3. Knox
Chapter 3
Knox
Mason tackles the young girl like a linebacker, and she goes down without a fight. Adrenaline surges through my body but unlike Mason, the gravity of what we’ve done is weighing me down.
What are the odds of this girl being in the exact spot where we planned our murder? And what in God’s name was she doing with Boomer?
Now we have her to contend with too.
The pup stares up at me, waiting for his next instruction.
“Stay.” The puppy immediately sinks onto his belly and puts his head on his paws, watching me with big eyes.
I turn to look when the girl screams. Mason has her arms pinned behind her, holding her up. Silas backhands her so hard, a lock of sandy hair falls in his eyes. Her scream cuts off, and she sags against Mason as Silas smooths his hair away from his face.
Silverash Forest is supposed to be deserted this time of year. No one bothers to hike through this wild, tangled section of woods. None even dare train their dogs here. Except Lorenzo. He rears the best Plott Hounds in the state, but if his customers ever found out how cruel he was to these poor animals, they’d stop doing business with him.
That’s what I like to think, anyway. But in this town, rich fucks like Lorenzo can get away with anything.
Even murder.
“No, please! Please, I won’t say—” the girl begins in a terrified, high-pitched babble that ends with another meaty slap from Silas.
I expect her to start sobbing, but instead she glowers at Silas like she’s memorizing every inch of his face for the police’s sketch artist.
That’s a problem. We still have a lot of work to do here, but first we need to deal with her.
“Don’t worry, baby girl,” Mason says. “It’ll be over real soon.”
Silas leans in with narrowed eyes, his expression becoming even grimmer when she cringes away from him. As I walk up to them, he slides a hand into her pocket.
There’s a bright red mark on her cheek, a streak of mascara, a smudge of lipstick. She’s not wearing the right clothes for a walk in the forest—a denim mini skirt, a word leather jacket, and a loose-fitting white tee with the words ANARCHY scrawled over it. The fabric is so thin, I can make out the suggestion of a lacy black bra underneath. I’m surprised her honey-brown hair isn’t dyed pitch black and cut into a mohawk.
While Silas searches her, Mason nuzzles the side of her neck. I’m not sure which is making her more nervous.
Murdering an innocent girl was not part of the plan. It’s something Lorenzo would stoop to, not us. But if we don’t put the fear of God in her, she’ll run straight to the sheriff’s office. And since we didn’t bother covering our faces, all it’ll take is a good sketch artist and we’d be in a holding cell before the end of the weekend.
Silas holds up the girl’s driver’s license so I can read her name and address.
“Liberty, Missouri. What are you doing so far from home, Nim Winters?” I ask, pocketing the card.
Her hazel eyes widen when I look at her, and she gives her smudged lips a nervous swipe with her tongue.
“Speak honestly,” I say calmly. “We don’t forgive people who bend the truth.” I cut my eyes briefly to Lorenzo’s corpse, and the girl’s already pale skin turns sickly.
“M-My parents, they have a r-reunion,” she murmurs.
“At the Academy?”
She swallows, nods.
Mason’s amber eyes are fixed on her, his smile shifting from curious to playful. Nim cringes away when he tucks a lock of her brown hair behind her ear, revealing several diamond studs through the lobe, another on top, and a small ring through the little flap hiding her ear canal.
“Nim as in the book?”Silas asks, frowning.
She nods, but her eyes remain locked on me.
“Where are you staying, love?” I ask.
Nim swallows, a blush creeping onto her cheeks as Mason starts toying with her studs. She’d be pretty if she wasn’t wearing so much fucking makeup. And her clothes are wrong for her shape. Too tight, too low cut, too goth. Something sleeker, in the right shade to bring out her complexion—God, why the fuck am I dressing up this girl like a doll? I have my sisters to blame for knowing this much about clothing.
“M-my parents’ friend’s house.”
I cock an eyebrow, and she hurriedly adds, “Vicky.”
Mason stops fucking around with her piercings to give me a frown over the top of her head. “Vicky who?” he prompts.
“Uh…Pimento or something?”
“Pellegrino,” I correct automatically. Silas and Mason both look at me with unreadable expressions on their faces, probably thinking exactly what I am right now.
What are the odds?
I point at Lorenzo’s body. “Get the machete.”
What we need to do is make sure she won’t tell anyone about what she’s seen. And there’s only one way I know how.
Nim’s eyes almost pop out of her head. She lets out a low wail, clawing and scratching at Mason’s camo gear in an effort to escape.Silas’s boots crunch over dead grass and twigs as he goes to fetch it, and when Nim locks eyes with him on his way back with the blood-wet machete, she screams.
Mason doesn’t bother to cover her mouth. No one can hear her out here. But he does grab a fistful of her hair, dragging her head back until her neck is taut as a violin string.
“Please,” she whimpers. “Don’t do this. I didn’t see anything, I promise.”
I use the machete to point. “So you didn’t see us taking turns to chop up that sick fuck over there?”
She gulps, but there’s a flare of incredulity in her luminous eyes. I know what she’s thinking. Oh, he’s a sick fuck?
If she only knew. But she never will, because Nim is going to high tail it out of Cinderhart so fast, she’ll break the fucking sound barrier.
I press the flat of the blade against her slim throat, and drag it up her skin like I’m giving her a straight-razor shave. The girl pushes back hurriedly to get away from the blade, and Mason lets out a rumbly growl, his smile turning predatory.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against her hair. “You keep grinding that perky ass of yours into me.”
God, but he’s a horny fuck. I’d bet he’s already got a hard-on. That would explain why little Nim can’t decide if she wants to get away from the blade or from Mason’s crotch. He can’t help it, I guess. He just has to snap his fingers to get laid...and he does. A lot. But we’ve been so busy prepping for today that I doubt he’s had much time to get laid.
Silas chuckles, because he and Mason are thick as thieves. I know they forward each other porn videos on a regular basis because sometimes they’ll send them my way too. None of it’s my taste, though. The kind of shit I’m into would make them run for the fucking hills.
The blade is by her chin now, a streak of blood going all the way down her throat.
“Red’s a good color on you,” Mason says.
And of course I’m served an image of this curvy little girl draped in a clingy, scarlet Giorgio Armani gown. Must be because my two sisters are shopping for the Feast of Ashes dance. It’s all I’ve been hearing about the past month.
I agree with Mason though. Nim would look damn tasty in red.
I press the flat of the blade against her lips, for a moment fascinated with how plump they are. I feel high as fuck right now. I’m starting to understand why serial killers do what they do.
“Phone?” Silas asks, sliding his hand into the back pocket of her denim skirt. But he’s not fooling anyone. He doesn’t care if she has a cell, he just wants to grope the pretty girl.
Her golden, emerald-flecked eyes are flooded with terror, her lips quivering against the machete’s blade. She stopped begging. I suppose because she knows it’s pointless. We just killed a man in cold blood. Why would we let her go?
The blade touches her cheek, leaving another streak of blood there. Mason grabs one of her breasts and squeezes so hard she whimpers.
I tap my pocket where I stored Nim’s driver’s license. “We know where you live,” I murmur, pushing against her so she’s sandwiched between Mason and me. I feel Silas’s hand move around to the front, trailing down her belly—and mine—then slipping between her legs.
Maybe it’s her girly scent—citrus shampoo, a floral lotion—that’s getting in my head, or maybe it’s part of the high from finally ending Lorenzo, but this situation is getting me hard. If Silas notices, he doesn’t say anything. His attention is fixed solely on the shivering wreck trapped between our three bodies.
“I won’t say a word,” she whispers. “I promise.” Her voice is thick, tears shimmering like little diamonds in her smudged lashes.
“Better not break that promise,” Mason says. “Else we’ll have to come to visit you in Liberty and do unspeakable things to you.”
Silas chuckles and grabs her so hard between the legs that she gasps and pushes up onto her tiptoes to get away from him.
Nim’s fluttering eyes fix on me. She’s obviously in shock—there’s not nearly as much fear in her eyes as I’d thought. My hard-on is getting uncomfortable, and now that Silas is touching her, I’m aware of a new smell.
Her.
“Is she wet?” I murmur, a hand going to the waistband of my camo pants.
There’s a hush, just a heartbeat long, where everyone’s eyes are on me. Shocked, incredulous, expectant.
Nim’s scandalized gasp breaks it.
Silas lets out a dark chuckle. “A little.”
I slide a hand between her legs to feel for myself. I wasn’t expecting Silas to pull her underwear aside for me, exposing her cunt so it’s the first thing I touch. It sends a sinful thrill through me when I touch her slick folds.
Her eyes slam shut, lips starting to tremble as she whispers, “No, please.” Her struggles are futile—Mason just has to tighten the grip around her arms and there’s nowhere for her to go.
I stroke her pussy, my dick hardening even more at how smooth and soft she is. But Silas is right—she needs to be wetter than this.
“Are you scared of us, love?”
Nim’s eyes fly open, like she’s more offended that I’m not calling her by name than the fact I have my hand up her fucking skirt.
She spits in my face, and then tries to knee me in the groin.
“That’s not how this works,” Mason rumbles, shifting his grip so he only needs one hand to hold onto her. “If my friend wants to fuck you, then you’ll open your fucking legs and get wet for him.” Her skirt hikes up as he shoves his hand between her legs from behind.
The fury on her face dissolves into shock, then confusion as Mason starts fingering her. It’s obvious it’s working—his hand starts making a wet smacking sound when he slams it up into her. “Mmm…you like that, don’t you?” he murmurs into her ear. “Them watching while I finger you? How about we give them a proper show?” He kicks her legs open even wider, and Silas lets out a tight groan.
Christ, my cock is so hard it’s starting to hurt. All I can think about is ending my suffering. Maybe even turning the fear in Nim’s pretty eyes into something else.
But when I shove a hand inside my pants and grab my dick, about to take it out, Nim turns feral.
With a strangled scream, she whips her head back. It connects with the bridge of Mason’s nose, and I hear it snap. Twisting, she manages to tear one of her arms free, and sends a fist flying toward my stomach.
I barely manage to step back in time, and instead she punches Silas in the kidney. It was pure luck, but it downs him like a felled tree. I make a grab for her, but she twists away from me at the last second and my fingers clutch air.
Growling, I grab the machete from Silas’s unresisting grip as he tries to get his feet under him, turn, and send the blade flying through the air.
She skids to a halt when it embeds itself in a tree trunk inches from her face. Sending me a glare over her shoulder, she ducks and races away.
Tries to, anyway.
Silas and I watch, Silas with a bleak scowl on his face as he fingers his tender kidney.
A second later, Mason tackles her from behind. I hear her muffled, “Again?” as she’s pinned face-first to the ground.
She wasn’t fucking scared. She was toying with us. Because we were feeling her up instead of hurting her.
Yanking the machete out of the tree as I pass, I crouch beside her and Mason. He puts a hand up her skirt and tears off her underwear, leaving angry red lines behind on her thighs.
Pinned like she is, she’s in the perfect position.
“Show me every inch of that ass,” I tell Mason.
He yanks her skirt up to her hips, despite how she struggles. Silas joins us a second later, but he hangs back with that same scowl on his face.
I raise my hand and bring it down on her plump cheek. She yelps, goes rigid, and then starts struggling even more.
I slap her again, captivated by the bright red handprint that shows up on her skin, with how her round cheeks jiggle. No one’s ever let me do this to them. I never knew it could feel so fucking good.
She lets out a strange half pant half grunt, and Mason grabs each cheek in a massive hand and squeezes her. “Yeah, baby girl likes that.”
I give her two more smacks, each harder than the last. But as much as I’d like to torture this pretty little thing until the sun goes down, we still have a lot of shit to do.
“Turn her over. Open her up.”
Mason does as I command, he and Silas pinning down her arms before grabbing her legs and wrenching them open. She struggles furiously, thrashing in their grip. When I step closer, she throws her hair out of her face with a flick of her head, glaring furiously until she sees the machete in my hand.
Then the terror finally sets in.
I could have fucked her then and there, and Christ I almost can’t control myself. But there’s a growing sense of urgency. We need to wrap this up—we have things to do.
“Remember this, love,” I say quietly as I sink to my knees between her legs. “Remember us... ”
Nim lets out a breathless yell when I carve an S onto her inner thigh. Mason releases her as soon as I’m done, brushing leaves from his camo gear as he gets to his feet. Nim scrambles up, clamping her hand over her leg. Blood oozes between her fingers as she stares at us in shock.
“You should be more careful when you walk alone in the woods, Liberty,” Silas says as he stands. “Now run home and tell your parents what a clumsy bitch you are.”
Nim doesn’t wait for a second invitation. Her silhouette flickers through the leaves as she races away from us.We all watch until she’s out of sight, and then we head back to Lorenzo’s body, Mason shoving Nim’s torn-off underwear into his pocket.
When Boomer sees me approaching, his whole body starts wriggling, but he doesn’t get up or come closer.
“I can’t believe Lorenzo thinks he’s old enough to train,” Silas says, stooping to pick up the dog.
“If anything, he left it a few weeks too late,” I tell him.
Both Silas and Mason turn wide eyes to me, so I roll mine. “Their training starts as soon as they’re weaned.” I turn and put my fingers in my mouth, letting out a piercing whistle meant for the other hounds. They’d picked up a bear scent a few miles back, but even if they’d treed it, it’s not bear hunting season.
“Put him down,” I tell Silas. “He has to learn to run with the rest of the pack.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” Silas whispers, as if he doesn’t want Boomer to overhear.
“Christ,” I mutter, snatching the puppy from Silas with one hand. He squirms furiously in my grip, doing his best to lick my face when I hold him up at eye level from the scruff of his neck. I have a feeling I know what happened. Little Nim must have spotted Boomer—who has a penchant for wandering off to go sniff flowers and shit—and the puppy led her straight to Lorenzo.
I give Boomer a gentle shake. “You’re going to be the death of me, you little shit.”
I tuck him under one arm, and stare down at Lorenzo’s sticky face. He’s already starting to attract flies. I hand the machete to Mason.
“You know what to do.”