Vile Boys (Spine Ridge University)

BANG! BANG!

I’m shooting at the guards near the front of the building despite the fact that the rest have already gone inside. I just want every one of these motherfuckers to bleed to death for taking Ares, and I don’t care how long it takes. I’m going for the kill.

BANG!

A guard goes down and cries for his mommy as the bullet enters his knee, making him collapse, and I spit on him before I go inside too.

Everywhere I look, guards come pouring out while preparing an attack on all of us, while the casino’s guests flock to the emergency exits, screaming their lungs out.

I don’t know which one of these fuckers was involved with bringing Ares in, but I’ll make sure they’ll all regret it.

“Where do we go first?” Milo asks.

Kai points at a giant hallway in the back. “That way.”

“There’s a ton of guards,” Crystal says.

“So?” Blaine shrugs. “The more the merrier.”

“Where are your guns, then?” Felix asks him.

Blaine pulls out his umbrella, and Felix and Dylan begin to laugh until he pulls out the katana.

“What the f—really?” Felix says.

“Don’t laugh, he’ll skewer you,” Milo muses.

“I didn’t ask you a damn thing,” Felix growls at him.

“You want to touch it?” Blaine asks, raising a brow.

Felix’s face contorts. “No thanks.”

“It’ll be gentle with you,” Blaine adds.

“Ew, gross,” Nathan says.

One of the guards storms at us with his gun pointed right at us, but Milo takes him down with his nunchucks. “Nothing’s gross about killing. I’m fucking excited!”

“I’m not,” Alistair says, pulling out his knives with a smug smile. “But I’ll make it work.”

A giant casino floor filled with slot machines is in our way.

“You go that side. We’ll take this side,” Kai says, directing each group. “Caleb, Crystal, Lana, Nathan, Milo you’re with me. Blaine, Felix, Dylan, Penelope, Alistair, you go that way. Meet us at the entry to the hallway in the back.”

“Got it.” Felix nods, and he pulls out his guns. “Time to get some fucking blood on our hands.”

And as I pull out a new magazine and shove it into my gun, I whisper to myself, “Ares, we’re coming for you.”

Ares

“What the fuck is going on out there?” my father growls, and I can hear him place the whip down somewhere and waltz off. The door opens. “Stay here and watch him. Make sure he doesn’t move.”

The door slams shut again, leaving me alone with a guard holding an automatic rifle.

But if he’d shoot me now, I don’t think I’d even care.

The momentary pause from the whipping makes me let out a sigh of relief. Every breath I take hurts like a knife to the lungs, so sharp, but I persist.

If they’re here … Blaine, Caleb, Crystal …

I have to see them.

Just one last time so I’ll remember their faces before I perish.

But dammit … they shouldn’t have come.

It’s too dangerous, and if my father comes back to gloat while telling me he saw one of their dead bodies it would be worse than death.

I couldn’t take it.

I’d rather die in horrible pain instead of knowing one of my friends, my lovers, got killed trying to save me.

“No …” I whisper to myself, wishing I could tell them instead to stay away.

Leave me to rot.

Leave me and save yourself.

Just … leave.

And let me die in peace.

Crystal

Kai and Milo take the lead, knifing down any guard that comes close, while Lana and Nathan provide backup. Milo swings his nunchucks around like a pro, and it honestly makes me wonder how he decided that would be his weapon, but I’m not complaining as none of the guards can get near him.

Caleb’s shooting twice and then chucking his knife at someone in the back to make sure no one tries to come at us. He’s an expert at spotting them before they even have a chance to get near us, and so far I haven’t had to shoot.

The thought of killing people still makes me nauseous, but watching Lana and Penelope shoot like it means nothing gives me strength. I aim at one of the guards headed for us from the side and shoot.

BANG!

It hits him in the foot.

“Whoooo, I didn’t know you could shoot like that!” Milo says enthusiastically before nunchucking the dude right in the balls.

“Me neither,” I retort, laughing it off.

“Kai, behind you!” Lana yells.

Kai turns around and shoves one of his knives straight into the abdomen of one of the guards who was just about to knife him down, and he tears him open from belly to neck.

Jesus.

Blood sprays from his wound, and he sinks to the floor.

“Five,” Kai grits.

“Well, I have six already!” Dylan yells from the other side of the room.

“Fuck him,” Nathan grits. “I’m gonna win this shit.”

“Focus,” Kai tells him.

BANG! BANG!

Lana shoots down two guys who were aiming at Nathan and Kai. “Less talking, more killing.”

“I love it when you’re all bloodthirsty,” Milo muses as we head farther through the casino.

People are still screaming and running for their lives left and right, and it makes it hard to distinguish who is an actual foe and who is an innocent bystander. I don’t want someone’s life on my hands if they don’t deserve to die.

But then I see a guard from behind a pillar, and I point at him. “There!”

Caleb chucks a knife at his face, and it lodges inside the pillar instead because the guy immediately hid again the moment I pointed at him.

“Fuck!” Caleb shouts, and he pulls out even more knives from his coat. “Come here, you little bitch!”

He doesn’t notice the guard coming out of the toilet to his right, so I point my gun at him and shoot.

I miss.

Panic swirls through my veins.

“Caleb!”

BANG!

Lana hits him in the head with a knife, and he falls to the floor while Caleb engages in a fistfight with the guard behind the pillar.

Kai runs to him and stabs the guard in the side, allowing Caleb to thrust his knife straight into his throat, causing a gush of blood.

“Stay together!” Kai says.

“There are too many,” I say.

“This motherfucker needed to die,” Caleb growls.

“Let’s go!” Lana yells, signaling them to move.

“Yes, queen!” Milo cheers.

“Out of bullets?” Nathan asks, and he chucks some at Caleb as we keep heading forward. “Here.”

Caleb shoves them into his magazine and reloads. “Thanks.”

“Is this your way of making up with him?” Milo muses.

“Shut up,” Nathan grits.

“You know, I don’t mind if you two are friends.” Milo swats a guy away with his nunchucks and kicks him to the floor, easily bashing his head in. Covered in blood, he turns to smile. “I don’t feel threatened at all.”

“Jesus,” I mutter to myself.

“Yep, they’re something all right,” Lana says, laughing.

“Let’s go,” Kai says. “No time to waste.”

“You’re the one to talk. You let this fucking happen to him,” Caleb growls at him.

“I already told you I didn’t fucking know,” Kai says. “But the more we talk, the longer it’ll take to get to him.”

“Enough. No fighting. You guys promised,” I say.

On the other side of the room, Felix, Dylan, Penelope, Alistair, and Blaine are fending off the guards streaming in like their lives depend on it, and we’ve got one extra person in our group.

“They’re overwhelmed,” I say. “We gotta go help them.”

“Nonsense,” Milo muses, poking a guard on the floor with his nunchuck to make sure he’s actually dead. “Have you seen Blaine?”

I look again, and my eyes nearly bulge out of my skull from the way he swiftly takes care of each one of them with a single slice, thrusting in and out of people’s bodies as though he’s cutting through butter. One by one, they all fall down in front of him, and all Felix, Dylan, Alistair, and Penelope have to do is provide backup.

“My God …” I mutter.

But then a guard suddenly runs up to him from the side right when he’s got one of them on the edge of his knife and stabs him.

I shriek. “BLAINE!”