cut me off.
“So, this is where you lurk.” I jumped in alarm, but it was nothing to how the Unspeakables reacted to seeing Kyan emerging from the shadows.
Squits looked like he’d just lived up to his name, every drop of blood had abandoned Freeloader’s face, Pirate was on his feet looking for the nearest exit, Deepthroat let out a small scream and Pigs legit toppled off of his chair and hit the floor on his ass.
My heart beat unsteadily in my chest as I rose from my seat, stepping forward to put myself between Kyan and the Unspeakables.
“We study together, what’s the problem?” I asked rudely, folding my arms.
Kyan’s eyes roamed over the people behind me with abject hate in his expression before his gaze returned to mine. Danger hung in the air like an oncoming storm and I moved another step closer in an effort to get his attention off of the others.
“The problem,” he spat. “Is that you’re only allowed one friend and not only are you breaking that rule, you’re breaking it with the scum of the fucking earth.”
My jaw clenched as rage made my blood pound fast through my veins. “We’re studying together, that’s all. And this is my haven, I didn’t invite you into it.” I reached out to shove him back a step and everyone gasped in horror behind me.
Kyan looked down his nose at me, water dripping from his damp hair which was loose and chaotic. “Nowhere is safe from me, baby.”
He shoved me aside, prowling toward the Unspeakables and jumping up onto the table (a free-standing fucking jump). His muddy boots left prints all over their work as he strode around the table in a circle, eyeing them all like prey.
“Stop being an asshole,” I demanded, glaring up at him with fury in my heart.
“No can do, sugartits. That’s like asking the wind not to blow or the wolf not to howl.” He threw me a wink and I planted my hands on my hips.
“Stop it,” I growled. “I’ll go if that’s what you want, just leave them alone.”
“Alright,” Kyan sighed and my shoulders relaxed a little. “As soon as I’ve relieved myself.” He unzipped his fly, tugging out his dick and started pissing on D
eepthroat’s work, the urine splashing onto her clothes as she gazed up at him unblinkingly.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, unsure what to do as I watched this actually happen. “You fucking bastard! Get away from her!”
Kyan growled in satisfaction, tucking himself away and tugging up his fly before his gaze shot to me. “You wouldn’t defend her if you knew what she did.”
“She just had a crush on you and tried to give you a blowjob, is that really deserving of all this assfuckery?” I was burning up with how mad I was. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen, or the fact that the Unspeakables were staring at him like this wasn’t even the worst of what they usually faced.
Kyan tsked, sneering at Deepthroat. “Is that what she said?” He jumped off of the table, striding towards me, leering. “And you believe her just like that, do you? Sweet, innocent Tatum, standing up for the poor little victims of the Night Keepers. How fucking noble of you.”
He grabbed my wrist in a vice-like grip, dragging me down the aisle and I dug my heels in furiously.
“Let go of me,” I demanded, throwing a punch into his side, but he didn’t slow, hauling me along until we reached the front door and dragging me out into the storm. I didn’t even have my blazer or my bag and I was instantly soaked as he pulled me up the path, the rain tumbling down on us like bullets.
“Kyan!” I shouted over the raging wind. “Let go of me!”
His grip was so tight, it was bruising, but he didn’t relent, his jaw set as he pulled me along with intention, and wherever we were going, I feared arriving there more than the journey.
I spotted Kyan’s dirt bike leaning against a tree out of the storm and he pulled me over to it, shoving his helmet onto my head before getting on the bike and glaring at me in an order to get on.
I turned, about to run away, when he grabbed my wrist again and threw me over his lap so I was gazing down at the ground.
“Kyan!” I screamed as he took off down the path, veering in the opposite direction to The Temple and the wind blew up my skirt so my ass was completely fucking exposed to him. I heard him laugh as the rain crashed over my bare skin and I growled in fury, unable to do anything as I clung onto his leg for dear life. Nothing but curse him anyway.
Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2) Page 47