Page 30 of The Road to Ruined

Finally, I catch someone's eye. "Um…Jackson?"

The one called Jackson looks back at the other guy, who gestures with his head in my direction. He turns, finally spotting me.

"Hey, there…" Jackson says. "How much of that did you hear?"

I turn the glass shard over in my hand, keeping my eyes on him.

"Holy shit," another one says. "Look at her chest. That's Teagan fucking Townsend. Get the camera!"

"No!" Jackson says. "She heard us; we can't record her. We'll have to take care of her, too."

I laugh. "Take care of me, Jackson," I mock in a high-pitched voice. "No, really. What are you going to do? I'm curious. Tell me all about it."

"Jason, grab her arms," he says.

Men.

It turns out they're almost all like me—none of them ever learned to run in the other direction when they found themselves face-to-face with real monsters, either.

"Jason, don't!" Nate says.

But he puts the phone back in his pocket and comes at me from my left side while Jackson walks toward me head-on, his hands working his belt buckle. I spot Bone Saw in my peripheryjust as he grabs one of the men, jerking him backward, and pulls out a knife.

Huh. Maybe he is real.

And I laugh.

"What's so fucking funny?"

"There's something bigger and scarier behind you," I tell him. "I think you're going to die."

He turns just in time to see a man in a gold mask drag a knife across his friend's throat. At the same time, I turn and drive the shard of glass into Jason's stomach. When I can't push any further, I drag it upward, letting the glass dig through the skin on my palms and fingers just to feel it tear at the flesh a little more.

It's better than I remember. Every cell in my body hums to life. My pussy clenches.

When I pull it out, he drops to the ground, a dark river of crimson running from his abdomen toward my Chucks.

Shit.I quickly jump to the side. I like these shoes.

When I turn back, Bone Saw has Jackson pinned against him, a knife at his throat.

"I guess you are real," I say.

Bone Saw nods slightly, and I watch a dark stain form at the crotch of Jackson's light blue jeans before running down his right leg.

"Ew."

He pissed himself. What a baby.

"I always want to play monsters," Bone Saw says, extending the knife to me. "There was something scary in front of you, too," he tells Jackson. "You were just too stupid to see it."

I slice his shirt open first—not carefully from the inside but from the outside, letting the blade pierce his skin the whole way down. Jackson screams, sobbing once I pull the knife away.

"I didn't like your joke," I say to him.

"I'm s-s-sorry," he sobs. "I'm s-s-so s-s-sorry. P-p-please don't—"

"Don't what? Kill you? Should he rape you first like you were going to do to me?"

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