The Lies we Steal (The Hollow Boys Book 1)

Alistair

Violin’s echo in the distance as I lean my back against the outside of the Rothchild District, where the Salvatore Dining Hall had been flipped from its normal rectangular tables and dull atmosphere, to something Gatsby might actually want to attend. 

I hadn’t been inside yet, but I just knew dangling chandeliers and overpriced decorations awaited me. We only needed to make an entrance, just long enough for people to see that we had attended. 

The sooner we could do that, the quicker we could get to the task at hand. 

“She could have decided not to show up.”

“She’ll be here.” I tell Thatcher as I throw the butt of my cigarette out onto the ground, stomping on it, crushing the ember beneath my weight. 

And if she didn’t show up, then whatever happened to her after she did to herself. 

Rook and Silas were busy shutting down security cameras, which left Thatcher and I to escort Briar and Lyra into the pretentious Halloween ball. It was basically a way for students and teachers to openly judge each other. On their outfits, their dates, anything their self-righteous eyes could see they would tear apart. 

It’s always the people in glasshouses that throw the most stones. 

My phone hummed in my pocket, I pulled it out checking the illuminated screen. There’s a message from Shade making me furrow my eyebrows as I click on the green messenger app. 

I sent in my recommendation, you should think about applying. 

Attached was a link to a shop in New York that was hiring new tattoo artists. They were looking for someone who specialized in black and gray. I thought about what my life would be like if I could accept this offer. 

I was a few months away from getting my licenses and I could work anywhere I wanted. Had Rose not been killed, I would have already been on the east coast. Probably in New York, already working at a shop, living in a one-bedroom apartment walking to work where there wasn’t a single person who knew my name. 

I’d be all alone. 

Would I even like my life without the boys? I mean I had no doubt Thatcher was already going to move east and so was Rook, but Silas had planned on staying here with Rose. Could we all head out together? Start new lives where the trail of blood would stop following us and we could just, live? 

I wanted to say yes, but that was being optimistic. 

“What’s that about?” Thatcher asks, sticking his nose towards my phone. 

“Have you always been this fucking nosey?” I jerk the screen away, shoving it back into my pocket away from his eyes. 

“I’ve never had to be. You’ve never been this secretive before.” He looks down at me like I stole something from him. This deranged need for him to know everything about us gets old, fast. 

“Listen… I don’t ask you what you’ve been up to when you come home with blood on your hands, okay? We all have things we keep to ourselves, even you.” 

I don’t think he’s killing people. I mean, he might be, but I doubt it. I just think he has his own ways of releasing steam like the rest of us. Thatcher’s is just a little more…gruesome. 

This makes him drop it, because even he’s not ready to own up to his own secrets.

“Here, I picked the most basic one I could find.” He tosses me a mask, solid black with swirls of sliver across the front. 

“I’m not wearing this.” 

I look over to see him attaching the dark red and black one to his face, tying it behind his head. The mask covers the upper half of his face, matching his corresponding-colored suit. 

“Don’t be such a wimp, just put the mask on.” 

Grunting in irritation as I fumble with the string, pressing the plastic onto my face and tying it tightly behind my head. Mine shields most of my left side, some of my nose uncovered, along with my right cheek bone and lips. 

I just knew I looked fucking laughable in this thing. 

The click of heels in step makes me turn my head, hoping it’s not another girl wearing a variation of the same dress clinging to her date because she can’t walk in her shoes. 

Lyra’s dress is tulle on tulle, the crimson lace stretches around her waist exposing a full figure she hides beneath her normal wardrobe. She reminded me of a girl who’d grown up listening to fairytales. Just not the ones of kissing frogs and happily ever afters. 

The Brothers Grimm fairytales. 

Ones that told stories of brutality and death. Not of gold and stolen kisses, but blood and the power of dark magic.

The fabric fades into a rich black color at the bottom as the ball gown style dress grazes the ground as she walks towards us. Even I can admit that the way her blunt bangs drape above her black glittered mask, exposing the pale skin of her face, matched with red lipstick is hot. 

“Looks like someone is stealing your signature color, Thatch.” I mutter, leaning back into him covertly. 

“Evidently.” He breathes, like it took all his oxygen just to say that simple word. 

Surprisingly the bug queen carries herself well in her heels as she approaches us looking sour, or at least looking sour towards me. 

I open my mouth, but she interrupts me, 

“Briar had to stop and see her uncle, he wanted to take pictures to send to her mother. She’ll be here soon.” 

The awkward silence that fills the air is enough to kill someone. Lyra and Thatcher have engaged in some weird eye contact. Neither of them speaking, just staring, waiting for the other to blink. 

I almost laugh thinking about Lyra, the girl who enjoys picking up bugs and having mud on her hands, hooking up with Thatcher, one of the cleanest people I know. Obsessively clean. Clothes organized by brand, then color. Bed always made, everything has a place. Yet, they were standing here fucking with their eyes. 

“Thatcher,” I cough, “this is Lyra, Lyra this is Thatcher.” I introduce the two of them sarcastically, but from the looks of it she is very aware of who he is. 

“Yeah, I know who he is. I mean,” She clears her throat looking at me, “I know who you all are.” 

The way she watches him, like she’s staring straight into his soul through the holes in her mask. It’s not fear, it’s…inquisitiveness that settles in her gaze. Even though she wants her distance from him, she still finds him interesting. 

Which was more than most girls would have the balls to do. Our freshman year of high school, a girl ran out of the boys’ locker room naked after Thatcher pulled a knife on her while she was about to go down on him. 

“Pleasure to meet you,” He chides with a smirk on his lips, reaching his hand out for hers. 

“Now you’re introducing yourself? I didn’t realize introductions came after spray painting someone’s car and chasing them through the woods.” 

I face the familiar voice, peering at Briar whose heels are ticking against the walkway as she makes her way towards us. Her eyes burning, teeth bared like she’s ready to rip Thatcher apart for looking in Lyra’s direction. 

Even though she’s braced with aggression, looking like she’s ready to go to war against my friend, I’m taken back how graceful she looks. 

My mouth waters while I follow the neckline down the front of her dress that halts right above her navel. 

I shoved my hands into my pockets to prevent them from racing across her skin. Skin that looked so soft, like flower petals in the summer. I was foaming at the mouth for a taste of her. 

Just one. 

One agonizingly slow lick up the valley of her breasts where her skin laid exposed. Purple fabric wraps delicately around her throat exactly where my hands would rest when I was making her sweat beneath me. Her tits were barely covered with strips of material, the cool wind or maybe my gaze had tweaked her nipples making them hard for me. 

Instead of the ball gown direction, she’s opted for something simple. Silk material that clung to her body, chasing the curves of her figure all the way down her body. The purple, that was more of a lilac shade, made the green in her kaleidoscopic eyes shimmer. 

Blood rushes to my dick, my boxers suddenly becoming extremely tight around my groin and not because her erect nipples or pretty eyes. 

No, it’s the way her small hand raises to her ear, re-tucking a few pieces of hair behind it. My tattoo caught in the light and even though it was small, the decorative font I picked matched her dress too well. 

How dainty my initials looked on her body. How fucking good they looked on her finger. It only made me stiffer thinking about covering her body with my name, stamping my initials on the entirety of her skin. 

I wanted to smell her. To see if she’d put on that perfume she didn’t know I liked. The one with exotic flowers and something sweet. Striding closer until I was standing directly in front of her. 

The heels made her a bit taller, her head right beneath my nose. I laid my hand flat against the corner of her neck, my finger splayed across her collarbone and lower throat. My fingertips fluttered against her pulse, squeezing just enough to let her feel me. 

The mask around her eyes does little to hide the way her cheeks flush at the feeling of my touch. The makeup on her face just enhancing what was already there in the first place. 

A lot of girls were hot. Being hot was easy.

Not a lot of girls could wear my name the way she does. 

“I like your hair like this.” I say, staring down at her feeling her heart race beneath my touch. 

The honey-colored strands are all pushed to the right side of her head, falling in deep waves across her shoulder, a shiny hair piece holding it back near her left ear. I liked the way it exposed her neck to me. Slender and creamy. 

She smiles, “I’ll make sure to never wear it like this again then. I think if you keep that mask on, I might just be able to get through this night without gagging.” 

I grin, rolling my tongue across the bottom of my teeth, “Feeling feisty today?” 

Using little force she removes my hand from her chest, swatting me away, “Just tired of your bullshit and ready to get this over with.” 

A shame that even when she was done with this favor, I still wouldn’t be finished with her. 

I hold my elbow out, motioning for her to take it, “Then let’s get it over with.” I say coldly. 

Together we walk into the entrance of the ball. As I suspected, the lights from the crystal chandlers glint with a soft glow. Candles illuminate the windows in threes, and everything looks like it was purchased at a 16th century Renaissance fair. The students and teachers all wearing similar masks, dancing, chatting, the normal social cues that happen at these kinds of events. 

That is until we happen to be noticed by bystanders, both Thatcher and I arm and arm with girls, dressed for an event no one expected us to show up for. I can’t help the smirk that sits on my face, most of them are probably afraid we’d done something. Pulled some prank that we wanted a front row seat to. 

Briar’s hand clutches onto the material of my suit as I guide her towards an empty table, away from dancing bodies in the center of the room. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake track swarms the room and I only know that because it’s constantly played in my house when my father is home. 

It was the only thing he knew how to play and somehow he felt it made him more polished when he showed guests. 

“Why are they staring at you? It’s like you’re the pope for Christ’s sake.” She breathes, trying to keep her head down and away from prying eyes. Shying away from the attention she would never be getting if she hadn’t walked into this room with me. 

Eyes from every direction stay glued to us and I just know Thatcher is adoring every second of this. The way everyone has paused their evening to give us their undivided attention. 

I lean towards her ear, brushing the top with my lips, “Because we are everything they wish they were, Little Thief.” 

Taking me by surprise, she snorts, laughing softly, “Just when I think you can’t get any more stuck up.” 

“I’m not saying it’s because of my parents’ money.” I reassure, “We refuse to abide by the rules Ponderosa Springs laid out for us as children. When they look at us, they see the freedom, the rebellion they will never have. Girls look at you and wonder,” My breath is heavy on her skin, I can tell by the way her breathing shallows. 

“What does she have that could possibly have grabbed my attention? How can I be more like her? We are crack to rich girls. Because at night when they lay down with their polo wearing boyfriends, the ones that will buy them mansions and cheat on them with their secretaries, it’s guys like me they think about.” My arm snakes around her waist, letting the soft fabric of her dress itch my palm, 

“Gritty, terrifying, shady men like me who make their panties wet. They come harder thinking about me breaking their hearts, then they do while their boyfriends are fucking them. So yes, they are looking at me, but they are also staring at you.” I knead her hip, pulling her into my body more just so I don’t lose the smell of her, “Make sure you are giving them a show they’ll remember.” 

All of that is true. 

The girls around us who would be more than willing, but all of them too scared to admit it to themselves. Too afraid their daddies and priests will find out they like to be fucked by the bastards of this town. 

That’s what we spend the first hour of our time doing, watching our peers spin around us like puppets, casting their stones in our direction as we sit at the table keeping to ourselves. 

Well that’s what Briar and I do. 

Thatcher asked Lyra to dance fifteen minutes ago and he’s spinning her in circles on the marble floor, her brown hair swaying behind her as she tries to keep up with him. Briar was watching them like a hawk, her eyes moving with Thatcher’s hands like she’s ready to cut them off if they make the wrong move. 

They looked like mismatched socks out there. 

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, just in time to see a message show up from Silas giving me the all clear for the next few hours. They were headed down to the party to help Thatch and Lyra keep an eye out in case Mr. West left the party for any reason. That way they could text us to head out before he came in his office.  

This plan was fail proof. 

Hopefully. 

“Show time, Little T.” I mumbled to her as we snuck ourselves out of the main hall and towards the exit. We stopped by Thatcher’s car grabbing the stethoscope she requested before embarking on the short walk to the adjacent building where his office was, the wind blowing her hair just as we walked. I wasn’t sure if her shivering was from the cold or if she was just nervous. 

The dark surrounded us, the little light from the moon beyond the windows was what helped guide our feet up the center staircase. Shadows of trees reach out for our walking bodies as we crept down the halls. Our feet in step with one another the entire way. 

We finally make it to the door so I reach inside of my pocket to pull out the tool Rook had given me to help me unlock it, but Briar had already pulled out bobby pins. Gliding the metal past her plump lips, using her teeth to bend them the way she needs them to go. 

With finesse she makes quick work of the lock, lifting and pushing all the correct pins inside to make the door click letting us know it’s open. 

Once we are inside I chose to leave the light off in case anyone is to look up to the windows I didn’t need them seeing a glow coming from Mr. West’s office when he was supposed to be at the party. 

“Grab me a pen and some paper.” She says, after I show her the safe behind the curtain. 

“Is please not a part of your vocabulary?” I walk to his mahogany desk, opening the drawers until I find a pad of paper and a pen. 

“Do you want the safe open or not?” Her eyes turn back to me, arching a thick eyebrow, everything about her presence tells me she’s in work mode and she needs to focus. 

“Touché.” 

I hand her the things she asked for, leaning on the wall next to the safe looking down at her as she begins to play with the dial. Spinning it left a few times, then right. Feeling the gears inside shift and click into place. 

Placing the stethoscope in both ears, placing the chest piece right above the dial. From here, I witness what could only be called pure genius. The way she sticks her tongue out, biting down on it absent-mindedly as she listens for what she needs from the machine. 

Then she begins writing down numbers, creating graphs on the paper, plunging them into formulas and my mind is twisted with misunderstanding. In movies, they just twist the dial with the stethoscope listening to the right ticks. Apparently that’s not all you have to do in order to get the correct combination. 

Taking the earpieces out and laying them on the ground as she scribbles numbers down on the page, doing math most would need calculators for in her head. 

“Where’d you learn how to do this?” I ask, curious how one gets into the hobby of stealing. 

“Shouldn’t you already know? You read my criminal record, I’d assume you read other things about me.” 

I roll my eyes, “Sorry, there wasn’t a section in your file about hobbies. Well, minus your sophomore team swimming picture.” I crack a small smile in the darkness, catching a glimpse of her tinted cheeks. 

“My dad,” She breathes, scratching out a set of numbers and rewriting them, “He was in and out of jail my entire life, but when he was home he taught me the skills of the trade. Pickpocketing, safe cracking, card counting, if it involved quick cash he showed me.” 

“Odd bonding technique.” I note, her fingers starting to try different combinations in the lock. I imagined a smaller version of Briar, sitting in the floor of her house playing with locks and stealing wallets. 

We were proof that survival had little to do with money and everything to do with the environment where you grow up. 

“Well not all of us can bond with our parents over winters in the Swiss Alps and summers in Prague.” 

I click my tongue, “Yup, that’s me,” I say as I flex my fists, stretching out my fingers, “Spoiled, arrogant, rich boy with the entire world at his feet. What more could I want in life?” 

She looks up at me, pausing her work, “You expect me to believe that your life hasn’t been golden platters and butlers? Don’t stand there and pretend you had it rough. You have no idea what it was like growing up without enough money to keep the lights on, worried about when you’d be able to eat again, or when the next time the police would bang on your door wanting to know where your dad was. You’re no better than any of those people out there, you and your friends just happen to be more unhinged than the rest.” 

“You wanna sit here and argue about whose life is sadder? Whose childhood was worse? You think you’re the only one who has been through shit? If it makes you feel better to think all those things about me, go ahead. I won’t stop you.” I retort. 

By all accounts she’s right. 

I don’t know what it’s like to be poor. 

I have always had money, I’ve always had food in the house when I was hungry. I had the basic necessities of life and then some. 

But what she doesn’t know, what she doesn’t deserve to know with her snotty, woe is me attitude, is that when I was a kid I begged to trade all the money I had for parents who loved me. For a family who cared. I would have rather been starved and loved, than starving for love. 

Then you grow up and you realize you work with the cards you are dealt. You shut the fuck up and you move forward because all the pleading, all the praying won’t get you anywhere. Sometimes you are just the bad apple that didn’t fall far from the tree. 

I wasn’t going to argue with her. 

It wasn’t worth it. There are just some things people will never understand. 

We don’t talk again, just letting the noise of the safe twisting fill the void. Not until she finally puts in the right order of numbers, pulling the door open with a loud groan. 

“Piece of cake.” She whispers, patting herself on the back. Which I’m glad she did because I wouldn’t be doing it for her. 

I squat down, looking inside hoping something in here will give me the information I need. Will give us what we need. 

Grabbing the phone and manila envelope out of the safe, walking it to his desk so I can lay them down. My first action is turning the phone on, waiting for the white apple to go away before a basic lock screen appears. 

I’m not surprised to find there is a password protecting the information inside. I grind my teeth, “What was the combination to the safe?” I ask Briar. 

“5749.” 

Tapping the numbers out on the phone only to have it vibrate and tell me it’s the wrong one. Knowing I’m not going to get anything out of it but more frustration, I set it down opening the envelope instead. 

Inside is a couple hundred dollars, along with a flash drive that seems promising. Carefully plunging it into the desktop computer, waiting for the file to pop up while Briar comes around to stand behind me, watching the screen over my shoulder. 

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” I turn my head to look back at her, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I’m the one who got in the safe. I should be able to see what I helped steal.” Crossing her arms in front of her as if this power stance will intimidate me. 

“Go watch the door.” I toss my head towards the entry. I didn’t need her seeing what was on this, even if it was nothing. If it happened to be something that gave away information about Rose and her death, Briar would be way more involved than she needed to be. 

Bad luck threw her in my path the first time when she was at the mausoleum. The wrong lead kept her there, and her helping me into this safe was the last role she’d play in our journey of revenge. 

I’d kept her on a string, a puppet I could play with from time to time, but she would have nothing to do with Rose and what we would be doing to the people who had a hand in her death. 

“No.” She stands her ground, “Either you let me watch or I scream.” 

“You willing to take the fall for this?” I quirk an eyebrow, knowing good and well we could throw her under the bus for what we were doing. 

“If it means you don’t get the information on this flash drive than sure.” 

I think she’s bluffing, the way her spine stiffens and she stares me dead in the eyes is convincing though. Weighing my options back and forth, knowing I don’t have the time for this. 

“Fine, but whatever we find on this stays inside that thick skull of yours, got it?” 

Nodding in agreement we both turn to face the computer again. 

I can feel her breasts rub against my shoulder as she leans over me to see the screen, her smell so close to my nose that my cock can’t help but stiffen. I wonder if she’d stop me from tossing her on this desk and showing her how hard she could come when she was afraid of being caught. 

How fast her heart would race as I watched adrenaline flow through her body. 

Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, like I would her skin, just to keep the images at bay. 

When the file pops up with a ding, I double click pulling up a surveillance video. I’m not sure where it’s from, but it looks like a warehouse or construction sight. The concrete floors and tall ceilings leaving me nothing to go on. 

There is a man tied to a chair in the center of the room while Greg West stands above him, walking in circles. I turn the volume up, hearing his voice filter through the speakers. 

“I think we have been more than flexible with you. Now you owe us quite a lot of money.” He says, just before mystery man lifts his head and exposes his face to the camera. 

Briar’s breath runs cold against my neck as she gasps, “Is that?” 

I nod, biting the inside of my cheek, “Yeah it is.” 

Together we watch Mayor Donahue struggle against the ropes that bind him, wiggling around as he speaks, “I just need a little more time, Greg! Just a little more time and I’ll have it all to you, in full.” 

Acid burns the inside of my throat, my brain not being able to comprehend what my eyes are seeing. Because I know the man I watched sob over his daughter’s casket isn’t involved in her death. The man I took pity on. One I felt fucking sorry for. 

My hand finds the edge of the desk, pressing my fingertips into it as I squeeze tightly to keep myself from throwing this computer at the wall. 

“You said that six months ago. We have no more time to give you, Frank. The boss is tired of waiting. You either hand over the money now, you give us something else we could use, or,” Greg pauses, standing in front of the mayor shrugging, “Well, if it comes to that option, I’m not sure you’re gonna want to know what we will do to you.” 

Frank Donahue, a man who’d raised his daughters alone for as long as I can remember, one of the only people in this fucking town I respected, becomes everything I despise in less than twenty seconds. 

“Fuck!” He groans, “What do you want? Just name it and it’s yours!” 

My stomach boils, demons scratching the inside of my chest ready to rip me apart so they can get out. 

“Well, you borrowed a lot of money from us for your last campaign, mayor.” Greg toys with him. 

“I had to! I was going to go bankrupt if I didn’t.” He argues, his voice cracking a bit. 

“Plenty of people go bankrupt, Frank, and they still don’t borrow money from people they don’t intend on giving back. Considering the money we lent you would have gone to buying another girl, we need product.” 

I can feel as Briar’s hand rushes to cover her mouth, muffling the sound of a gasp as a revelation we both were not expecting comes out. 

“That’s where Coraline went. She was taken.” She mumbles, fear shaking her voice, I can even hear the tears that are threatening to fall down her cheeks. 

I’d only heard about Coraline Whittaker being missing in passing a few weeks ago. Thinking exactly what everyone else did, she hit the road and left this cursed town. I was going a million miles a minute, were there more missing girls? 

“The boss doesn’t want to be too greedy, so he’s being nice here, Frank and is only requesting one of your daughters. You give one of them up and you can consider your debt paid.” Greg places his hands on the arms of the chair, leaning his face towards the mayor, “In full.” 

The battle of Heaven and Hell attempts to tear my soul in half. A war I was never expecting to go on rages in my head.

I was going to crush Frank Donahue. 

Every bone would be dust beneath my hands and when I was done making sure he’d never walk again, I’d let Thatcher slice him up real nice and serve him to this fucking town on a gold platter. 

“You want one of my girls?” His voice shakes. 

“Or the money. Your choice.” 

“What will…will you kill her?” 

I’m sick that he even needs to ask that question. I’m sick that he’s even debating it. I’m even more sick that I know what he’s going to do, because this answer leads directly to Rose’s death. 

Sweet, innocent Rose who never deserved any of this shit. My friend, my best goddamn friend who stayed up at night worried something he did, someone he crossed was the reason his girl wound up dead. 

“Don’t be naive, Frank. You’d be selling one of them to a sex operation. We sell and trade girls. What their owners do after we collect them, well, that’s out of our hands.” 

“Oh my God.” Briar whimpers. 

Greg pulls out a gun, holding it to Frank’s skull, making it clear he isn’t waiting for an answer.

“Wait, wa…wait! I need a second, just a second!” 

“We’ve given you plenty of time. Your time is up.” I hear the tick of the gun being cocked back, the brief silence before Frank says the statement that changes the course of everyone’s life, 

Forever.  

“Rose. Take Rosemary.”