Nightfall

by Douglas, Penelope

  I was at the edge, and I didn’t want to stop.

  Digging in my heels and splashing through the puddles, I ran as hard as I could, up the sidewalk and through the grass, back to the cathedral.

  My hair coated my face, and I didn’t look behind me, because I knew he wouldn’t leave the car to chase me, and he might suspect I went into the church, but he wouldn’t be able to find me.

  I dashed into the church, slowing my steps to not bring attention, and made my way through the nave to the stairs again. I escaped up to the gallery, behind the door, up the steps, and back inside The Carfax Room, locking the door behind me.

  Safe.

  Hidden.

  I walked to the trunks by the windows, found the dress, and pulled it out.

  Emmy Scott was tired and sad.

  But Reverie Cross was going to Homecoming.

  Will

  Present

  My groin ached, and I flipped over in bed, my cock tenting the sheet.

  I reached my hand underneath and fisted it, slowly stroking the hard muscle.

  Fuck.

  How did that girl always do this to me? She had me about ready to break and go ask her for it instead. I knew she wouldn’t come to my room last night after I’d left her in the drawing room. I knew that.

  I just hoped I was wrong.

  God, I wanted her. I could chalk it up to being without a woman for so long, but no…it was Emory Sophia Scott and how good her smiles felt.

  All the frowns were worth the trouble for just one smile.

  Or so I used to think.

  The morning light streamed through my small attic window, warming my chest as everything tingled, and my dick swelled more.

  I groaned, closing my eyes and wetting my palm with my tongue, diving back down and pumping my cock faster and tighter.

  From the moment I’d laid eyes on her, everything about her turned me on and there wasn’t a single way I didn’t dream about fucking her. It was an obsession from the start.

  But why?

  She was moody, intolerant, judgmental…and while I knew exactly where her distrust and hard heart came from, she refused to warm toward me after all this time. If she hadn’t by now, she wouldn’t.

  Loving a guarded girl, I had realized, was a pyrrhic victory. The rare moments of happiness came at too great a cost.

  But there she was, always in my dreams—beautiful and bare—letting me ride her and lose myself in her lips and scent.

  I stroked again and again, my cock hard and fully erect, the images of her buried in my sheets—soft and sweet—filling my head as my cock dripped for her.

  And I went with it. Fuck it.

  I tried to forget her with others. I went with women who looked nothing like her, so I could get her out of my system, but at the end of the day, it only hurt me more.

  I tightened my stomach, feeling myself coming, and I envisioned myself inside her, going hard and making her moan.

  Because maybe if I could screw her, I could leave, and it would be like someone flipped a switch where she no longer mattered.

  “Fuck me, baby,” I gritted out, tugging on my dick faster and faster. “Come on, spread your legs.”

  In my head, there she was—plastered to the mattress under my weight and my nose buried in her hair as I drove into her. She kissed me and smiled and God, she wanted it, the soft skin of her tight stomach sticky with sweat as I moved on top of her.

  I tensed, jerked, and threw off the sheet, spilling all over my hand, cum shooting out, and I swear I could feel her tight heat over my cock. I knew exactly what she felt like.

  I gasped and exhaled, melting into the bed as the orgasm wracked through me, and I grunted, letting it course.

  Fuck.

  Finally, I opened my eyes.

  A pyrrhic victory. And here I was, pretty sure that no cost was too great to just be able to hold her. It kind of scared me what I’d pay.

  Rising from the bed, I grabbed a cloth and cleaned up, tossing it down the laundry chute before yanking a towel that was hung over the chair and wrapping it around my waist.

  Rory was always in the steam room before the rest of us were awake. I needed some time alone with him, and it had to be today.

  Descending the stairs, I headed down the hallway, almost hesitating at her room, tempted to make sure she was fine, but I passed it by and jogged down the next set of stairs, heading through the foyer.

  Taking a left in the quiet house, I walked down the dark hallway, toward the natatorium, and entered, swinging open the frosted glass door of the steam room.

  As routine as a serial killer, Rory Geardon sat on the tiled bench, leaning against the wall as vapor billowed around him.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He jerked his chin at me. “Hey.”

  “Going hunting soon?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “You coming?”

  “Maybe.” I could use some fresh air, but I wasn’t leaving her in the house alone, either.

  I sat a few feet away, the heat coating my skin like a blanket.

  I loved steam rooms. It detoxed me, relaxed me, and reminded me of home. The one at Hunter-Bailey in Meridian City was twice as big, and it was where Michael, Kai, and I had some of our most important business meetings. If I wasn’t too hungover that day.

  “So, Devil’s Night, huh?” Rory mused at my side. “This Thunder Bay of yours is starting to sound like an adult Disneyland.”

  I grinned. “I miss it.”

  He grabbed an extra towel he’d brought in and wiped down his face. “Even though that’s where your family is?”

  He assumed I didn’t want to see my family. He thought my parents sent me here, so why would I want to go back? Like Micah and Aydin, Rory didn’t have any faith or trust in the ones who gave up on him. There was no going home for them.

  Not really.

  But my situation was different. “I didn’t deserve to go to prison, but… I might’ve deserved this.” It got me clean and sober. “Besides, the family I chose would never send me here. They’re what I’m returning to,” I told him.

  “Well, I’m never going home,” he replied. “I know that without a doubt. My mother won’t risk it.”

  Meaning it wasn’t a choice of going back. He never thought he was actually getting out.

  And after what he did, I had to agree they weren’t completely unjustified in their concern.

  Rory was like the Terminator. Rule of law or not, the mission was the only thing he saw. It was like tunnel vision. Those kids deserved what they got, and maybe he seemed to enjoy himself, but whether or not he was wrong was a matter of opinion.

  As the son to an ambassador to Japan, he was a liability.

  To me, he was perfect.

  “And if I do get out of here,” he continued, “she’ll give me some hotel to run on some low-population island somewhere where I won’t draw notice.”

  “Will you draw notice?” I asked.

  He breathed out a laugh but didn’t answer the question.

  “You’re not unique,” I told him, resting my head against the wall and closing my eyes. “Everyone has that point of absolute clarity where conscience isn’t a factor. We are who we are, and we want what we want, and there’s no question of what has to happen. The only difference between you and the rest of the population is that you reached that point and most people will never reach it.”

  Not many have the opportunities to be driven to a point of despair or survival and look danger in the eye.

  “What you did was calculated,” I said in a gentle tone. “It needed to be done.”

  He’d found Micah, but he still hadn’t found a home, and I had no intention of leaving him to rot here.

  “I’m lucky,” I said, almost to myself. “I have a family full of people who know what going over the edge feels like. They know there’s a place inside of us where you make the rules instead of follow them. I’m not alone.”

  O
ut of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn his head and look at me.

  “They’re a storm,” I told him.

  He remained silent for a moment, and I could feel the wheels turning in his head. He’d fit in nicely with my friends.

  Leaving the thought to linger, I rose to my feet and walked for the door to go shower.

  “What did she do to get sent here?” he asked before I had a chance to leave.

  I gripped the handle, still.

  Dread settled inside me, because she’d interrupted my plans, and things had changed whether I wanted to face it or not.

  Would I proceed, considering her a factor?

  It wasn’t even a question.

  “Just like the rest of us,” I said, “she knows what she did, and no one here is innocent.”

  I left the room, but instead of heading to the showers, I charged back up to my bedroom, the house still asleep as I closed the door and placed a steel bar underneath the handle.

  Walking to the bed, I pulled off the fitted sheet, lifted up the mattress, and flipped it over. It toppled, partly on the bed and partly on the nightstand, the lamp falling over and extinguishing.

  Reaching inside the tear on the bottom, I slid my hand between the springs and pulled out the black laptop, walking it over to the table near the window for some light.

  I opened it, powered it up, and waited for the chat to load.

  Are you there? I typed.

  Copy, he wrote after a pause. He wants you extracted. Soon.

  Not yet. There’s a…development.

  I didn’t want to say too much in case someone was spying on us, and where she was concerned, I didn’t know who was involved.

  Is there anything you’re not telling me? I asked.

  Such as?

  I cocked an eyebrow. Have you sent anyone else in?

  I waited a moment for his response, and then the letters flashed in green. No.

  You’re sure?

  I don’t lie to you, he said.

  I exhaled, relaxing my shoulders. Okay, then. It wasn’t my people.

  Either Michael, Kai, and Damon were working on their own, or someone else was behind this. I still knew nothing, but at least I’d ruled out anyone on my end.

  More text came in. How many and when? he asked.

  At least four, I typed.

  But then I noticed Taylor outside, leaning against the glass solarium door, peering in at something.

  What was he doing?

  Quickly, I typed the rest, finishing my sentence. Maybe five, I told him. Hold until you hear from me.

  Through the glass roof, I spotted two figures moving. I thinned my eyes, trying to make it out.

  Aydin.

  He was holding Emory.

  I reared back, my gaze sharpening.

  Are you safe? Came the next question.

  But I was gone.

  Closing the computer and storing it, I pulled on some sweat pants and buttoned them up before jogging down the stairs. I yanked the steel bar away and threw open my bedroom door.

  Emory

  Nine Years Ago

  I walked into the school, the hallways dim and the music pounding from the gym. Prom was always held in Meridian City, at an expensive banquet hall or hotel.

  Homecoming stayed at home.

  The frilly pink, strapless dress I’d found in The Carfax Room brushed against my knees, cool air caressing my bare shoulders and back. My long brown hair, parted in the middle, draped around me and in my face, and I left the natural kink wild and shiny. I’d found some theater makeup in the room and used the mascara and eyeliner. Lipstick tinted my mouth.

  Nothing covered the dried blood that had spilled down my temple, the blue and purple bruising around my eye, or the cut on my lip. My bare arms wore his handprints, no longer aching so much with the ibuprofen I’d taken.

  I could hide in plain sight tonight because it was almost Halloween, the one time of year everyone could bring what was inside outside.

  Opening the door to the gymnasium, I stepped inside, the hair on my arms instantly rising. Music blared, blue and pink lights swirling around the darkened room as decorations and balloons adorned every table.

  A few dozen couples moved on the dance floor, and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest as I gazed around the room.

  Was he here?

  The dance had begun a while ago, the ticket takers and photographers having already abandoned their posts near the door, but I spotted a few sets of eyes turn toward me as I entered the room. Most people wore costumes, while others wore simple masks with their cocktail dresses and suits.

  They stared, some leaning in and whispering to each other, and it might’ve been because I was here or because of how I looked, but I didn’t care.

  My feet moved on autopilot, taking me farther into the room as I stepped in my heels through the noise, the dancing, and the looks.

  Normally, I’d run. I’d escape into my phone or a book or another room. Normally, I’d—

  But just then…he was there.

  And I stopped.

  He leaned against the wall, surrounded by his friends, away from the crowd and looking amazing in a black suit with a white shirt and no tie.

  He hadn’t seen me yet, and I waited, suddenly paralyzed.

  I wanted my phone or a handbag or something to hold. Something to not feel so alone and vulnerable, but I’d left my school bag with my wallet in Martin’s police car, as well as my glasses which were probably lying on the floor somewhere. My phone was at the cathedral, turned off.

  I walked toward him, his scent and arms and smile beckoning me like food, because I was dry and hungry and empty.

  I hated home. I didn’t love the gazebo anymore. I was tired of school and tired of never seeing anything that didn’t drain me, no matter which way I turned.

  I wanted to see him. I wanted to feel his hand in mine.

  Ignoring the whispers of others as I passed, I watched him talk and nod, one hand in his pants pocket and the other holding his keys like he was getting ready to leave.

  I didn’t see a date anywhere.

  He looked away from Kai, noticing me as he met my eyes, and stared, unblinking as he took in my appearance. The pink party dress, the blood and bruises… Nothing was funny about Reverie Cross’s demise, as there was nothing funny about mine.

  Tonight I could be seen. Let them all see.

  His friends turned and looked, following his gaze.

  “Wanna dance?” I asked quietly, my heart beating so fast it made the words shaky.

  I saw the guys shift out of the corner of my eyes, breathing out a laugh that didn’t really sound mean. Just surprised.

  Will stared at me, and it took everything I had not to chew on my lip or squeeze my fists.

  I’d gone too far. He might not be alone. I knew he’d probably have a date, and here I was, stalker girl. I was constantly messing with his head, sending him mixed signals, and yes, he pushed too hard and no means no, no matter how many times I’d changed my mind, but…

  He and I both knew I wanted this. He just didn’t understand why I was holding back.

  And maybe he was finally realizing that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

  But to my surprise, he pushed off the wall, coming toward me with a soft smile playing on his lips.

  He took my hand, looking down at me as he led me to the dance floor, and I could see his eyes trailing over the dried blood streaming down from my eyebrow and the bruises on my body.

  “Part of my costume,” I explained.

  I searched his eyes, unable to look away, because just the sight of him made my heart ache.

  I had one night. Just one night with him.

  “You didn’t dress up?” I asked.

  His green eyes held mine. “I didn’t want to make it hard for you to find me.”

  I felt the heat rise to my cheeks, and I smiled. He came alone then.

  Walking to the middle of the dance floor, he stopped, and I tur
ned to face him. “Mr. Sandman” by SYML began, and I started to move my arms up to his shoulders, but then I stopped.

  “I actually don’t know how to dance,” I told him.

  I’d never done this before.

  Taking my waist, he pulled me in, and I gasped, my arms instinctively wrapped round his neck.

  “Put your feet on mine,” he said.

  Without argument, I stepped up on his shoes in my pink heels, happy to just hold on. Tipping my head back, I looked up at him as he held me close and started moving, turning in a slow circle and box-stepping small enough for me to easily follow.

  “You look beautiful,” he said. “Despite that nasty spill you took down the rocks at Cold Point.”

  He touched my face, thankfully only seeing the costume. People watched us, but I didn’t care what they thought. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, the slow, haunting tune playing just for us.

  “Reverie Cross,” I mused. “She sounds like someone who had her own bathroom.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “She was actually not well off. And she was okay with that, because he loved her anyway. Nothing else mattered to him.”

  I tightened my arms around him, feeling my knees shake a little.

  They were young, and I understood it. In that moment, everything prevailed and nothing else mattered. Why not let them have the dream?

  But Will pinched his eyebrows together, studying me. “Something’s wrong.”

  I shook my head. “Not tonight there’s not.”

  Just one night.

  And if it was just going to be one, I didn’t want to share him with anyone else.

  “Can we leave?” I asked suddenly.

  He stopped dancing. “You want me to take you home?”

  “Not unless you want to,” I replied, still holding on to him. “I don’t want to leave you yet.”

  He smiled, taking my hand as I stepped off his shoes. “Let’s go,” he said.

  He pulled me from the dance floor, the people and the noise and every care I’ve ever had left behind as excitement heated my veins.