When Good Stepbrothers Bite

Prologue — Such a Nice Boy

MASON KERR

Mason Kerr realized someone was following him because the footsteps stopped when he did.

He stood motionless beneath the jaundiced glow of a streetlamp, one hand buried in the pocket of his jacket and the other wrapped loosely around his phone.

For a few seconds, the only sound along Bellweather Avenue was the dry scrape of October leaves tumbling over pavement.

They collected against curbs and wrought-iron fences, rattling whenever the wind came down from the north and threaded itself between the old houses.

The air had sharpened considerably since midnight.

Mason could feel it against the sweat drying beneath the collar of his shirt, cold enough to raise gooseflesh along the back of his neck.

He waited. Nothing. Mason turned slowly.

Bellweather Avenue stretched behind him in alternating pools of amber light and darkness.

Tall elms arched over the street, their thinning branches tangling overhead like black veins against a cloudless sky.

Beyond them stood the houses Bellweather was known for, enormous brick Colonials and restored Victorians set well back from the road behind clipped hedges, stone walls, and iron gates.

Most belonged to professors, surgeons, attorneys, and families whose names appeared on university buildings.

At this hour, nearly every window was dark.

There was nobody on the sidewalk. No car pulling away from the curb.

No drunken students staggering home from downtown.

Nothing that should have made the knot forming between Mason's shoulder blades tighten the way it did.

He stared another few seconds before releasing a breath through his nose.

“Jesus Christ.”

The tequila was making him paranoid. That had to be it.

Mason turned around and resumed walking.

His fraternity house was a little over a mile away, which had seemed entirely reasonable when he'd checked the Uber app outside the party and discovered some algorithm had decided the privilege of being driven seven minutes across Bellweather was worth thirty-eight dollars.

Mason had laughed, shoved his phone into his pocket, and started walking. He was regretting the decision now.

His head had that pleasant, floating heaviness that meant he'd stopped counting drinks at exactly the right time to have a good night and exactly the wrong time to make sensible decisions afterward.

There was tequila sitting hot and sour at the bottom of his stomach.

His mouth tasted like cheap lime wedges and the cigarette he'd accepted from Brennan despite repeatedly insisting he didn't smoke.

His left ear still rang faintly from spending half the night beside a speaker large enough to qualify as furniture.

The party had been worth it. The house had been packed before eleven.

Bellweather students filled every room, spilling onto the porch and backyard until somebody started complaining about neighbors calling the police.

Mason had known half the people there and convinced most of the other half that they knew him.

That wasn't particularly difficult anymore.

Everybody knew Mason Kerr. Senior. Economics major.

Vice president of Kappa Delta Rho. Starting midfielder on Bellweather's club lacrosse team until he'd decided senior year was supposed to be enjoyable.

Student alumni ambassador. The guy professors forgave when he walked into class ten minutes late because he always apologized with enough sincerity to make them feel unreasonable for caring.

Mason was good at being liked. He'd learned early that people tolerated almost anything from someone they enjoyed having around.

A shoe scraped pavement behind him. Mason stopped.

The sound stopped too. This time, he didn't immediately turn around. His fingers tightened around his phone.

A breeze pushed beneath the hem of his jacket.

Mason suddenly became aware of how empty the street really was.

The university campus sat only six blocks east, and downtown Bellweather was still alive behind him, but neither mattered here.

The noise from the bars had faded into a distant pulse.

Even the occasional siren and engine noise had disappeared.

His heartbeat sounded disproportionately loud. Mason turned. Nothing.

“Hello?”

His voice traveled farther than he'd expected. No answer came back. He squinted toward a hedge shifting gently beneath the wind.

“Caleb?”

Silence. Mason gave a short laugh. It sounded fake even to him.

“If this is you, you're fucking hilarious.”

Nothing moved. He shook his head and continued walking, considerably faster than before.

The sensible part of his brain told him there were a hundred explanations.

Another student could be walking home. Someone could have turned onto a side street.

A homeowner could have been outside with a dog.

Mason was drunk enough that the original footsteps might not have existed at all.

The less sensible part kept listening. Left foot.

Right foot. His own shoes struck the sidewalk with an uneven rhythm.

He crossed an intersection. A traffic signal twenty yards away changed from green to yellow despite there being no cars beneath it.

Red. Mason glanced behind him. Empty. He looked forward again. His phone vibrated in his hand.

“Fuck!”

Mason nearly dropped it. He laughed immediately afterward, more from embarrassment than amusement, and looked down. A message from Tyler.

TYLER: where tf did you go

Mason typed while walking.

MASON: home

TYLER: without me???

MASON: you left with that sophomore lmao

Three dots appeared almost immediately.

TYLER: her name is ava asshole

MASON: proud of u

TYLER: kys

Mason smiled. Normal. Everything was fucking normal.

He shoved the phone into his pocket. The footsteps returned.

Closer. Mason's smile vanished. He spun around.

Someone stood beneath the streetlight behind him.

For several seconds, Mason couldn't understand what he was seeing.

The person was perhaps forty feet away, positioned directly beneath the amber light.

A man, Mason assumed from the height and breadth of the shoulders.

Black clothing covered him from throat to ankle.

Dark gloves concealed his hands. But Mason barely noticed any of that.

He noticed the face. White. Perfectly white. A porcelain mask covered it completely.

The face sculpted into the ceramic was almost human in its proportions, which somehow made it worse.

There were no exaggerated cheekbones, no monstrous teeth, no theatrical grin.

Just the suggestion of a man's face reduced to something blank and lifeless.

Thin black fractures spread across the forehead and temples.

More radiated outward from the eyes and traveled down both cheeks like cracks through old china.

The eyes themselves were black. Not painted.

Empty. Two narrow openings cut into the porcelain, revealing nothing behind them except darkness.

The mouth was worse. A thin horizontal seam crossed where lips should have been, interrupted by tiny vertical black marks that gave the impression somebody had stitched the mask's mouth closed. Mason stared at it.

The masked man stared back. Neither moved.

“What the fuck?”

His voice came out quieter than intended. The figure's head tilted. Not dramatically. Barely an inch. Mason's stomach tightened.

“Dude.”

Nothing. He looked around, suddenly expecting laughter. Someone filming from behind a hedge. Caleb jumping out from between two parked cars. Brennan screaming that they'd gotten him. Nobody appeared. Mason looked back at the mask.

“Okay.”

He forced a smile.

“Very funny.”

The figure remained perfectly still.

“You got me.”

Nothing. Mason took one step backward. The masked man stepped forward. Mason stopped. So did he. A cold sensation moved slowly from the base of Mason's spine to his shoulders. He took another step backward. The man matched it.

“What do you want?”

No answer. Mason swallowed.

“Who are you?”

The black eyes watched him. There was something particularly awful about not being able to see the person's expression.

Mason couldn't tell whether the man was angry.

Amused. Drunk. He couldn't even tell precisely where he was looking.

The mask gave him nothing. Mason reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“I'm calling the cops.”

The masked man started walking. Not running. Walking. Straight toward him. Mason's pulse lurched.

“Hey.”

The man continued.

“I'm fucking serious.”

Thirty feet. Mason unlocked his phone. Twenty-five. His thumb slipped against the screen.

“Stop.”

Twenty. Mason found the emergency-call button. He looked down for less than a second. When he looked up, the streetlight was empty. Mason froze. The man was gone. His mouth went dry.

“What the fuck?”

He looked toward the nearest yard. Nothing.

Across the street. Nothing. There hadn't been enough time.

There couldn't have been enough time. Mason backed away from the empty streetlight while keeping the phone raised in front of him.

911 waited on the screen. His thumb hovered above the call button.

He didn't press it. Because what the fuck was he supposed to say?

Hello, somebody stood on a sidewalk wearing a mask and then walked away?

The dispatcher would ask whether he'd been threatened.

No. Touched. No. Did he know the person?

No. Was he intoxicated? Mason looked at the glowing numbers on his screen. Fuck. He lowered the phone.

“Asshole.”