2. Dan
DAN
TWO YEARS AGO
“Mask.” My best mate Ryker Thorpe, aka King, held out his hand. I stared at it for a moment before I smacked the Purge-style LED mask into his palm.
“What do I look like? Your butler or something?”
He smirked. “Yeah, a bit.”
“Fuck off. It might be your eighteenth, but it doesn’t mean you get to order me around.” I punched him in the arm, and he shot me a warning look. From the other side of Ryker’s ridiculously oversized bedroom, my other best mate, Jayesh Attwood, sighed heavily.
“Something to say?” Ryker tilted his head towards our friend.
Jay ran his hand through his thick black hair as he leaned back against the flocked wallpaper, acting all nonchalant. Too nonchalant, in fact. Suspicious. “Maybe. Who’s your target tonight?”
Ryker adjusted the strap of his mask, his nonchalance even more fake than Jay’s. “I thought I might pay a visit to our resident spirit.”
I exchanged glances with Jay. Ghost. Or Aleksi Sullivan, to anyone outside our group.
Technically, we all hated the weird emo kid, purely for the fact that he was the mayor’s son and his family was on the right side of the law—aka the opposite side to us.
And there was a whole thing where Thorpe Senior ran for mayor against Aleksi’s dad and lost, which equalled a serious grudge.
But Ryker’s hate for Aleksi ran deeper. It was a weird, obsessive, sadistic thing, and I wasn’t sure why.
You would never catch me acting like that around someone.
Anyway, if the rumours were correct, Aleksi had been accepted to Alstone College on the south coast, so we wouldn’t have to see him again once the school year ended.
The only reason he was even here tonight was because Thorpe Senior subscribed to the whole “keep your enemies close” ethos when it came to the Sullivan family.
“Ghost? No girls?” I asked.
“They’re probably hoping you’ll chase them,” Jay mused.
Ryker shook his head. “Nah. I’ll go outside to keep up appearances, but I can’t be bothered chasing some girl through the woods. I don’t chase. I let them come to me.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that he was fully prepared to chase Aleksi through the woods.
He wouldn’t have listened. Instead, I picked up my own mask from my desk, flicking the switch to make sure the LED lights worked.
The mask lit up with a red glow, and I grinned before switching it off again.
“Jay? You gonna join the chase? Seeing as how King took the time to rig the system so we all got picked as hunters instead of prey.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyone you’ve got your eye on?”
His gaze slid to Ryker, and his mouth thinned for just a second. A weird expression flickered across his face, gone before I could work out what it was, and then his lips curved into an easy grin. “No one in particular. Whoever looks like they want to be chased.”
I leaned back against the wall, my mask dangling from my fingers. “Wow. You two have such high standards.”
Ryker padded across his plush carpet and swiped his texture powder from his table.
He studied himself in the mirror as he worked the powder through his dark hair, tousling it.
When he was satisfied, his eyes met mine in the mirror.
“You’re telling me if Bellingham was here, you wouldn’t be hunting him down to give him a little scare? ”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “Not that it would be much of a chase. He’s not as fast as me.”
“Unlike Ghost. Fucking hate that little shit. Always disappearing like a—a—”
“Ghost?” I said drily, and Ryker threw up his middle finger.
“Fuck off. Yeah. But I’m gonna get him tonight. I’ve got a few tricks.”
“I don’t even wanna know.” Shaking my head, I turned away to find Jay with his head cocked, studying me intently. The corners of his mouth were tilted up, and I was instantly on edge. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He raised one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Ry speaking of Bellingham reminded me that I heard some news earlier you might be interested in. One of my sister’s clients is a good friend of the Bellinghams, and she found out that Lincoln’s joining the Whelford Uni ice hockey team.”
My jaw dropped. “What the fuck? My Lincoln Bellingham? My family’s biggest rival Bellingham?”
“Your Lincoln Bellingham, is it?” Jay and Ryker smirked at each other, and I threw both middle fingers up at them.
“Mine to fucking ruin. He’d better watch himself on the ice.” Shoving my mask over my head, I flicked the switch to turn it back on. “Come on. Let’s go and get this chase over with, then we can get on with the fun bit.”
Ryker nodded, reaching for the door. “Let’s fucking do this.”
Only the family of Graham Thorpe, aka Guillotine Graham, would have an eighteenth-birthday tradition of chasing each other through creepy woods.
It was a simple idea. You were randomly assigned a role, hunter or prey.
The “hunters” wore black masks with red LED slashes over the eyes and mouth, and the “prey” wore masks with blue LEDs.
Apparently, back in ye olden days, they wore coloured sashes to differentiate themselves, but that was before fun things like electricity were invented.
I watched Ryker launch himself into the woods behind Thorpe Manor, hot on Aleksi’s tail.
As he disappeared between the trees, something metallic glinted in his hand.
Interesting. I estimated there was probably a fifty-fifty chance of Ryker catching Aleksi, and going by whatever he’d taken into the woods with him, Aleksi was gonna end up properly injured if he managed to get himself caught.
Don’t get me wrong. Although it wouldn’t be my first choice of activity, there was something appealing about the idea.
It was all in good fun, anyway, despite the fact that well over half of us had criminal backgrounds.
We had standards to uphold. A code of honour we all followed.
Well…maybe not Ryker with Aleksi. But other than that, it was all good.
Screams and shouts surrounded me as the rest of the hunters took off for the woods, but instead of joining them, I came to a stop at the edge of the courtyard and let my head fall back against the cool stone wall of the manor.
The echo of feet slamming against the ground grew fainter as my eyes closed.
I’d follow them in a second. I just needed a moment to get my head in the game.
When my eyes flickered open again, the first thing I spotted was Jay, masked and hooded. Steeling myself, I followed his line of sight to…oh, shit. No. It wasn’t, was it?
Except I knew that it was. Jay was going after Nova, Ryker’s twin sister.
The Thorpe Syndicate ice princess herself.
What was she doing out here? She wasn’t even allowed to partake in the chase, as far as I was aware.
It was supposedly “unladylike” or some shit.
Double standards, in my opinion, since her parents had no problem with any other women taking part.
Her rumoured soon-to-be fiancé was nowhere around, thank fuck. Not that he was actually interested in her as far as I knew, what with it being a whole Bratva arranged thing, but there were certain lines you shouldn’t cross, and Jay should know better.
I averted my gaze so I could claim ignorance.
Jay’s dad, Bryan, was the unofficial underworld doctor as well as a well-respected local cosmetic surgeon, but he’d ensured that none of the rest of the Attwoods was involved in our shady dealings.
Maybe Jay didn’t think the rules applied to him because his family was adjacent to our criminal world, rather than immersed in the middle of it like I was.
Whatever the reason, it was a nightmare happening right in front of me, and all I knew was that I was staying well away from that shit.
Who should I chase? Whoever was running in the opposite direction to Jay would probably be a good start.
“Fancy seeing you here.”
My heart stopped for a millisecond before I spun around at the sound of the most aggravating voice in the entire world. I hadn’t heard it in a long time, but it haunted my dreams.
No, not my dreams. My nightmares.
LINCOLN
The huge Cotswold stone manor house stood dark and foreboding in front of me, and I adjusted my tie, swallowing at the restrictive pressure as I accidentally tightened it too much. It was necessary to blend in…for now…and I just had to hope that no one discovered the true reason I was here.
“Name,” a bored security guard with a clipboard said when I reached the entrance.
“Lincoln Bellingham, on behalf of Harold Bellingham.”
My father’s name was enough to gain entrance to the exclusive eighteenth-birthday celebrations of the Thorpe twins, Nova and Ryker.
Despite it being common knowledge that the Thorpe family were criminals, heading up the notorious Thorpe Syndicate, the leader, Graham Thorpe, preferred to keep the influential members of our community sweet.
That included my parents and, consequently, me.
In fact, we’d been officially invited, so my presence here was completely legitimate.
“ID.”
I passed my driving licence to the guy, who gave it a cursory glance before handing it back to me. No doubt he recognised me from sight alone. Guests were heavily vetted, and I was sure the security team would have been thoroughly briefed beforehand.
He waved me inside, but I waited until he was busy with the next set of guests before ducking around the side of the house, heading for the back terrace. My plan was to scope out the area and find my target with the least possible amount of interaction.
I couldn’t believe I’d entered enemy territory on my own for the very first time, without any backup. Let alone the fact that I had to pass a note to Daniel fucking Hoyton, as if I were some kind of courier.
Being a courier wasn’t really the issue, though. The issue was the recipient.