Page 27 of Ghost Ribbon

Wrong answer.

I wrapped my hand fully around his slender throat and yanked him forward, pulling him flush against my chest and lifting until he was forced onto his tiptoes. His notebook fell to the floor. My grip was firm but controlled. I didn’t want to actually hurt him. His feet barely touched the ground.

His hands flew up to clutch at my wrist.

“I will ask again,” I murmured, leaning down until my face was inches from his. My breath ghosted across his trembling lips. “Who did this to you?”

He gasped, eyes glassy. “Brad…”

Brad. New.

He must have been fucking new because everyone in this goddamn school knew that Marco was off-limits. I had made sure of that since the first week he joined, when I saw some idiots planning to pick on him. Anytime some bitch even tried to get close to him, they would end up as one of Ilya’s experiment subjects. And that wasn’t only reserved for the bullies. I also saw some who gave him heart eyes and tried to flirt with him; they ended up disappearing the next day. I wonder whose fault that is? Oh, it’s mine.

My grip tightened just enough to make him gasp again, then eased so he could breathe. My thumb stroked the bruised skin in circles.

“Did he fuck you?”

Marco shook his head frantically, cheeks burning with shame. “No! It wasn’t like that… I… he… just picked on me…”

Hm. Brad was going to regret not being aborted by his mother.

I yanked him higher onto his toes, his small body fully pressed against mine now, my hand still collaring his throat. His pulse raced against my palm like a trapped bird.

“We will have to fix this,” I said.

His eyes widened, confusion and terror mixing in that delicious way only he could manage. Before he could pull away I slid my other hand up to cup the back of his neck, fingers threading into his dark curls.

I tilted his head to the side and up, exposing the entire bruised column of his throat to me. The skin was pale except for those ugly fingerprints. I lowered my head slowly, letting him feel my breath first.

“Wh… what are you doing?” he whispered. His hands tightened weakly on my wrist.

I pressed my mouth to the bruises. My lips parted and I licked a slow stripe over one of the marks, tasting his skin and the heat of the injury. Marco whimpered, body jerking.

I bit down, not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to leave my own mark, and sucked, pulling blood to the surface, overlaying Brad’s pathetic claim with something redder, permanent. I wanted him to feel this for days. I wanted him to look in the mirror and see only me.

I sucked another spot lower, tongue soothing the sting before I bit again, marking him in a trail that would bloom purple and red for weeks. My hand on his throat tightened and relaxed in rhythm with his frantic breathing, controlling the air he took, reminding him who decided when he breathed.

He whimpered again, softer, more helpless, fingers still gripping my wrist but no longer trying to push me away with any real strength. His body sagged slightly against mine.

I pulled back just enough to admire my work. A fresh trail of red-purple bruises now layered over the old ones, my mouth’s claim erasing Brad’s.

“Much better.”

I released his throat and the back of his neck at the same time. Marco stumbled back against the desk, breathing hard, one hand flying up to touch the marked skin. His eyes were glassy, lips parted, cheeks flushed. He looked ruined already. Perfect.

Then he bolted.

***

Originally, I had planned to kill Brad myself. I wanted to watch the life drain from his eyes while he understood the mistake he had made. But when I looked into it, Dimitri had already gotten to him. My cousin had broken the football player’s legs and arms in a public display of violence, no doubt because of that silver-haired boy Rei.

It didn’t satisfy me. I needed to hurt him more, but killing him outright would have been too quick and I had neither the time nor the patience to play long psychological games with some brainless jock. Torture would work perfectly.

So I slipped into the hospital. Brad lay in the bed, both legs and one arm in casts. I silenced him, dragged his broken body out of the bed, and threw him into the trunk of my car like discarded meat.

I drove straight to the abandoned warehouse on the outskirts where Ilya liked to play.

Throwing him at Ilya’s feet, I watched as he looked up from his workbench of tools and chemicals. He poked the groaning body with the toe of his boot.