Chapter 7 Caleb
SEVEN
CALEB
This night won’t leave me alone.
He won’t leave me alone.
I keep thinking if I move fast enough, if I stay alert enough, I can outrun the shape of him—the mask, the stalking presence that’s been dogging my every step since the party began. But that’s a lie, and I know it. Miguel doesn’t just chase.
He hunts.
The bass from the party is a dull heartbeat behind me as I slip out the back door.
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m just asking for him to chase me again.
The yard yawns wide and open, and the woods stretch like a mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
I should stay inside, where people are laughing and drinking, where my dad’s voice carries across the living room.
Do I do that, though? Fucking no, because I’m a glutton for punishment.
Instead, I’m running into the dark like prey that’s already accepted it won’t make it home.
My sneakers hit the cold grass, then the softer give of damp leaves. My breath fogs in the air, too fast, too shallow. I’m starting to think I fucking have asthma with the way my chest burns. Every crunch of the leaves underfoot sounds like an alarm, giving me away.
I glance back.
There’s nothing there. Just the glow of orange jack-o’-lanterns lining the porch.
But I know better. He’s out here. Waiting for me to run.
Part of me thinks he’s just as desperate to chase me as I am for him to hunt me.
God, we’re fucked up.
A branch snaps to the left. My pulse spikes so hard I nearly stumble. I push faster, weaving through the trees, my hoodie clinging to my chest with sweat. Each inhale tastes of wet soil and wood smoke from the bonfire.
I need him.
No, stop it, Caleb.
“Run, pretty boy.”
The voice is low, velvet-wrapped with malice. It shivers down my spine and settles deep in my stomach, in my balls. I can’t see him, but I don’t have to. Miguel’s close. The mask makes him sound inhuman, detached, like a demon that learned to talk just to torment me.
“You want it, don’t you, baby?”
Baby? I bite down hard, lungs burning. My legs pump, but the woods are a snare—roots snagging, branches clawing at my skin through the fabric of my hoodie. My shoulder catches one, and the pain flares sharply. I barely register it.
I need distance. I need space.
But he doesn’t give me either.
Miguel knows I need him. That’s why we’re playing this little game.
The sound of him is everywhere—footsteps closing in, never hurried. He knows the game isn’t about speed.
It’s about inevitability.
The two of us.
This night, this moment, it was all supposed to happen.
My chest heaves, ragged, when I break through to the same clearing as before. The moon spills silver over the ground, turning me into a spotlighted target. I whirl in a three sixty, scanning the shadows.
Nothing.
No—wrong. Something. Always something.
“Little brother.” His taunts slither out from between the trees. “I can hear you panting from here.”
“Shut up,” I hiss, though the words don’t even reach him. They’re just for me, a pathetic type of armor that holds no significance.
The clearing feels too exposed, so I dart back into the thicker woods, the darkness wrapping tight. I can’t tell if the pounding in my ears is my heartbeat or his footsteps.
Then fingers catch my hood.
I choke on a gasp as I’m yanked backward and spun around hard. My back slams into a tree, bark biting into my shoulders through the thin cotton.
And there he is.
The mask gleams faintly, a black void with neon slashes for eyes, cold light that makes my skin prickle. Behind it, I know it’s him—his jaw, his smirk—but the mask steals his humanity, leaving only a predator. His chest rises and falls steady and calm, like he hasn’t run at all.
In shape, son of a bitch.
Me? I’m shaking, ribs aching with every gulp of air.
I might be dying… Or I’m just being dramatic.
“Caught ya.” His words rumble low, almost affectionate if not for the vicious curl underneath. His hand braces the tree near my head, caging me in. The other presses flat against my chest, pinning me harder. “You really thought you could get away?”
I shove at him, a feeble attempt to put some distance between us. My palms skid across the rough leather of his jacket. He doesn’t budge.
“I don’t—” My voice cracks. My throat is desert-dry. “You can’t—”
His head tilts, mask catching moonlight, blank and merciless. He presses closer, the heat of his body suffocating me, stealing what’s left of my air. My hip catches against his thigh. Too intimate, too obvious.
Like I’m seeking the friction.
Desperate for it.
“I can smell it on you,” he murmurs. His breath, ghosts hot against my ear, filtered through the mask. “Fear. Sweat. And under it… something so much sweeter.” His hand drags lower, not touching yet, but threatening to. “God, I want to touch you. Still hard for me, Caleb?”
“No!” My denial comes too fast, too panicked. It betrays me.
He laughs, deep and sharp. “Liar.”
He’s right, I am a liar because my cock has never been so hard. It only gets like this when I’m around him.
The sound rattles in my chest, vibrating through the bark at my back. I want to tell him to stop, to let me go, to go to hell. Instead, I’m frozen, caught between the thrum of terror and the sick, crawling heat low in my abdomen.
His knee nudges between my legs, casual, testing. My breath stills.
Miguel doesn’t miss it. He never misses anything when it comes to me.
“There it is,” he whispers, triumphant. “Your body doesn’t lie, Caleb. No matter how much your pretty little mouth tries to.”
I shake my head hard, shame burning hot across my face. “Fuck you.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” His words slash, cruel and hungry.
“On your knees. On your back. On top of me, riding my cock like the desperate little slut you are. Doesn’t matter.
You’d take me any way I gave it. Tell me, baby brother, do you let all the guys at school bend you over and pump you full of cum?
Or—” He leans in and whispers. “Did you save that pretty little hole just for me?”
My stomach twists in knots. The worst part is the flicker in me that doesn’t recoil. The flicker that ignites at the sound of him saying all these filthy things to me.
“Mmm, something tells me it’s the latter.”
I try to twist, but he’s immovable. His hand finally moves—lower, pressing just enough against the waistband of my shorts to make my whole body jolt.
“You’re trembling,” he says. “Not just from fear. Is my sweet little brother a virgin?”
“I’m not—” My protest cuts off with a broken sound as his palm skims my hipbone. My head thuds back against the tree. I hate myself for the heat surging through me.
“Tell me you’re hard and that it’s because of me.” His voice is a command, sharp and dark. “Say it, or I’ll keep you here all night until you choke on the truth. That truth being my cock shoved in your mouth and my cum sliding down that pretty fucking throat of yours.”
I clench my teeth, refusing. My fists curl uselessly at my sides.
He leans in, mask nearly touching my cheek. “Say it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. The night presses heavily around us, my pulse frantic.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
I repeat over and over in my mind, fighting every single part of me that wants to scream, “Yes… I’m hard because of you. I get off on the humiliation and the dirty talk.”
He lingers a moment longer, so close I can feel his heart steady against my erratic one. Then—suddenly—he steps back.
The absence of him is a gut punch. I sag against the tree, knees weak, chest heaving.
Miguel laughs softly, cruel amusement wrapping the sound. “What a stubborn little thing you are. That’s fine.” He tilts his head, the mask glowing faintly. “You’ll break for me soon enough.”
And then he’s gone, slipping into the shadows, leaving me crumpled against the bark, trembling with fear, rage, and the sick pulse of arousal I can’t deny.
I don’t want to deny it.
I slide down the tree until I’m crouched low, arms wrapped tight around myself.
My lungs still haven’t caught up. Every inhale scrapes my throat raw—every exhale tastes like dirt and shame.
The woods are too quiet without him in them.
That’s the worst part. The silence. No snapping branches, no measured footsteps.
Just silence thick enough to choke me.
But I know he hasn’t gone far. Miguel never leaves until he’s good and ready.
I drag my hands over my face, trying to rub away the heat. My palms come away damp. Sweat or tears, I can’t tell. Doesn’t matter. Either way, he got what he wanted. He’s breaking me down, moment by moment, and at this point I’m considering just letting go and giving in to what I want.
My body doesn’t get the memo that all of this is wrong, that our parents would freak out if they found out that their sons are attracted to each other.
At least I know my dad would. My shorts cling uncomfortably to the evidence of it, and I press my thighs together hard like I can smother it, hide it.
But the ghost of his touch lingers—his knee between mine, his hand hovering low. My skin hums like he branded me.
I hate him. But I hate myself more.
“Still here?”
No shit, Sherlock. Haven’t really been able to move.
The voice slides through the dark, lazy and cruel. I jolt, scrambling upright. My back hits the bark again, this time a different tree. I scan wildly around me, but I already know.
He steps out from behind the shadows like he’s always been part of them. The mask gleams, the neon slashes for eyes burning cold.
“Pathetic,” Miguel drawls. He moves slowly, like a wolf circling a rabbit that’s already tired of running. “Look at you, all shaken up. Can’t even stand up straight.”
“St-stop.” My voice cracks, pitiful.
He ignores it, of course. He always does.
Two strides and he’s close again, his shadow swallowing mine. He doesn’t touch me this time, not at first. He just leans, his presence caging me tighter than his arms could.
“You want to know what I see, Caleb?” His tone is soft and conversational, the kind of voice he could use asking for the salt at dinner. It makes every word worse. “I see a boy who’s starving. So desperate he doesn’t even know it. A hole waiting to be filled, a mouth waiting to be used.”
“Stop—” My plea comes thin, useless.
“Your body’s already begging.” His hand lifts, hovering just above my chest without making contact. The air between us is electric, dangerous. “Your cock’s begging. All that trembling? It’s not fear, Caleb. It’s need. You need me.”
I shake my head hard, my hair still sticking to my forehead. “You’re sick.”
He chuckles low. “Why? Because I know what I want? Then news flash, little brother, you’re just as sick as I am, because while I may say it out loud, you’re hiding it. Letting it fester. Destroying you from the inside out.”
The words gut me. I flinch like he struck me, because part of me knows it’s true.
“Come on, little brother.” He taunts. “Let it out. The sin tastes sweeter when it’s forbidden.”
My knees wobble and he notices. Of course he does. His hand finally lands—two fingers hooking under my chin, tilting my head up. The mask looms, faceless and merciless, the neon slashes staring down into me.
“Say it,” he murmurs. “Say you’re hard for me. Say that you want me.”
My throat locks. My pride claws desperately at the words, holding them in. I want to say it.
He tilts his head, studying me. Then he leans close enough that his hot breath ghosts through the mask against my cheek. “Beg me,” he says, quiet but sharp. “Beg me to touch you. To take you apart. To give you everything you’ve ever wanted from me.”
The sound that scrapes out of me is half-whimper, half-growl. My fists clench tight at my sides. No.
“I said beg.”
The command lands heavy, vibrating in my chest. My whole body aches to obey. To collapse, to give him what he wants. What I want. I can feel the plea clawing up my throat. Please, please, please—
But I choke it back, biting down so hard my jaw aches.
His laugh is cruel and satisfied. “Still holding out. Fine. I like it better when you break slowly. Then I’ll just get to take my sweet time fucking you into your new normal. Me and you, Caleb.”
Then, just like before, he releases me. Steps back, casual, like none of it mattered. Like he didn’t just strip me bare without laying me flat.
The air rushes back into the space he leaves. I sway, dizzy from the absence.
Miguel’s head tilts, the mask catching moonlight one last time. “Next time, you’ll beg.” His voice is a promise, a curse. “And I’ll make sure you never forget how it feels.”
He turns, disappearing into the dark the way he came.
I slide down the tree again, trembling so hard I can barely hold myself up. My breath stutters, ragged, shame choking every inhale. My hands shake when I press them to my thighs, as if I can hold myself together with sheer force.
The woods hum with silence. My body hums louder, traitorous and hungry, still aching for what he denied me.
I bury my face in my hands.
I don’t know if I want to cry or scream. Maybe both.
But one truth settles heavy in my gut, undeniable and cruel.
He’s right.
I’m starving.
And it’s him I’m starving for.