Why didn’t she stop me?
She’s messing with my mind more than Becky ever has. Why am I allowing her to do this? I’m supposed to be the one in charge, but am I playing her game? Or is she playing mine?
Something tells me that Demi is a much better player than Becky could ever be. And that thought turns me on even more.
“You okay?” Cole asks, giving me a glance before looking back at the road.
I grunt. “Yep.” She got my warning. She’ll stay away, and I’ll go back to my plan of seducing Becky. She has to fall in love with me all over again so I can break her fucking black heart. Demi can’t get in the way of that. I won’t let her.
_______________
“Where did you guys go last night?” Austin asks, stepping out on the patio with Lilly. She sheds her little towel with fairy wings on it to showcase a pink bathing suit.
I have come to find I like the Texas weather much more than Oregon. It’s the middle of October and still nice enough to swim. Even though the pool is heated, it’s not needed yet. The temp doesn’t drop until the sun goes down.
“Uncle Deke,” she screeches when she sees I’m already in the pool and runs, jumping in. I pull her head up from under the water and put her on my shoulders. Her little feet kick water up in my face as she splashes.
“We had to take care of something,” I answer Austin.
She pulls her shirt up and over her head, her green eyes glaring down at me. “What did you need to take care of?”
My eyes fall to her scar from where Kellan shot her, but I don’t answer.
She looks at Cole who sits on the third step staring up at her. He’s leaned back, his elbows resting on the second step. His blue eyes run up her body slowly as if he’d rather have her naked and alone at the moment.
“Cole?” she urges.
His eyes make their way up to hers, but he says nothing.
She looks at me when she realizes he’s not saying shit. “What did you guys do?”
“We just had a little fun,” I decide to say in answer.
She looks back and forth between Cole and me for a second. “And?”
“We were just playing. Harmless fun,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes. “Oh God, not this again.”
“What?” I feign innocence while Lilly pounds her little hands into my cheeks excitedly, her feet still splashing me.
“You know what?” she snaps and then bends over to remove her shorts. “I know what your definition of play is, and it’s not fun.”
Yeah, Austin was once something Cole played with. The moment he laid eyes on her, she became his prey.
Nine months ago
I stand in an abandoned cemetery over the bloody dead guy who my friends and I just killed. He was our revenge. Cole wanted him to pay, and we all played our part in making sure he got it.
A phone ringing slices through the silent night. “Hello?” Kellan answers. “Yeah.” He nods to himself. “Be there soon.” Hanging up, he pockets his cell. “I gotta go.”
What the fuck? Where in the hell does he have to go that is so important right now? He’s been acting fishy for days. More than he usually does. He didn’t even want to be a part of this tonight. But I think Bennett talked him into it at the last minute.
“Get out of here,” I tell him, trying not to show my frustration toward him at the moment. “Cole and I will wrap this up.” Where did he go anyway? We heard a noise, and he went to check it out. It was probably some wild animal. No one comes up here anymore.
“Let us know when it’s done,” Bennett tells me, turning on his flashlight to light the way back to his car.
“Will do.” I nod, and they turn and begin to walk down the hill to where we parked our cars. I wait a few seconds before I call out his name. “Cole?”
“Over here,” he answers. His voice doesn’t sound far away from me.
I pull out my flashlight, making my way down the hill so I don’t trip over any tree limbs. I see him down on his knees, straddling someone dressed in a pair of jeans and a black hoodie.
“You sorry son of a …”
“What did you find?” I ask, cutting off the girl as I come up next to them. My light shines down on her. A pretty brunette lies on the wet ground. Cole straddles her hips, pinning her arms under his legs. “Oh, a toy. Where did she come from?” What the hell is she doing in this abandoned cemetery this time of night?
“Not sure,” he answers.
“Are there more?” I ask, taking a quick look around but don’t see anything. He has one; I want one too.
“Fuck you,” she spits out.
I laugh. “I like when they have a dirty mouth.”
She arches her back, letting out a scream of frustration that rings out in the dark, rainy night.
“No one can hear you out here,” he tells her, his free hand coming up and wrapping around her throat. The blood from the guy we just killed on his hand covering her sun-kissed skin. “There’s no one to come save you.”
She whimpers.
“I love it when they scream. Go ahead, sweetheart,” I say softly. “Scream for me.” I kneel next to them. Reaching out, I wrap her brown hair around my bloody hand, and I jerk her head to the side to face me. She bares her perfect teeth, sucking in a breath, but she doesn’t cry out from my force. Both of our lights stay on her face, and she squints her pretty green eyes, trying to see.
In the distance, I hear an engine roar as Shane, Kellan, and Bennett leave. “What were you doing out here all alone?” I ask her.
“Watching you murder someone,” she snaps.
I throw my head back, laughing at the fucking bitch. I find her truth refreshing. “Like to watch, do you?”
She bucks her hips, trying to throw Cole off, but no such luck. He’s twice her size, so she’s not going anywhere.
“What a coincidence. So do I,” I continue with a dark laugh.
She stiffens, and I look at my best friend. “Go ahead, Cole. Give me a show. I earned it. We gave her one, after all.”
“Don’t,” she whispers as her lips part, and she sucks in a ragged breath.
Cole smiles down at her, his hand loosening around her neck to run along her collarbone, pulling down her oversized hoodie in the process. His bloody hand leaves a trail. The sound of her ragged breathing fills the cold night.
“You know how much I love to perform,” he tells me, fucking with her.
“Please,” she pleads while his finger runs over her shoulder, pushing her black bra strap off and watching it disappear into the sleeve of her hoodie.
I slap Cole on the back. “She’s begging you already, Cole. Fuck! That’s some kind of record, right?” I whistle. But not really. All the women beg to get in his pants. Every girl wants a piece of a GWS.
The wind picks up and tosses her hair around her face, causing it to stick to the blood along her neck and chest. “Red is your color,” he tells her.
“Orange is gonna be yours,” she growls, lifting her chin.
He smiles at her words.
I laugh it off, then have a thought. How much did she see? What the hell is she even doing here? I’ve never seen this girl before. Does she know who we are? Is she related to Jeff, the guy we just killed? As far as I know, he only had one relative—Jerrold. And that fucker is next on our list. “She may have recorded it.”
Cole sighs. “That would be very stupid of you,” he tells her.
He drops the flashlight beside her head. Letting go of her shirt, he sits up, freeing her arms, and she begins to fight him. Her hands slap at his body, and her nails dig into his naked chest before he pins her hands above her head. “Check her pockets,” he orders me.
She screams as she tries to fight him. Her hips buck, and she kicks her legs out, but I pat her pockets and find a cell phone. Fuck! “It’s locked.”
“What’s the passcode?” he demands.
She clamps her mouth shut, and her pretty green eyes narrow. “Either you give me the pass
code, or I take it from you. What’s it gonna be, sweetheart?” he threatens.
“I didn’t …”
This bitch isn’t gonna play this game with us. Not tonight. “That’s not the only thing we’re gonna take,” I say, cutting her off. I bend down and unbutton her jeans, then lower her zipper. Knowing her biggest fear and using it to my advantage.
“No!” she cries out. “It’s retina … it’s a retina scanner,” she says in a rush.
“Fucking technology,” I growl. “What happened to the good ole days where you just flipped the phone open, and it fucking worked?” Why would this chick need a retina scanner? I highly doubt she has anything important on her phone that she doesn’t want others to see.
I hold the damn phone up to her face, Cole’s flashlight lies on the ground next to them, shining on her face. It unlocks the phone, and the first place I go to is her photos. They’re the typical girl selfies with the duck face. I go to her videos, and she has none. Strange, but also smart for not recording us.
But who the fuck is she? And why the hell is she hanging out in a cemetery in the middle of the night? On New Year’s of all nights? She should be at a party. Drunk or high. I exit out of her videos and go to her Facebook app. I stare at her name for a few seconds, then frown and squint. This can’t be right … I exit out and then open it back, thinking it will change. It doesn’t.
Shit! I grunt.
“What is it?” he asks, clearly hearing me.
“No videos or pictures, but there is something interesting.” I may not know this girl, but I know my best friend. And she is about to become as fucking dead as Jeff is.
“I tried to tell you. I didn’t record it,” she says, panting.
“What did you find?” he asks, ignoring her.
I take in a long breath and say two words. “Austin Lowes.”
“As in Bruce Lowes?” he asks her.
Silence follows.
He chuckles. “Well, well, well, I didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“We don’t have time for this,” I growl. She’s useless to me at this point. We could have had some fun with her but not anymore. She’s the daughter of the man who raped Cole’s mother and got her pregnant. He’s wanted to make that bastard pay for years, so he’ll make her pay. Not only because of who her dad is, but because of what she saw. I stand and pull my gun out of the back of my pants. “Let’s just kill her.” She’s already dead anyway. He won’t let her walk away. Not after what she saw.
“Put the gun away,” he orders.
He can’t be serious. “But …”
“Now.”
I tuck it back into my pants, biting back a growl. “Let’s take her with us. I don’t trust her not to call the police afterward.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she snaps.
“You’ll do whatever the fuck we say,” I reply flatly.
“She won’t call them,” he tells me as if he knows what this bitch will and won’t do. “Will you?”
She clamps her mouth shut.
I snort. “You don’t fucking know that.”
“No one will believe her,” he says. “She’s covered in his blood. It’s underneath her fingernails from where she scratched my chest. It’s on her clothes. In her hair. As far as they’re concerned, she will be an accessory to murder.”
“You fucking bastard—”
“What did you guys do with the body?” he interrupts her, asking me.
“Kellan got a call and had to leave; he rode with Bennett, so they all left. I told them we would take care of it.”
“Perfect. Call my phone with hers.”
I all but roll my eyes. What is he up to? “What? Cole, we don’t have time …”
“Call my phone with hers, Deke,” he snaps.
I let out a huff but look down at her phone and see it’s still unlocked. I type in his number, and seconds later, it starts ringing in his pocket, but he doesn’t answer it.
I don’t expect him to explain himself.
He stands up, and she takes the opportunity to try to scramble away, but he grips her hoodie and yanks her to her feet. Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he starts shoving her forward up the hill. She twists in his grip, and his hand slips, allowing her to get a few steps ahead of him.
What the fuck is he doing?
He runs after her, fisting her hair to pull her back against his front. Wrapping his free hand around her waist, he says, “We’re not done, sweetheart.”
“Where are we going?” she demands.
He doesn’t answer her, and I don’t say shit ’cause I have no fucking clue what he’s doing. Maybe he plans on burying her with Jeff’s body. Anything is possible when it comes to Cole.
He walks her over to where he knows we had Jeff. And I shine my flashlight on the body. She shows no sign of fear as she stares at the dead man. She saw everything we fucking did. How did she know where we were? How long had she been following us? The Lowes estate is just down at the bottom of the hill, but it’s over a hundred yards away. There’s no way she heard us.
“Hold her,” he demands, shoving her into my arms.
“Let me go, you son of a bitch!” she screams as she bumps into me.
Her small fist makes contact with my face. “Fuck,” I hiss. “She punched me,” I say, irritated with this turn of events. She’s like a fly I want to flatten under my hand.
I grip her hair with one hand, dropping my flashlight, and wrap my now free hand around her neck. I choke her, taking away her air. I’m not gonna go easy on this bitch. I don’t care what Cole plans on doing with her. She tries to fight me, but just like when Cole held her, she has no chance.
I hear him digging into our black bag, and he pulls out the knife. “Pin her to the ground. Face down.”
I smile and shove her to her knees with my hand in her hair. She grunts and cusses me as I force her to her stomach with my knee in her lower back.
Cole grabs his flashlight and shines it down on her. I straddle her ass, her hands pinned in mine against her back.
He kneels beside us and yanks her sleeve up. “What are you doing?” she asks in a rush.
“Insurance,” he replies and then drags the blade against her forearm.
She cries out in the cemetery as the skin gives and blood starts to pour from the wound. He then takes the knife and stabs Jeff in the chest. “Now your DNA is in him with the murder weapon.”
I chuckle. This bastard …
“You go to the cops. They dig him up and investigate his murder, and you go down with us.”
“Fucking …”
“And you called me. More proof that we were communicating the night of the murder. Around the time of death.”
Her body lies stiff under mine, and her breathing is labored.
“Return her phone and let her go so we can bury this body,” he tells me.
I release her, and then I stand up, hovering over her. She crawls away from me, and I toss her phone to the wet ground. She stands up on shaky legs, holding her arm where he cut it. We both shine our lights on her.
“Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind,” he growls.
She turns and runs.
“We should have killed her,” I say, not really knowing what the fuck he’s doing with her. She could still talk.
“That wasn’t part of the plan,” he argues.
I fist my hands. “I don’t fucking care about the plan. What I care about is not going to prison. We should, at the very least, have taken her with us.” Even I knew that wasn’t a possibility, but what other choice did we have other than killing her? Bruce Lowes is a fucking evil bastard. How do we know his daughter isn’t just like him?
“Did you want to take her home?” He arches a brow. “Keep her as a pet?” Then he shakes his head. “She won’t say anything.”
“She will …”
“She won’t. She’s Bruce Lowes’ daughter. We kill her, and they start looking for a missing girl. Then
that brings questions.”
“They’d never find her body, and you know it,” I add. It may be the first time we’ve ever committed murder, but we know what we’re doing. Our fathers have trained us for times like this. We were raised to be fucking sharks. Just like them.
“I wasn’t worried about them finding her body.”
“Then why not let me shoot her?” I growl, confused by what the hell he is doing. “Two birds with one stone.”
“Not yet,” he responds.
I run a hand through my hair, finally understanding his intentions. “You want to fuck with her.” I chuckle. He wants a toy. “This will be fun.”
He smiles.
Oh, Austin Lowes, he’s gonna make you wish he would have just killed you.
That night was the beginning of her torment and our fun. One thing after another, he put her through hell. Who knew she would survive it? Or that Cole would fall in love with her? I sure as hell didn’t see that coming, but even I can’t deny that they were made for one another.
“Ah, come on, baby.” She glares at me. She hates it when I call her baby, but I don’t care. “You had fun. It’s okay to admit it.”
“Cole.” She growls his name.
He gets out of the water and walks over to her. Placing his hands on her hips, he remains silent. “Did you hurt her?” she asks him, knowing exactly what I meant by had some fun.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t do anything. Just stood there.”
“You didn’t try to stop him?” Her mouth falls open.
He doesn’t respond ’cause he already answered her once.
She sighs. “Do I know her?”
“No.” We both lie in unison.
She pulls away from him. “You said you were done.”
“I am.” He nods.
“But now you’re playing some sick game with someone.”
“It’s not what you think,” he argues.
She places her hands on her hips. “Then explain it to me.”
DARE SERIES COLLECTION Page 62