It’s starting to be a struggle to keep an impassive mask on. But I manage to ask coldly, “Now what?”
“Now, Quill Nelson, I’m going to kill you. So think your last thought, and get ready to die.”
I would never have pictured Cass as the talk-too-much kind of girl. But shooting Al Campbell left me feeling pretty giddy, and I imagine it’s the same for her. Especially since her shot killed Ray.
But it just so happens that I’m not currently on a shooting high. Which puts me at an advantage, as I watch her take a few steps back and aim her gun.
Right before she pulls the trigger, I lunge at her, grab her wrist, and twist it so viciously that I feel the bone snap. Then I grab her other wrist, and do the same thing. She screams out in pain, clutching her useless hands as I wrest the gun away from her.
She squeezes her eyes shut, clearly expecting to receive the bullet she’d planned for me. And the truth is, I’d be capable of shooting her without a moment of hesitation.
But I don’t want to.
First times matter a lot to most people. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t want to get deflowered by just anyone.
And it’s the same thing for me. I don’t want my first conscious kill to be this girl. She may be some weird mix of cruel and deranged, but she’s not the kind of person I want to pop my killing-people cherry for.
Ray would have been the perfect guy, and it pisses me off that she got to him before me. But it’s fine. I’ll just wait for a better opportunity.
And I’m sure that in a shitty place like Astley, better opportunities are not lacking.
“I’m going to let you live,” I tell her, and she looks up at me in surprise. “But you’re going to leave Astley High, and you’re staying far away from Piper from now on. Got it?”
“Got it,” she says weakly, staring down at her broken wrists. But there’s a hard edge to her voice that tells me I haven’t heard the last of her yet.
I shove her gun and mine under my belt, then head toward the door.
“Finn Austen’s probably going to finish you off anyway,” I mutter, before walking away.
Chapter 16
Quill
“Quill!”
Piper runs toward me, and in her haste to help me up over the window, she practically knocks me off the trellis.
I’ve never seen such a clumsy girl. It feels so fucking good to be back here with her. It feels like all is right in the world.
“Get on your hands and knees,” I growl as I step into her bedroom.
Her face had already grown splotchy red when I nearly fell from the trellis, but her nose now turns the color of Rudolph. Still, she hurries to her bed, knocking over a cereal bowl in the process.
I walk slowly toward her, relishing the sight of her curves through her thin pajama shorts. Dragging my eyes to the gap between her stomach and her shirt as the fabric is pulled down by gravity.
Mine. All mine.
I hook my hands into her waistband, pulling down her shorts over her creamy white bottom, then sliding them off her entirely. I nudge her thighs apart, spreading her legs as far as they’ll go.
“I thought you weren’t coming, Quill,” she chirps. “You weren’t answering my texts, and it was gettingsolate…”
Yeah, well, I had to listen to a girl talk for hours, before breaking her wrists to keep her from killing me, and then I had to make a pit stop at my house to leave two guns in my bedroom, so…
“I had stuff to do,” I say, running my hands over her white, freckled globes, then down her thighs as she shivers.
I also took advantage of stopping by my house to grab a few things, and now I shackle two of them around her ankles.
“What are you… oh my gosh!”
