“But if he took that picture, it means he’s watching and closely. He’ll know if we try anything. He will react.”

“So let him try something,” Keenan growled.

“And if he runs?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my tone. “What if he exposes the rest of those pictures? If he has these, then he has pictures of Sheldon, Willow, and Lake. We can’t risk them.”

“But we have to do something, or we will risk them.”

“Keenan, we need to do this with a level head.” The tension in the room kicked up a notch or two, and I knew that he was pissed.

His eyes narrowed into slits, turning darker by the second as his lips curled into a sneer. “A level head? Please share your idea of a level head? Did you have one when you killed our mother?”

“This. Is. Not. The. Time.”

“Let’s get something clear. The only reason I didn’t kick you out along with my father is that I needed to know how much you screwed up. We aren’t cousins, we aren’t friends, and we definitely aren’t brothers.”

“Are you done?” He only glared back at me. “You may hate me, but I’ll always protect you. I fucked up, but I told you, Keenan. I fucking warned you all those years ago... I’m not a good person.”

“At least we know you can tell the truth.”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“But you sure left a lot of important shit out. Kind of convenient, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t know she was our mother.”

“It doesn’t matter. She could have been someone’s mother, but that didn’t matter to you. You killed her anyway.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I know enough.”

“You don’t know anything but what Mitch told you.”

“You didn’t bother to say otherwise either.”

I didn’t realize we were shouting until a nurse came in and ordered us to leave. Visiting hours were over.

“They are going. I’m staying,” I told the nurse.

“I don’t want you here.”

“Don’t be a brat.”

“Fine. Then I don’t need you here.”

“Tough. You aren’t staying here by yourself.”

Before I could argue, he called out to the nurse waiting by the door. “I want him gone and removed from my list of authorized guests.”

“You got it, sweetie,” the nurse gushed. When she turned her attention to me, her eyes widened in that familiar look of lust. She moved as if to usher me out, but one look at my face had her stopping in her tracks.

“Keiran, leave,” Dash offered, his voice gruff with aggravation. “Just go. I’ll stay with him.”

* * *

“Stab him.” The knife pierced flesh.

“Again.”

The sound of tearing flesh and running blood as it seeped from the man’s body mingled with the emotionless commands from Frank.

“Pierce him deep, boy. That’s it,” he encouraged when I obeyed.

A profound and unsettling feeling continued to build in my stomach as I mindlessly drove the knife into the bound man. Arms, legs, and even his knees. The sickening crunch of bone was worst of all.

His screams were muffled by the gag, but his eyes watched and pleaded with me as he held on to what little life he had left. Even now, I could see the life draining from his eyes while I used him for practice.

Think of them as your canvas, Frank would tell me.

They would never let me outright kill them. I had to torture them first with pain that would maim but not kill.

I was no longer sure this was what other human beings were meant to do. Lily said it was wrong when I finally confided in her. I don’t know why I told her about the things they took me to do. After a month of not being able to shake her, she became someone to talk to, and when she still wouldn’t give in, and do what they wanted, she became someone to protect.

Lily.

I let my mind wander to her and all the good she was teaching me. She told me about home, she told me about her parents, her dog, and even her older brother, Keiran. I wished secretly that one day I could be Keiran. Someone with a family, home, and even a school to go to.

Finally, the man died with what might have been a gut-wrenching scream. His gag saved me from having to endure the sound of his life fading away, but somehow, the effect was just the same.

I stopped driving the knife into his lifeless body and desperately swallowed back the need to empty my stomach.

He was the fourth man I killed today, and when I looked around the room to see the other bodies, I knew he wouldn’t be the last.

Chapter Twelve

Lake

The tapping at my window started off as a figment of my dreams. A dream I didn’t want to wake up from so imagine my irritation when the tapping continued followed by the melodious chiming and buzz of my cell phone. Fantasy and sleep faded away to the less appealing reality of being woken in the dead of the night.

If it carried on much longer, my aunt would wake up, and then I would have to spend the rest of my night explaining to her why there was a teenage boy throwing rocks at my window.

I knew without answering the call that it was Keiran. He was the only one who dared to go against his own rule to pursue me.

“This is getting really old, you know. You can’t just pop up and worm your way inside my house whenever you feel like it,” I grumbled to myself, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

I stomped to the window, my bare toes gripping the plush carpet, muffling the sound of my anger. Frost covered the window from the cold night air, and when my fingers gripped the window to pull it open, it was a little more forceful than necessary.

“You’re kidding me, right?” His face and body were partially obscured by the night shadows. Even so, I could make out the dark hoodie he wore, the hood pulled over his head with the shiny locks of his dark hair peeking out.

“Did I wake you?”

“It’s three in the morning, Keiran. Care to take a guess?”

A boyish grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “I never took you for a cranky sleeper.”

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugged carelessly and looked away before meeting my eyes once again. “I wish I knew,” he finally answered and scratched at the stubble on his chin. I loved the light spattering of facial hair on him. It was a glimpse of the man he would one day become. A shiver worked its way through my body at the thought of an even more powerful Keiran.

“You obviously came for something or else you’re just a creeper.”

He snapped back his hood and narrowed his eyes, anger gleaming from his stormy gray orbs.

“Are you going to let me in?” he asked impatiently.

“I wasn’t planning to,” I answered back sweetly and twirled my hair around my finger for further insult.

He nodded once, and when a smirk appeared, my hand dropped apprehensively. “Baby, I’m getting in there one way or another. So you can either let me walk through the front door like a good girl, or I can make a lot of noise climbing through the window. Then I’ll watch you explain to Auntie dearest why I’m in your bedroom at three in the morning… especially if you were caught in a rather compromising position.” The smile that lit up his face was charming and playful, but the message in his eyes was anything but.

“I could call the cops.”

“And what will you do when I’m out again and standing on your front doorstep? Are you prepared to pay the consequences?”

“Stop trying to mind fuck me,” I spat.

“It’s not your mind I’m interested in fucking.”

“At last… the real reason you decided to look like an idiot in the middle of the night. Goodnight, Keiran.” I gripped and slammed the window shut before he could say anything more. Already, I felt myself caving under the powerful spell of his possession.