Page 109 of When Darkness Calls

Shadow kisses the back of my neck, pushing my hair over my shoulder. I can feel his grin against my skin. And something else.

My brows furrow as I concentrate on the feeling of his lips. There’s something there, trailing my skin with each kiss.

“Shadow? What— “

“Hmm?”

“What’s that?”

He straightens abruptly. “What do you mean?”

“I—I felt something…”

“There’s nothing, sweet girl.” He nuzzles my hair. “You did so well.” And I melt in his arms.

We wiggle my panties up my thighs, the feeling of his cum mixing with my own arousal makes me sigh. He chuckles, rubbing his thumb across my lower lip.

“You better run, sweet girl. The monsters might be catching up to you.”

As he says it, I can hear the sounds of footsteps racing across the wooden floor above us.

Shadow’s hand grabs mine and he navigates us out of the abandoned room through the darkness. I see the lights from outside pouring through a gap in the windows, shining some light around the rundown kitchen.

“They’ll be coming through here soon. Get in the back and follow them out.”

I nod as he releases my hand. When I turn toward him, he’s gone, but I can still feel his eyes on me. The heat of his gaze and the knowledge of what we had done causes a small tug at the corner of my lips.

“Oh my god! There you are! What the fuck?” Liz screeches coming down the staircase to my right. “I thought you were being flayed! Let’s get the fuck out of here!” She drags me behind her as she races through the kitchen to what I think is a small washroom.

She searches blindly around the walls for a door, but she screams, jumping back against me as the lights flicker on at the same time as a chainsaw right beside my ear.

I scream too, seeing that we’re cornered in the small room. Liz grabs on to me, still screaming, but my screams slowly turn into laughs. Full bodied, high on life, thriving laughs.

The wall behind us bursts open as we fall outside in a heap. I’m still laughing. Liz jumps up, ranting about how it can’t be legally okay for them to snatch me away like that, but it makes me laugh harder.

If only she knew.

thirty-two

Grayson

Do you think there’s good food in Hell?

I only ask because surely, I’m on a one way track to finding out personally. If not from the things the guys and I have done over the years…abducting, interrogating—well, a better word is torturing honestly—assaulting, and killing the bad apples in and around Shadow Grove, then maybe for what I did to Dani an hour ago at that haunted house. Definitely that, given I’m sitting on her balcony watching through the glass door as she enters her room, only allowing the Halloween decorations, streetlights, and moon to guide her.

And allowing me to stay hidden in the darkness.

Yeah, this is one hundred percent why I’m going to Hell. Not because I did it. Not because it was in public, not because I’m fully encapsulating the stalker stereotype sitting outside her door as she slowly begins to sway.

Dani’s arms raise high over her head, her short little skirt inching up her thighs, hips rolling in a sensual dance. Aptly following my request and putting on a show just for me.

No, it’s not because of any of that. It’s because I did it and she doesn’t have a fucking clue that I’m lying to her.

When we’re together it feels like it’s only us. The real us. I forget that to her, in that moment, I’m not me. I’m not the guy she has always known. I’m only the man in the mask. I’m only Shadow.

But the second the moment is over, it presses in. The guilt. The shame. The frustration. It’s suffocating. Lying to her is the worst fucking feeling. It’s like an oily, greasy, itchy film coating my skin, seeping into my pores, eating away at my insides, hollowing out the cavity in my chest.

I’m so mad.