The Lies we Steal (The Hollow Boys Book 1)

Alistair

Everything was going according to plan. Everything was going fucking perfectly and I should have been prepared for it to go to shit.  

Silas and Thatcher had grabbed Chris in the parking lot after he’d left late, the sun had set and the chloroform worked like a charm. He’d been unconscious in seconds. 

They’d met me out here miles beyond the school, Thatcher caring his body over his shoulder. After Silas went through his phone, finding nothing useful besides Chris’s anime porn search history we tossed the phone into the car, so that it wouldn’t be tracked back to us. While Rook dumped his car off the side of Devils Highway, a hundred-foot drop into the Pacific Ocean. They wouldn’t find it for months and by that time, they’d never be able to find his body. 

When we all met out here in the woods and Chris had woken up, everything after that had also gone to plan. 

Well, it took a minute or two for him to talk, after he finished screaming and I beat him to a literal pulp. He still just didn’t get the fucking hint. We weren’t taking no for an answer. 

“Just tell us how your product ended up injected into the side of a dead girl’s neck, Chris. You tell us that and this all goes away.” I spat in his face, while he knelt on the ground in front of me. 

He had one of those posh faces, where his nose was really thin and his eyes wide. I’d known Chris, prior to this moment and prior to starting at Hollow Heights. I knew him before I started going to classes I wasn’t taking, just to watch him be a shit teaching assistant. Thumbing around on his phone playing Candy Crush. 

He’d been friends with Dorian in high school. They ran in the same circles, were both on the swim team and Chris had always been a douchebag. There are just some people that it sticks to like glue. 

“Go fuck yourself, Caldwell. This won’t be going away, my father will be hearing about this!” He complains, died blonde hair coated with disgusting mud, his words coming out in a stutter because of his busted lip. 

I grab the collar of his shirt with both of my hands squeezing the material tightly as I lift him up towards my face. 

“You think I’m scared of your fucking daddy? The only person who should be scared right now is you. Especially if you don’t tell me what you know.” I repeat. 

There was a feeling in the air. A sorta buzz. It hummed and slithered through my body like a livewire current, because I knew no matter what happened tonight, Chris Crawford would not be walking out of these woods alive. 

A feeling of finding the truth about Rose. Of avenging a soul that never deserved what she got. My grip seems to tighten on his shirt, jaw twitching with impatience. 

I wasn’t surprised, I just didn’t think he had the guts to do something like spit in my face. But sure enough, he reared back and spit right on the side of my cheek. The warm saliva mixed with blood was my breaking point.

He cackled as I turned my face from him, dropping him to the ground with a thud. The demons that live inside of my head raged. I was done playing my part. The truth was, I was the least dangerous of us. I’d always known that. 

“I cannot tell you how much you’re going to regret that.” Thatcher says from behind me. 

I lived for pain. For watching people crumple below my feet and succumb to the agony I warranted. If I never ate again, but could continue inflicting damage to others and feed off only the energy that came from their suffering I promise I would. 

But something that connected all four of us. Something that we all enjoyed, was people’s fear. We never wanted to be popular or homecoming kings. We wanted to scare everyone. So that when we walked into the room, they were terrified to look up. Afraid that eye contact would be the last straw before we did something horrific. 

I made it a point to know the things that scared someone. What made their heart pound and their palms sweat. 

While I knew Chris swam and enjoyed drugging girls at parties in high school just so he could get laid, I also knew something very important about him that was going to help me get what I wanted from him now. 

Chris was deathly afraid of snakes. 

He’d been over at the estate one summer, fucking around in the yard with my brother when a simple, harmless garden snake made its way past them. Dorian had laughed about it for days, how Chris screamed like a girl running into the house without thinking twice about it. 

I relished that memory. That gift I had been given at such a young age. To remember what it was that truly scared people. Not just superficially, but underneath it all. What made their skin crawl and caused them to have night terrors. 

And then I’d exploit it. Because I ached for the power it gave me. 

We all did. 

The only real power in life is fear. 

Money can be taken away. Titles can be stripped. But once you build a reputation the way we have, the inclination that walks up everyone’s spine when we walk into a room, can’t be taken away. 

I lifted the bottom of my shirt up, wiping roughly at my face. The spit coming off with ease. 

“You bring them?” I ask Rook. 

He lifts the brown sack up, shaking it a bit, the weight of it looked heavy. “Of course I did. This isn’t my first rodeo. Are you forgetting about our senior prom?” 

The prom we never attended. Well not technically. 

We did however, release four fully grown boa constrictors inside the building it was being held at. They didn’t bite anyone, but it was fun to sit on-top of the roof watching as students and teachers spilled out into the parking lot. Their screams echoing from the inside. 

One of the many tricks we’d done. 

Rook walks towards Chris, the bag in one hand. For a moment there is relief in Chris’s eyes, thankful I’m done beating him. My toes curl thinking of how in just a few seconds, he’ll be begging for me to kick the shit out of him if we’ll stop what is happening. Rook made his way behind Chris and says, “Death from snake bites isn’t the way to go, Chris.” He says, before carefully turning the bag upside down and dumping the contents all over the kneeling man in front of him. 

The black, red, and yellow snakes fell across his body. Covering his shoulders and lap. It took less than a millisecond before he realized what has happening. Registering that his worst fear had come true. 

“How does that song go, Thatcher? Red and yellow can kill a fellow?” Rook says as he squats behind him, saying it loud enough that he’d hear it over the hysteria. 

The screams were so loud after that, he wouldn’t have been able to hear us torment him. So acutely blaring I was positive he’d shattered the sound barrier. I wasn’t even sure there was enough capacity in the human lungs to project screams like that. 

He flung his arms wildly, throwing the silly creatures in multiple directions, their slinky bodies whirling in the wind. I doubt he knew that if he would have just sat calm, they would have minded their business and left him alone. 

But coral snakes will bite when threatened and being slung around seemed pretty menacing when you’re a snake. The first strike landed on his neck, the small mouth of the serpent opening to deliver the second most poisonous neurotoxin in the world. Another struck his hand. With two bites, he’d have less than three hours before his entire respiratory system shut down. 

“Tell us what we want to know Chris. You can walk out of this.” I offer him, “The process of before death from a neurotoxin is painful. Sweats, vomiting, excruciating pain. I can make it go away.” I continue, walking towards his whitening body, so curious as to why he’s so hellbent on staying quiet. What was it that he was hiding? 

The screams had hushed, sobs had taken their place. His body shaking from the sheer force of his tears. He was looking up at me, pale face and milky eyes. Hopeless, broken, the will inside of him had snapped beneath my weight. 

“I got a text! I got a te…text, from my guy!” He wails, shaking “Please just get them off! Get them off and I’ll tell you!” He choked on his tears, the wetness allowed a stream down his face, cutting a path through the blood that has become a consistency like paint. 

Rook comes to his rescue, well as much as he can after snake bites. Using his foot, he moves them away from his shaking body. Picking a few of them up with his bare hands and laying them several feet away. Keeping one in his hand, playing with it, 

“Will you put that shit down before you get bit.” I scold. 

He rolls his eyes, putting it down, “Yes, captain jackass.” 

My eyes return to Chris, watching him heave on his hand and knees. His entire stomach contents emptied out onto the ground. I wasn’t sure if it was from the nerves, or the bites. Either way, I found it hard to feel sorry for him. 

I wondered if this is how Rose felt. If he’d been the one to end her life, if she felt scared like this. If she begged, if she cried for Silas. My nostrils flare, my boot pressing into Chris’s side, kicking him over onto his back. 

“Talk.” 

“I don’t make the drugs.” He coughs, “I don’t…I just, I pick it up and drop it where it needs to go. When I started working there I got a text from a random number. I thought it was bullshit, but there was always money in my account after the drops. This TA job doesn’t pay shit and it’s extra money.” He breathes, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“I got a text from my guy, I don’t know who he is, I just know he tells me where to pick up the drugs and where they are headed. He told me he had something he needed me to take care of, I just thought—I thought it was another drug run or something. Told me he’d pay my twenty-five hundred for it.” 

Everything in this town comes down to money. Everything. This entire place had sold their soul to the devil for fucking nickels and dimes. 

“Go on.” I push. 

He brings his hand to his neck, where the bite is swollen and red, wincing, “I showed up to the address, and there was a parked car. He had told me to check the trunk and that’s when I found her. She was already dead!” He says panicking. 

“I told him I was out. I couldn’t do it, but all he needed was for me to plant her body, make it look like an accidental OD. It was easy money, man! So I…I just, I…I left her at that trap house cause I knew that’s where kids still partied.” 

His explanation just makes me angrier, it doesn’t soothe or even help. It only makes it worse. 

“So we are just supposed to believe you didn’t kill her? We are just supposed to take your word for it, Chris?” Thatcher accuses.

Chris raises his hand in defense, “I swear! I swear! That’s all I know! I don’t know who killed her,” He weeps, like a newborn baby, “The guy who texts me is a teacher, he’s making the drugs, creating it in the school labs. I guess it’s him, he did it! I don’t know, please man just don’t let me die!” And he slowly turns into another blubbering mess, the pain beginning to set in. He rolled into a ball, cradling himself. 

I run my hands down my face. I’m so fucking tired of running in circles. More dead ends. More people who don’t fucking know anything. I ram my fist into the nearest tree bark, splintering the first layer and from the feel of it, slicing my knuckles wide the fuck open. 

“God fucking dammit!” I yell into the sky. 

And if I thought I was angry. If I thought my rage was unquenchable in this moment, I couldn’t imagine what Silas was feeling as he appeared from the shadows. 

He gives Chris no chance at pleading his case, he’d buried himself the moment he admitted to laying hands on his girlfriend’s dead body. There was no stopping him from walking behind Chris, grabbing his hair and yanking him up to his knees. 

I couldn’t argue when I watch the sharp blind slice straight across the flesh of Chris’s neck. The thick liquid pouring from the wound, spilling onto the ground. 

There was a moment of silence, our heavy breathing and the sound of Chris’s body spurting for help he was not going to receive from any of us before he was dead. 

We took a second, to accept the fact Silas had just killed someone. For the first time he’d ended a human’s life and it should have hit me harder than it did. Something inside of me should have changed if I was a normal person. But I wasn’t. It just felt like a normal day. 

And from that moment, that’s when everything when to absolute shit. 

I heard it. 

The sound of a branch snapping, which could be an animal, but then I heard a girl screaming. It echoed around us, but I could tell it was close. Too close. 

I jerked my head towards the sound, only seeing trees, until the moon gave me a perfect glimpse of where that scream had come from. 

Not an animal, but a very scared, Briar Lowell laid on the forest floor. A friend of hers, standing behind her staring at us with her jaw on the ground. 

I made eye contact with Briar. I saw the switch inside her brain shift to instinct over normal human reactions. She was about to dart. 

There was a mixture of emotions that flooded my body. One was irritation. Why the fuck was she in the middle of these woods? Had she been following us? Irritation that I now had another problem I was going to need to handle. Irritation that she could be the reason we go down for murder. 

She just went from an annoying pest, that felt good beneath my fingers. To public enemy number one. 

However, the other emotion was raw. 

It was the striking of flint inside the carnal part of me. 

Like a wounded zebra, she held nothing but fear and survival in her eyes. They’d just witnessed everything we’d done to Chris. They had just seen what we were capable of and I highly doubt they planned to keep their mouths shut about it. 

Like the night at the party, she knew what I would do next. 

She knew I was the hunter and she was my prey, even more now. 

Natural selection at its finest. 

A race to see who wants it more. They want to live and we are not going to get caught. 

Predator versus prey. 

And I never lose. 

“The blonde is mine.” I say arrogantly. 

Rook howls into the night with laughter, the sinister cackle bouncing off the trees. The one who takes nothing seriously and is just excited to be a part of the chase. Thatcher has already started sprinting after them and Silas has made the executive decision to wait with Chris’s body until we handle this problem. 

My feet carry me through the winding trees, rain falling down in small drops sliding down the back of my shirt. Boots thundering beneath my feet, pressing into the dirt to push me forward. I can see streaks of her wild honey colored hair, whipping behind her violently as she pumps her arms, willing her body to take her far away from me.

I’d entered into instinct mode. The burning in my chest from short spells of oxygen was ignored. I wasn’t thinking of what would happen after this. The adrenaline that covers my insides is only allowing me to focus on one thing. 

Catching her. 

My reflexes help more in this moment than ever before as I dodge trees, fallen branches and rocks protruding from the ground. I watch as Briar’s legs propel her forward, straining her tight jeans. Her red and black plaid button down flapping in the wind. 

My little red riding hood running from the big bad wolf. 

Our story is inevitable. 

I catch her. 

I feast. 

Her left foot ruins her. It catches an overgrown root, tripping her up just enough that I’m able to catch up. 

I’m on her heels, she can feel me behind her now, all faith of getting away is slowly leaving her body and hopelessness will soon start to settle inside of her. 

Taking a leap forward, I reach my arm forward, hooking it around her waist and yanking her to my body as we surge forward. My body twists instinctively so that my back will take the fall. 

We tumble onto the ground, rolling to a stop. She pushes herself out of my arms, crawling on her hands and knees to get away from me. I snatch her ankle, yanking her back to me. 

Quickly maneuvering my body to sit on top of her. Pinning her waist down with my own. Both of my knees planted firmly on either side of her body. Her arms and legs kick, she scratches, does everything she can possibly do to throw me off, but it’s pointless. 

A scream begins to rip from her chest, just as I slam my hand over her mouth, my palm pressing into her lips. My free hand gathering her hands and holding them over her head. 

We are only twenty yards from campus, so that means we have to deal with this delicately. I can’t have her screams waking the entire school up. 

“Here I was thinking you were smart,” I breathe, my chest heaving from the chase, a smile creeps up on my face, “You should know what happens when you run. It only makes me want to chase you more.” 

Her knee hits my ass, a sad attempt at pushing me off her body. I commended the effort, no matter how sad it was. I can admire someone who puts up a fight instead of begging for help. The kind of person who was their own savior. 

She screams behind my palm, all of it muffled. It won’t be long before she comes to terms with the fact, screaming isn’t going to do anything. 

I jerk her body up from the ground, pushing her body in front of mine, her hands in my vise grip behind her back, my other still keeping her mouth shut. 

Rook appears from the woods, her friend in a similar position in his arms. He’s breathing heavily, his longish hair disheveled and flopping around. She also must have put up a hell of a fight. 

“Well, it seems we have a small problem.” Thatcher says sarcastically, adjusting his coat and clearing his throat. Placing his hands on his hips as he takes a deep breath. 

“Small? They just watched us kill someone. So, what the fuck are we gonna do with them?” Rook breaths, the slight panic in his voice annoys me. 

I’m going to take care of it. I always take care of it. 

“I mean we have options.” Thatcher says, looking over at Briar, “It seems you caught the one you wanted, Ali.” His eyes moving to Briar’s friend. 

I’d seen her around before, briefly, maybe twice in my entire life but I knew she lived around here. I just wasn’t sure who she was exactly. 

Thatcher watches her and she returns that favor. Their eyes stuck on each other, in some weird satanic mating ritual. 

“We can’t fucking kill them, Thatch.” 

My blonde friend, the one with more issues than hustler, smiled in the dark. The moon reflecting off it, blinding us. 

“Says who?” He lifts his eyebrow, still looking at the small dark-haired girl. The flash of his pocketknife appears and Briar stiffens in my arms. Straight as a board. The hair on her arms pebbled. 

She was tiny, compared to the lanky thing in my arms. Having her pressed into me showed me she was tall for a girl. I also noticed, through my deep breaths, that she smelt floral. 

Soft, exotic, sweet. 

Briar jerks in my arms, opposing Thatcher’s statement. I wasn’t sure if she was fighting for herself in this, or if she was fighting for her friend who had become a fascination to my psychopathic partner. 

“Calm down, girl.” I murmur into her hair. My voice holds a smirk, but I say it like you’d talk to a spooked horse. 

“Says me, Thatcher. We kill them and we are no better than the scum we are after.” Rook argues with me. 

“Sweet, Rook. That’s what you will never understand. I’m not any better than them.” Thatcher says.

“Will you two shut the fuck up so I can think.” I grit out.

As easy as it would be to kill them right now, it wasn’t the best idea. They sadly, hadn’t done anything, yet. So killing them would be slaughtering innocent people and that wasn’t what I was into. 

However, killing them would insure me and the boys were protected. I would do anything to make sure nothing would happen to them, even if it meant hurting someone innocent. 

Goddammit. 

“We aren’t going to kill them. Because they are going to stay quiet, isn’t that right, Briar?” 

She shivers in my arms, like a cold chill just hit her, that’s right baby, I know everything about your sweet ass. 

I tighten my grip on her hands, leaning my head down to her shoulder, my breath zipping past her ear, 

“And if you don’t do you know what I’m going to do to you? Do you want to know what I’ll do to your friend? What I’ll let him do to your friend?” I nod towards Thatcher. 

There is a small whimper that falls from her lips, one I doubt she meant to let out. I grind my teeth, my cock twitching in my jeans pressed against her ass. 

“Show me how scared you are.” I growl in her ear, the sound of my voice making her shake. 

Give it to me, I want to whisper. Let me feed off it. I want to see her on her knees, looking up at me with those kaleidoscope eyes willing to do anything I want. I was so amped up in that moment. 

I wanted beneath her skin. On top of her body. Between her legs. Feasting, conquering, showing her how hard she could come when she was shaking from pleasure and fear. 

We weren’t going to kill them. That’s too easy. It’s no fun.

We were going to do what we do best. 

Scare people. 

And secretly, I wasn’t afraid of them snitching. What was a nobody from Texas and her friend going to say that anyone would actually believe? 

“Fuck!” I hear Rook yell, his hands cupping his face as his captive, takes off towards the school grounds. I’m distracted by Rook too much to anticipate Briar digging her teeth into the skin of my palm, and shoving a forceful elbow into my gut causing me to release her. 

Both girls flee onto campus, dust left in their tracks. 

Rook and Thatcher, go to take off after them but I stop them. 

“Don’t.” 

“But what if they—” 

“I have a plan.” Is all I say and for them, it’s enough. 

They trust me. They know everything I ever do, is for them.