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This time, I lose my breath entirely. I stand between them, completely still, while Ronan kisses the side of my neck like he’s hungry for the taste of my blood underneath. Ansel leans close, brushing our mouths together, and nips at my lower lip teasingly. It’s still hard enough to draw a soft sound from me that’s too close to a whimper for me to ever acknowledge. My hands clench at my side, and for the moment, I feel paralyzed. Ice freezes me from inside my veins, keeping me in place for the two of them to explore however much of my skin as they can.

But when Ronan bites down harder on the side of my neck, a small gasp escapes me. The sound of it seems to shock Ansel, because his gaze finds mine, eyes darkening with something that I can only call hunger. “Sable,” he murmurs, his fingers threading through my hair. “I need–”

He doesn’t finish. Ansel lunges forward and drags my hair back, forcing my neck to arch for him sharply. I gasp, going onto the balls of my feet, as his mouth seals over my neck, on the opposite side of where Ronan is still sucking marks onto my neck.

“Ansel!” I protest when he bites down, my hands going to his jacket. “Ansel fuck! That’s too hard!” But it isn’t. Somehow, he knows it too. The pleasure increases with the sharpness of his teeth, and I can’t help the way I arch up from the pier next to Cletus’s dying body, wondering if I can just lose myself completely in the sensation of their mouths claiming and marking my skin.

“I’ve got it.” Adrien’s voice is low and amused, causing Ansel to immediately stiffen, though Ronan isn’t nearly so polite as to pull away. “For Your Thighs Only. That’s what I’ll call it when I post this online.” For all his threats about recording, when I look to the side and roll my eyes towards Adrien, there’s no phone in sight.

“Please. That’s amateur hour,” I scoff. “For Your Thighs Only? Really? How old are you, even? No one is gonna get the reference. How about…” I reach up, thinking, to comb my fingers through Ronan’s hair while still holding Adrien’s gaze.

Just to prove that I’m not embarrassed at being caught, though my insides don’t quite agree.

“You’ve got…Male.” I grin as I say it, quite proud of the pun.

Only for all three men to look at me like I’m the dumbest person alive. My smile fades, replaced by a quizzical, nonplussed grimace. “Do you not get it? You know, Male, like–”

“Jesus fuck, we saved someone with bad porn puns,” Adrien mumbles. “Why did neither of you tell me?” He tilts his mask towards Ronan, then Ansel.

“Honestly, I had no idea,” Ansel sighs gravely, like I’ve just exposed a tuberculosis diagnosis that’s ruining their dreams of the future. “She wasn’t like this when we were teenagers.” Ansel gazes at me mournfully, and I give him a disparaging look, nose scrunched.

“Oh fuck off, Ans. You so would’ve laughed at that when you were sixteen,” I scoff.

“Uh, yeah. When he was sixteen,” Ronan agrees with a snort. “That was over ten years ago. We sort of grew up since then.” When I fix him with a look, he holds his hands up in surrender. “Would it make you feel better if I say I almost laughed at your title?”

“No. You ruined it,” I snap, voice flat. I’m not really mad, though I am a bit offended at their lack of appreciation for my genius. “Just for that, my next suggestion is Inspect Her Gadget.” When I wiggle my brows at him, Ronan looks absolutely horrified.

“Jesus fuck,” he murmurs. “You’re not well. Who made you this way, Sable?” But I can see the dance of mischievous humor in his eyes, and when I shove him backward with a hand on his shoulder, he can’t help but let out a laugh as he lets himself be pushed.

“Inspect Her Gadget is going to haunt my nightmares,” Ansel groans, but he’s already looking at Adrien quizzically, his mask in his hand. “You find her friend?”

By the way that Adrien doesn’t answer right away, I assume the answer isn’t great. Still, the worst thing he can say is no, and if I’m honest with myself, I’m bracing for it. More than likely, Lily is long dead. A victim of this shitty game that I was never meant to save.

“She’s still alive,” Adrien says carefully. “Not doing so great, though. I guess since the bride is dead, she’s fair game for hunters and they uh, are pretty thrilled about being able to take their time with her.”

I shudder at the memories of the roller rink that dance around in my skull. Honestly, it was always one of my least favorite places to be, and after it was bought by the owners of Wonderlight, it became our responsibility to run as well. I remember very well the children on skates crashing into everything–from the rink walls to railings, to booths, to the food and skate rental counters. There had been no torture like working there, and I’d done everything in my power to avoid it whenever I could.

Somehow it feels ironic that I can’t get out of going there tonight.

“Fuck the roller rink,” Ansel grumbles, finally stepping back to run his fingers through his hair. He places his mask back on his face and from the corner of my eye, I can see Ronan do the same. “You remember that kid? The spewer?”

“Which spewer?” Ronan quips in reply. It takes a few moments for them to adjust their gear and check their weapons, and I wait while they do, watching them move like a well-oiled machine and trying to pretend I don’t notice Adrien’s attention on me.

Even behind the mask, I can still tell that he’s looking at me and not the body at my feet. Though when I look down to study Cletus, I find that he barely looks human anymore. He and his friend have their faces bashed in, skulls dented, and the mass of blood and gore seeping from what’s left of their faces has me kneeling down beside Jonah in curiosity.

Interesting, I think to myself, pulling out the knife Adrien had given me. I don’t use it to stab him again. That would be pointless. But I do use it to turn his head slightly, giving me a better look of the ruins of his face.

Teeth litter the pier below him, somehow all three of them in perfect condition despite the force and brutality of how they were ejected from Jonah’s mouth. His jaw gapes open, and one of his eyes is a splattered, dark mess on his pale skin while the other stays fixed, wide, and terrified.

Even though I’ve found his eye, he still doesn’t look human to me. He’s just a bunch of meat, his face reminding me of ground beef at the store. A dark, unpleasant part of me wonders if his face would ooze between my fingers like raw meat if I were to squeeze it, and my hands itch to try.

Still, that might be too far, I reason as I push myself to my feet. Adrien is somehow closer than he was, and I turn to look at him balefully, a sigh on my lips as I ask, “What?”

“Just watching you.” The mask tilts. “You feel bad? Does it bother you? What we did?”

“No.” the word is out before he’s even done talking, and Ronan’s soft huff of laughter breaks the tenseness of the moment.

“Sable? Feel bad over a man being killed? Please,” he chuckles. “Nah, you have the wrong girl.”