Chapter 9
Becki
J anie pops a piece of bubblegum and flops down on my trailer couch, like she pays rent here. “So. Spill it. Who’s the mystery man?”
I groan, grab the throw pillow, and whip it at her face. “You’re gonna make fun of me.”
She bats it away, smirking. “Probably. But I’ll still help you figure it out.”
I flop down beside her, knees bouncing, every nerve lit up. The TV’s on mute, another slasher flick spilling fake blood across the screen, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the mess inside my chest. “I think it’s Legend.”
Janie barks out a laugh. “Of course you do.”
“I’m serious.” My voice cracks. “The way he touches me, J. The way he kissed me… it has to be him. Who else would screw with my head like that? Who else would sneak around in a ghost mask just to mess with my head like that? Legend knows about my love of horror films.”
She twirls her hair, all lazy amusement. “Well, it is Halloween. Maybe it’s the killer. Or maybe it’s Prez, and he finally gave in to his freaky side.”
I bite my lip, nails digging into my thigh. “You think I’m crazy… You gonna call me Crazy Becki like the rest of them?”
“No, babe,” she says around her gum. “I think you’re obsessed. Big difference.”
She’s not wrong. I am obsessed. With the heat of his gloves on my waist. With the silence that spoke louder than any sweet talk. With the mask that made him nobody and everybody at once. With the way he disappears before I can say, don’t go.
Obsessed with the idea that maybe Legend still wants me.
And if it’s not him? I refuse to think about it.
“I heard Hannah skipped town,” Janie says, casual-like she’s not dropping dynamite.
I whip my head around. “When the hell were you gonna tell me that?”
She shrugs, smirks. “Now.”
Something wild pulses through me. If Hannah’s gone, then Legend’s free. And if my masked man really is him…
My mind spins faster than the ceiling fan overhead.
After dark, I gear up like I’m going to war.
Leather skirt. Fishnets. Blood-red lipstick.
And a ripped tee that reads, “ Property of No One” . Screw the bunny shirts with “Kings Only” scrawled across their fronts in Sharpie. Legend once told me I belonged to the club, but tonight? Tonight, I belong to whoever wears that mask.
I’m not the girl crying over our president anymore. I’m the villain’s favorite. The masked man’s obsession. Whether that masked man and our president are one and the same or not.
I tuck a steak knife into my boot. Just in case my Biker Boo turns out to be a killer.
Janie shows up in her Property of Vandal cut, all smug, like she doesn’t know Vandal’s been sliding into my DMs with dick pics. I bite my tongue. No use picking that fight. Not tonight.
We roll into Heck’s Kitchen, the courthouse turned arena, and it looks like a southern gothic nightmare. Candles stuffed into pumpkins, fake cobwebs, bones dangling from the rafters like wind chimes. The Kings know how to throw a Halloween bash.
Apparently, I didn’t miss the Halloween party. The Kings threw this like they threw everything, loud, lawless, and steeped in bourbon. And it was just Halloween Eve.
The bass shakes the cracked walls. Smoke from a dozen blunts hangs in the rafters. Someone’s passed out in a clown mask on the judge’s old bench. The dance floor is sticky with spilled liquor.
Janie flings herself into Vandal’s arms as he gives me a wink, and a I hope you didn’t tell look.
It should thrill me.
Instead, my eyes are already scanning for him. My Boo. My mask.
I sigh before I spot Royal near the perimeter of the ring, leaning against a fake headstone like he’s trying to disappear into the shadow, and make my way over.
Of course, the bikers didn’t dress up. Royal always wears black like all the bikers, but it’s more than that.
The bikers wear it like armor. Royal wears it like an unanswered prayer.
So tall, taller than Prez, he’s got that creepy kid posture, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, eyes sharp behind his lashes like knives.
His long hair curtains around his gorgeous face.
Too quiet.
Too soft-spoken.
Well… until he’s not.
When his looks scream otherwise. The tats on his face, the metal poking out of him like his goal is to one day be Pinhead.
“You see any masked creeps tonight?” I greet him.
He doesn’t flinch. “Only one.”
I smirk. “Did you kiss her too?”
His eyes flick to my mouth like he might. But he doesn’t say a word. Just… watches me.
That look sends a chill down my spine.
But I still don’t think it’s him. I touch my neck, knowing I would have felt his lip piercing, his tongue ring, hell, maybe even his nose ring.
And Royal’s not the type to stalk a girl through the woods.
Right? I mean, if I didn’t know him, he would be the first on my radar by his wicked looks alone. Goth as all get out, Royal could be the poster child for creepy stalkers.
But isn’t that just a diversion? If I’ve learned anything from slasher films, the killer is the one you least expect.
And I know Royal. He would never. Never, just like he said before. Never think about me like that. Never. Because he’s Legend’s brother in more ways than one. Not just in the Kings. His adopted brother. My adopted brother as well if we’re getting really technical.
But I never thought about any of the teens my father took into Pearly Gates as kin.
If I had, then almost the whole damn town would be my relatives.
The boys didn’t live with me and papa in the house attached to the chapel.
They lived together in the commune, with the community.
So, Legend and Royal may feel like real brothers, but they don’t feel like mine.
Never have.
I make my way out back, where the firelight glows orange and drunk bodies sway to a remix of something that should’ve stayed dead in the early 2000s.
Then I see Legend .
He’s out back by the firepit, and he’s not alone. Joey Donut, the new bunny with cotton-candy hair and devil horns, is straddling him like he’s her throne. His hands grip her hips. His mouth is devouring hers. His face, unmasked. Open. Smiling when he pulls back.
Brothers call her donut for many reasons. Other than the obvious, they say she loves a man in blue. But she pissed off the wrong cop’s wife, and is hiding out with us outlaws.
The laughter of the bikers nearby blurs into white noise. I can’t move. Can’t breathe.
My stomach caves in like I’ve been gutted.
All that hope I’ve been nursing, all the secret thrills, all the fantasies, shattered in an instant.
I stumble back, knife clinking against my boot, heart pounding so loud I can’t hear the music anymore.
Fuck him.
Fuck all of them.
Suddenly, I’m cold. Hugging myself, I leave my Harley and take the shortcut home. I circle the edge of the Crooked Creek Cemetery, through weeds and cracked marble headstones, looking for someone. The ghost who follows me. The man who wants me.
My Biker Boo.
And I find him, standing at the edge of the tree line, just far enough that the light can’t reach his face. But I know that mask. The warped porcelain howl. The shadows make his hoodie disappear into the night.
“You followed me again. Biker Boo?” My voice is soft, shaky, half a dare and half a prayer.
He steps forward.
Closer.
The dark seems to cling to him, swallowing every inch until all I can see is the cracked white mask and the breadth of his shoulders beneath the black hoodie.
I don’t run.
I take one step toward him, closing the gap like it’s inevitable, like fate has pulled here me.
“You’re not Legend,” I breathe. The words are both accusation and confession.
He tilts his head. Still no answer.
The silence itself is suffocating.
But then, his gloved hand rises. Slowly. Purposefully. And when those fingers touch my jaw, I melt. Just melt, like I’m not made of sharp things anymore, like all my edges were built for this one moment of being undone.
“You touched me,” I whisper. The tremor in my voice is hunger, not fear.
He cocks his head again, birdlike, curious.
“Do it again.”
And he does.
His hand trails downward, rough fabric scraping my skin, until it finds the hem of my skirt. He doesn’t tease. Doesn’t hesitate. Just shoves up the fabric and rips into the fishnets like they’re nothing but tissue. The sound, sharp, obscene, sends a shiver tearing through me.
Then his gloved fingers are inside me.
One, then two.
Rough, unrelenting, stroking deep until my back arches against the night itself.
The mask looms inches above me, faceless and hungry. My breath tangles with his heavy, controlled panting, the sound echoing in my ears until I can’t tell if it’s his ragged need or mine.
Every thrust of his fingers is a demand, and every clench of my body is my answer. The glove drags against my clit, grippy plastic scraping in just the right way, lighting me up, wringing me tight until I’m seconds away from coming apart.
And then, he stops.
Yanks his hand away.
I cry out, guttural, desperate, a sound I’ve never heard from myself before. “No…”
But he catches my wrist before I can claw at him, before I can rip that mask off and steal what he refuses to give.
Like always.
I yank against his grip, breathless. “Why won’t you let me see?”
His only answer is to grab my waist, hauling me flush against him. My chest collides with his, and I feel him, hard, straining, twitching against his jeans. The size of him makes my mouth dry, makes my thighs clench around nothing.
I reach down.
My hand finds his bulge.
God, he’s thick. Rock solid. Aching.
And I stroke him through the denim until his breath rattles behind the mask.
“How badly do you want me?” I whisper, emboldened, daring him.
He still doesn’t speak.
Won’t.
“Say something, Biker Boo,” I plead, my voice breaking into something raw.
For the longest second, he doesn’t. Just presses his masked forehead to mine, the cracked porcelain cool and alien against my skin. It feels less like a kiss and more like a claim.
And I realize, maybe the silence is his way of loving me. Maybe this faceless, wordless thing is all he can give. Maybe I don’t need more.
But then, his voice, low and ragged, finally cuts through the night.
“Halloween.”
The single word rumbles like a verdict. Like a promise.
And before I can respond, he’s gone, slipping into the shadows and leaving me cold, aching, undone in every way that matters.
Eventually, I walk back into the party, and Janie rushes up.
“Girl, where the hell did you go? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I smile. “Maybe I have.”
“You find out who he… who the killer is?” Janie asks.
“I’m about to,” I say as I head to the Lockup.
The glow from the neon beer sign above the barroom filters through Royal's cracked door and paints the scene in blood-red light. What I see makes me want to scream.
He’s got a bunny on his lap. Some girl I don’t even know the name of yet, big tits spilling out of a too-tight corset, fake fangs poking at his neck. She giggles, nails tracing his chest like they’re in love.
And Royal? He doesn’t shove her off. Doesn’t scowl or snarl or tell her she’s not worth the ink on her skin. He just sits there, calm and stone-faced, letting her perch like she belongs.
Something sharp twists inside me.
I don’t want to care. Royal’s quiet, unreadable, my shadow since we were kids. But now? Now he’s letting some random girl straddle him while my whole body still aches from being touched by a ghost in the woods.
The ghost I thought might be him.
Heat floods my cheeks. I turn on my heel before he notices, stomping out the back door into the chill.
Legend.
If Royal’s gonna sit there letting bunnies crawl all over him, then it has to be Legend. My masked man. My Biker Boo.
The thought ignites something reckless. I kick open the door to Legend’s room. But he’s not there.
I head back to the party to confront him. But I can’t find him anywhere.
“Where’s Prez?” I ask Janie.
“Disappeared.”
I spot the pink-haired club whore climbing another biker.
My breath catches in my throat.
“Janie, I think I’ve figured it out… Biker Boo has to be my Legend.”
I storm into my kitchen when I get home, fury buzzing in my veins. The steak knife’s still in my boot, and before I think twice, I yank it out and drag the blade across my thigh. Not deep, just enough to sting, to leave a mark.
L-E-G-E-N-D.
Crimson beads up, the letters ugly and raw.
“See?” I whisper to the empty trailer. “I’m yours, whether you want me or not.”
The sting grounds me, but it doesn’t stop the tears. I slam the knife down on the counter, chest heaving.
Because deep down, I don’t believe it.
Because deep down, I’m starting to wonder if the man behind the mask is the only one who ever really sees me.
And if he’s not Legend…
Then who the hell is he?