Page 6 of Fu*kboys in Flannel
I’m not sure which one of them is holding me under the warm water, but my lungs are burning by the time he pulls me up for air.
“You’re a fucking psycho.” I spit the accusation and swing blindly at his chest. I’m only met with laughter from both of them because, of course, they’re proud to be unhinged.
I watched them kill someone. I know what they’re capable of, and yet still, I’m not afraid of them. I don’t want them any less. If anything, I just want them even more. I’ve tried to conceal my feelings, to do what is best for them, but I just can’t hide it anymore.
The thought instantly reminds me of last summer when a guy from my school wouldn’t stop pestering me at a party hosted at the Slade’s. His name was Daniel, and his sister had been invited to the party by Tanner. He was always trying to get new girls to show up at parties, because it didn’t take long for the Ravens to run through the female population of Hollow Hill. Daniel crashed the party under the guise of watching out for his sister. I thought I had it handled when I told him to get the fuck away from me. But he wouldn’t take the hint. He kept trying to pull me on his lap and the only way I got away from him was to agree to meet him upstairs, where we could be alone. Instead, I went out the back door to walk around the pool and try to catch my breath. I’d just finished my drink when he approached me again.
“Daniel, please stop,” I pleaded when he forced me to kiss him. I tried to fight him when he groped my breasts. I screamed and clawed at his face, but it felt like he had eight arms, and my body was made of gelatin. He laughed in my face and covered my mouth with one of his pale hands. I hadn’t had that much to drink, but everything started going hazy. I remember the sound of my shirt tearing just as he was ripped away from me. I never saw Bennett approach us, but I remember the feeling of him holding me and the sound of Mason’s fists beating Daniel nearly to death.
He was still breathing when Grey found us, and Bennett passed me to him. I remember feeling sick being out of Bennett's arms. I whipped my neck around when Grey tried to check on me. I didn’t want to look at him, I wanted to watch Bennett and Mason. They’d saved me, Daniel couldn’t hurt me anymore. They could have stopped then and called the police if they wanted to. He’d attacked me, and there was more than enough evidence of that. But that's not what Ravens do.
Mason had beaten him to the point he was just a bloody mass on the cement, and I knew as I watched Bennett shove his brother off of Daniel and kneel down beside him that they wouldn’t stop until he was dead. Mason's face twisted in a feral grimace when his eyes met mine. His gaze flickered to my chest and back to my face before he stomped off toward the woods. Even in my hazy state, I could see how angry he was still, even after everything he’d just done.
“Finish it. We gotta get this shit cleaned up,” Grey said, but Bennett never flinched or took his eyes off of Daniel. Grey turned his attention to me then, his eyes hard and annoyed. “Why the fuck were you out here?” Nobody told him why Mason was beating Daniel, or what my involvement was. Looking back, it’s obvious that Grey and the Slade brothers talked more about me than I ever knew. He was the one that didn’t want them involved with me. He knew I’d never be able to pick between them, not even if my life depended on it.
“Do you need some help?” Bennett sneered at Daniel, whose arm and hand twitched, trying to grab at anyone who would help him. He couldn’t speak, and the gasps and garbled sounds of pleas for mercy trapped in his throat made me want to throw up. He would have raped me if they didn’t show up. He wouldn’t have shown me any of the mercy he was begging for now, but the sight of him, battered and beaten, was absolutely sickening.
Bennett could have killed him quickly, but instead, he flicked open his pocketknife and moved it back and forth in the air, waiting to see if Daniel’s eyes would follow it. He wanted him to know what was coming, that it would hurt, and that it was his own fault that he was in this situation.
“We told you she’s off limits. We told you not to touch what’s ours,” Bennett finally said through gritted teeth. It was then that I realized that Mason and Bennett had been watching me the whole night. They’d seen him chasing after me, and even warned him to leave me alone. Why didn’t they stop him? Kick him out of the party before he found me. If they’d been a few minutes later, it would have already been done. I wouldn’t have been able to hold him off much longer.
“Do it!” Grey ordered again.
“Don’t fuck with the Ravens.” The words sounded like a curse, leaving Bennett’s lips before he slit Daniel’s throat and watched the blood spurt out of his neck. Daniel’s eyes went dead, and I finally let out the breath I’d been holding. When Bennett stood up, wiping his bloody hands on the unbuttoned flannel shirt he wore, his eyes raked over me for only a moment before he turned toward the woods encompassing the property. My eyes felt so heavy, like I was fighting for my life to keep them open.
“I’ll find Mason, take her inside,” he said to Grey, who was still holding me in an iron grip, like I was a sack of potatoes that somehow pissed him off. Bennett took off his flannel and tossed it to Grey, nodding toward me. “Cover her up.” It was only then that I realized how badly my shirt was ripped, and how heavy my arms had become.
I didn’t go to the hospital the next day because Bennett assured me they stopped him before I passed out, and I didn’t need to be tested to know Daniel had slipped something into my drink.
The next night, I watched the five boys roll Daniel up in a rug that Grey said was worth more than Daniel’s life. Grey, Tanner, and Remington rode in the bed of the truck with the body. With Bennett behind the wheel, I was sandwiched between him and his brother all the way up to Violent Peak, where we would eventually burn the body. I wasn’t in shock; this wasn’t the first time I’d heard of the Ravens killing someone for touching what was theirs. I just didn’t realize that Mason and Bennett felt like I belonged to them. Grey could say it was because of their loyalty to him and the Ravens, but I saw the unbridled anger twisting Mason’s face while he beat Daniel. I heard the hatred dripping like poison from the words Bennett taunted him with. I remember Mason’s bloodstained hands, and how I couldn’t stop looking at them.
It was Bennett who laid his palm on my thigh roughly, in what I assumed was his attempt at comforting me. Mason grabbed me by the face and stared into my soul when he said, “I’ll kill anyfuckingbody who touches you.” He only released his hold on my chin when Bennett spoke, teeth gritted in anger and his fingers digging into my thigh. “No one will ever touch you again, Tessa.” My eyes met his and my stomach flipped in the same exact way it did when Mason’s bloodstained fingers squeezed my jaw.
Later, I watched as Mason and Bennett dug the hole that would be Daniel’s final resting place. Tanner and Remington threw him off the truck and the rug rolled back from his face as dust puffed up around us from his weight slamming into the ground. Mason had beaten his face so severely that he wasn’t recognizable. And Bennett had managed to nearly decapitate him with nothing but sheer rage and a pocketknife.
It wasn’t either of the Slade brothers who told me I’d have to choose between them. It was Grey who grabbed me by the arm and jerked me over to the driver’s side of the truck. “You need to stay away from both of them.”
“I didn’t ask them to–” I started, but he waved me off in a huff, taking his hat off and rubbing a hand through his messy hair.
“I don’t care what the fuck happened or why they think the sun fucking rises and sets in your vagina. It’ll fuck things up for all of us. They’ll end up killing each other. Back the fuck off,” he growled before he started off toward the newly dug pit.
It was then that I knew that trying to choose between them would be futile. I kept my distance after that, as best as I could. And they respected that, sort of. They never brought up that night, and I suspected that was Grey’s doing. They liked to hover around me, though, tease me, test me, a little unspoken game between the three of us until the night I kissed them both.
I’m jerked back to the present when Bennett releases me. I brush my hair out of my eyes as I tread water. Mason’s evil smirk greets me, and his eyes darken as he shoves me backward into Bennett’s hard body.
“Why was our little slut hiding from us?” Bennett fists my wet locks and pulls my head back to expose my neck.
“I wonder,” I sneer. “Let me go. I want to go home. I don’t want to play your stupid little game.” I tip my chin even further, but my eyes flutter shut when I feel his lips on my neck. “I came here tonight to tell you that,” I lie.
“You seemed to be enjoying our game last weekend.” Mason’s voice causes my eyes to open. It’s less angry than before, and I can hear the desire he has for me. My pussy tightens as I watch his eyes catch on my chest, taking in my hardened nipples protruding through my wet dress.
I need to get out of here before they eat me alive. I’m not going to recover if I walk away from both of them, but at least I won’t know what I’m missing if I cut my losses now.
Bennett backs up, so he’s flush against the pool wall and I feel his hardness pressing into my ass. I realize that he must have taken his clothes off before he followed me into the water, because he’s clad in only boxer briefs. I should scream, whatever I need to do to get out of here before it’s too late, but instead I grind back against him, and my eyes never leave Mason’s. There’s anger in their depths, betrayal as Bennett’s hands slide up my torso and cup my breasts.
“You have to choose,” Bennett says against my ear and his words feel like a punch in the gut. “We don’t share our toys.”
“I never asked to be one of your toys,” I bite out with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t hold a gun to either of your heads that night. You kissed me back willingly. But I guess consent isn’t something either one of you are familiar with.” I try to jerk out of Bennett’s hold, but he’s too strong.