Chapter 20 Damon #2
If Xave wanted to hurt me, he had plenty of chances when he was stalking and chasing me around campus.
He could have done anything to me when we were in the woods or any of the other isolated places we’ve fucked.
And he could have taken me out at any time when he was following me if he’s even half as good a marksman as he seems to be.
And his cousins are the same. They didn’t have to help me. They could have just let me get shot and gone about their night like nothing happened.
But they didn’t, and even though I know they’re dangerous, right now, they’re the only people who give a shit if I live or die.
The guy on the ground makes a strangled sound when the twin with the curved knife kneels in front of him and pulls back his hood, taking his ball cap off at the same time. Then he rests the blade against the front of my attacker’s jacket, just under his throat.
I study my attacker's face now that I can see it. I can’t be sure, but he looks like he’s in his thirties. His brown hair, dark eyes, and generic features aren’t familiar, and I can’t place him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Xave asks in that deadly cold voice.
“And I’d think twice about lying or trying to get one over on us,” the twin with the butterfly knives says as he crouches next to him.
“My brother here has a talent for knowing when people are lying.” He grins, and the combination of his big, wide smile and the total lack of emotion in his eyes is terrifying.
“And me and my friends here”— he lifts his knives and gives them a quick spin around his fingers—“hate liars. So I’d choose my words carefully if I were you, because they just might be your last.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Xave repeats when my attacker says nothing.
The guy rolls his lips inward, like he’s forcing himself to stay quiet.
“Fuck this,” Killian says and tucks his gun into one of his jacket pockets. “Send this asshole to meet his maker if he even breathes funny,” he says to the twins.
“Roger that,” the twin with the butterfly knives says jovially.
“Gladly,” the other twin says in that same deadly dark voice from before.
Killian roughly pats the guy down, and I don’t miss how he wrenches the guy’s hurt arm around as he digs a wallet and a phone out of the guy’s pockets.
He hands the phone to the twin with the butterfly knives, then flips the wallet open and pulls out a glossy school ID.
“Richard Hutcherson,” Killian reads. “Works in the IT department.”
“Now isn’t that an interesting development,” the twin with the curved knife says, still holding the blade just under my attacker’s throat.
“Tell me something, Richard,” the other twin says, his attention on the phone in his hands. “Do you go by Ricky, Rich, or Dick?”
Richard looks between the twins, his fear obvious, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Okay, Dick,” the twin with his phone says.
“I bet you’re sitting there thinking about how you’re super smart for putting a pattern ID on your phone because I can’t just cut off your finger and use your print to unlock it.
” He glances up and smirk-smiles, somehow looking even more unhinged than he did when he was spinning his knives.
“But you forgot to clean your phone screen.” He holds the phone at eye level with the screen up and looks at it closely as he tilts it around so it catches the light at different angles.
“And because most people are basic, boring creatures with no creativity, I don’t need you to tell me your code because I already know it.
” He holds the phone out and uses his finger to draw a bow tie pattern over the nine dots on the screen.
The phone lights up, and a home screen with a half-naked anime woman on it appears in its wake.
“Oh, Dick. Tell us you’ve never given a woman an orgasm without telling us you’ve never given a woman an orgasm,” he says, his attention on the phone as he taps on the screen. “Huh, that’s interesting.” He looks up at Killian. “Is Dick here as big of a dumbass as I think he is?”
“Depends.” Killian snaps the wallet closed and pulls his gun out of his pocket. “Are you asking if Dick brought his real wallet on a hit? Because if you are, then yes, he’s as big a dumbass as you thought.”
Xave tucks his gun into his hoodie pocket, and Killian tosses the wallet to him.
Not letting go of my hand, Xave flips the wallet open and thumbs through it.
“Well, Dick the Dumbass was smart enough to bring a burner,” the twin with his phone says, giving the device a little shake.
“But still too much of a dumbass to not put a bunch of apps on it that are signed into his real accounts.” He pauses, a thoughtful look crossing his handsome features.
“Is it considered cheating if you have multiple AI girlfriend chatbots on your phone? Or is it like a poly thing and they all know about each other?”
“Are you going to tell us why you tried to kill our friend here?” the twin with the knife still pressed against Richard’s jacket asks. “Or am I going to get to baptize my new friend here and find out how sharp it really is?”
Richard looks between the twins, his expression full of genuine fear, but still says nothing.
The twin with the knife gently flicks his wrist, and the top button of Richard’s coat falls to the ground as the blade slices it clean off.
“That looked smooth,” Killian comments, his tone casual. “How did it feel?”
“Pretty smooth,” his cousin confirms. “But thread isn’t much of a test for a blade this size, so it’s not really a good measure of how sharp it is.”
“No,” Killian agrees. “It’s not. You’ll definitely need to try something with more tensile strength.”
The twin with the knife slides it up the front of Richard’s coat and gently taps the blade against Richard’s bare throat, right above his collar.
A line of red appears on his skin as Richard jumps, a soft squeal escaping his lips.
“Nope.” The other twin raises one of his butterfly knives and rests it against the underside of Richard’s jaw. “We didn’t say you could move,” he adds, using the flat part of the blade to tip Richard’s head back and to the side.
“Now,” his brother says as he quickly drags the edge of his knife over the line of red on Richard’s neck like he’s giving him a shave.
The blood disappears, but more wells up in its wake as he wipes the blade on the front of Richard’s coat in a careless swipe.
“Why did you try to kill our friend? And trust me when I say you don’t want me to get bored with asking questions. ”
“He’s right. You don’t want to see what happens when he gets bored.
” His brother tucks Richard’s phone in his pocket and pulls out his second butterfly knife, all while still using the other blade to hold Richard’s head up and to the side.
“Now I’m gonna give you a chance to answer. Don’t make me regret my benevolence.”
The stark change in his voice when he says that last sentence is scary as fuck, and I squeeze Xave’s hand a little tighter.
I’m not afraid of the twins, or of Killian or Xave, but this kind of shit isn’t normal for me, and watching guys who look like supermodels casually interrogate and threaten the guy who attacked me is fucking with my head a bit.
Xave steps closer and leans in so his lips are right next to my ear.
“That’s Jace,” he whispers, his voice so quiet I have to strain to hear him.
I assume he means the twin who just spoke, the one with the butterfly knives, and I look between them again.
They’re the most identical people I’ve ever seen. Jace, or at least the one I’m calling Jace in my head, has a wild and chaotic energy to him that’s in direct contrast to the darker and more calculated energy around Jax.
But other than that and their slightly different hairstyles, they’re carbon copies of each other. Especially since they’re both wearing dark jeans and matching dark jackets.
“Wrong choice,” Jace says darkly when Richard doesn’t answer.
Jax flips his knife around and slams the handle into the wound on Richard’s shoulder.
He howls in pain but cuts himself off with a choked sound when Jace presses the tip of his blade against his crotch. “Shut. Up.”
“We don’t actually need you to tell us who hired you,” Killian says in a cheerful tone that’s so out of place it’s eerie as fuck.
“We can figure it out on our own. All of this”—he motions between himself and the twins—“is just us having some fun.” His expression shifts to one so dark and sinister that the sudden change is as jarring as it is terrifying.
“But this is nothing compared to the fun we’ll have if you don’t tell us what we want to know. ”
Richard’s eyes widen, and his gaze darts between Killian and the twins as more of the color drains from his face.
“Last chance,” Xave says. “Otherwise my friends are going to take you into the woods and have their fun away from the cameras and witnesses.”
Jace leans closer to Richard, like they’re sleepover buddies he’s about to share some tea with. “And just an FYI, you can scream to your heart’s content, and no one is going to come save you. In fact, the louder you scream, the more fun we have.”
Richard is panting and sweaty and looks pissed off enough to kill, but there’s real terror under his anger, and for some reason, that’s satisfying as fuck.
Watching him pay for trying to kill me is vindicating on a level I can’t explain, and seeing him suffer is way more entertaining than it should be.
But the really fucked-up part of my reaction to what’s going on is how I like that Xave and his cousins are doing this for me.
I don’t understand why they’re helping me, but I’m grateful. And nowhere near as disturbed by what I’m seeing as I should be.
“I don’t know,” Richard bites out. “I don’t know who he is.”
“Too bad for you,” Jace says cheerfully. “Come on, bro. Time to have some real fun.”
Jax’s grin is as unsettling as Jace’s as the two of them drag a struggling Richard to his feet.
“I’ve got this,” Killian says to Xave as he also stands. “What are you thinking?”
“We’re going to the cabin,” Xave says.
“We’ll take care of things here and let you know what we find,” Killian says as the twins drag Richard toward the woods.
Xave nods, and they exchange a heavy look, like they’re having a silent conversation in the five seconds that they’re looking at each other.
Killian breaks their eye contact with Xave and gives me a quick upnod, then he turns and follows his cousins, his steps casual and unhurried.
“Come on,” Xave says, giving my hand a little tug. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, and there’s only one safe place we can do that.”