Page 1 of Wicked Spite
Prologue
REAGAN
The alley is dark as shit, only broken by the occasional flickering streetlamp that looks like it’s on its last legs. Just my kind of place—grungy, hidden from prying eyes. Perfect for getting into trouble, which I seem to have a knack for. My combat boots thud against the cracked pavement as I stride quickly, head down, minding my own damn business. Stupid? Maybe. Necessary? Definitely.
I can’t shake the feeling that something’s off tonight. The alley is too quiet—no drunk laughter or the usual shuffling of feet.
“Keep it together, Reagan,” I mutter under my breath, my fingers brushing against the switchblade in my pocket—a habit, a comfort. It’s just another shortcut home, one I’ve taken a hundred times. But the air smells like trouble, and I swear the darkness is thicker than usual, sticking to my skin. Like honey when I used to make my younger sister Reese tea to cheer her up.
I round the corner, and my heart skips a beat. I freeze as three tall figures loom ahead, tall and dressed head-to-toe inblack like some wannabe ninjas straight from the TV. Shit. Why the fuck am I always finding myself in these goddamn situations?
Leaning against the brick wall of the alley entrance my heart thumps in my chest as I watch them dismount from their street bikes, kicking down their stands and throwing one leg over, moving in perfect unison like a well-oiled machine. Are they triplets? No one could be that perfectly in-sync with someone. The loud clang of their helmets hitting their gas tanks sounds in my ears. In the dark, I strain to make out their features, but it’s useless. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I could give two shits what they look like and when I think back on this moment, I prefer the anonymity of their helmets.
Something about their presence sends a chill down my spine, and not in a good way. They radiate violence, barely contained and bubbling at the surface ready to spill over. Something I’m so goddamn intimately familiar with. My instincts start screaming louder at me—run, hide—but I’m frozen, caught in their invisible grip.
My heart starts pounding double-time as I size them up, trying to gauge how much trouble I’m in. They haven’t seen me yet, too busy glowering at each other like they’re in some kind of pissing contest. Typical men.
Their presence is suffocating, and for a moment, I’m back there—sixteen again, sold by the man who should have been my protector. My body remembers: the fear, the powerlessness. But I’m not that girl anymore. I’m steel wrapped in skin, and nothing can break me. I’m already broken, and all my little jagged pieces were dipped into the fire and cauterized. I’m just a sack of flesh going through the motions.
I debate turning around and getting the hell out of dodge, but something keeps me rooted to the spot. A morbidcuriosity has me following them as they slink through the alley away from their bikes. The smartest thing to do would be to leave and act like I haven’t seen shit, but sometimes I’m just a dumb bitch.
Just where the fuck are they going and what are they going to do when they get there?
They turn out of this alley and into another grimy one before slipping into a house door. I pause, waiting a couple of beats before creeping toward the small window about four feet to the right of the door they just entered and look inside. A plain kitchen with faded and cracked linoleum greets my eyes until I look further out of the open floor plan and into the living room.
Finally, I can get a good look at each of them, but it’s the way the one slips something to a couple of guys and ushers them downstairs that makes him the most intriguing. The other two are in front of the blond sitting on the couch. Does he owe them money? Did he offend them? I have so many questions. I wish I could hear what they are saying. My fingers poke at the window to see if it opens at all, but of course I’m not that lucky.
Black t-shirts, dark jeans, and black motorcycle boots encasing each of the guys. The only difference is their height, build, and their masks. The two have plain non-descript ones, but it’s the third that intrigues me the most. He’s got a Ghostface mask on. My center clenches because who the fuck hasn’t thought about fucking a guy while he wears a hot, creepy mask like that.
I can’t tear my eyes away from him—the one with the screaming mask sitting like a crown atop his head. His face is like stone, but his eyes are dark, unreadable, but they pull at me, drawing me into something I know I should avoid.
I may not be able to hear their words, but the thuds and grunts of flesh against flesh are visceral sounds that echo off the grimy brick walls. There’s a brutality to the way number one is beating blondie. My heart hammers against my ribcage, like a morbid drum line desperate to join the music. The excitement in my veins is like a shot of adrenaline straight to my pussy. It’s wrong, so fucking wrong to feel this way, but it’s there, nonetheless. A thrill at the sight of violence, blood and splitting flesh invades my system.
I’m frozen, caught between the impulse to flee and the perverse desire to witness more. I know I should leave. I’ve seen enough and being a nosey bitch will only lead to trouble. The problem is that this right here is the stuff my fantasies are made of. It’s what will help me come later tonight when I play it back in my head.
I can almost feel the next impact, imagine the burst of pain that must be exploding behind the guy’s eyes. My body tenses, but then I watch as the guy is dropped to the ground. The leanest one that just beat the ever-loving shit out of this guy pulls his phone out of his pocket and I can watch his mouth open as he answers it.
A different type of tension lines his body as he starts yelling into the phone, pacing as whoever is on the other line doesn’t answer. The line must disconnect because he starts yelling at the other two.
His boot comes down hard, the sole slamming into the guy’s windpipe. There’s this sickening crunch that cuts through the air, and I know that I’m going to be thinking about it for days. The dude on the ground—it’s over for him. He goes limp like a rag doll.
“Fuck me,” I breathe out, the words barely slipping past my lips as I clench my thighs together. My heart’s doingdouble time, pounding against my ribcage like it wants out. Adrenalines got a chokehold on me, and I’m not sure if I want to break free.
For a second, just one messed-up, twisted second—I picture myself in there, throwing punches, jumping onto Mr. Tall, Dark and Twisted. It’s a heady thought; control, dominance, something I crave but never admit out loud. I can almost feel the weight of someone under my own boots, every stomp an assertion of my own strength. Heat coils low in my belly at the fantasy, dark and vicious and mine.
Damn it, Rae, what the hell are you thinking? But the question’s rhetorical because deep down, I know exactly what I’m thinking. It’s like staring into an abyss and finding it staring back, recognizing a part of yourself that’s just as feral, just as hungry.
I shuffle, trying to alleviate some of the pressure in my core when my boot connects with a heap of trash, and the racket it creates is like a goddamn dinner bell in the silence of the alley. Shit. The sound ricochets off the walls, a roar of my mistake. I freeze, heart sinking, as the guys halt their talking and three heads swivel toward me.
“Fuck,” I whisper out loud. Like I said, I’m a dumb bitch. I should have never come down here. Like Alice in Wonderland following the damn white rabbit.
Time’s a bitch, stretching out like some sick joke, each tick echoing louder than the last. My eyes lock onto that screaming ghost bastard who stands there like death’s own warden. His head tilts slightly, as if he’s trying to decipher the puzzle of my existence from where he’s standing. There’s curiosity there, but mostly fucking danger.
I don’t think twice. The instinct to run, to survive, slams into me like a freight train. My boots slap the pavement,pounding out a desperate rhythm as I flee from whatever hell I’ve stumbled upon. I can feel my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest, each beat screaming to put more distance between us.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter, cursing the adrenaline that’s both my savior and tormentor. It’s like it’s not enough to witness something so fucked up—I have to get caught, too?
The cold November night air whips past me, cutting through the thin fabric of my band tee and the flannel I wear. But I barely register the chill—it’s nothing compared to the icy dread coiling in my stomach. I refuse to be caught and made a spectacle of. I’d rather kill myself. I navigate the maze of alleys moving closer to campus. I just need to get somewhere that I can disappear into a throng of people.
