Page 66 of Twisted Little Game

I walk Tate to his classes in the morning, and I go to mine. I join him on his runs around campus and his lunch at the dining hall. And he comes back to Onyx House with me late in the afternoon.

He sleeps on my bed… and I sleep on the floor.

The most surprising thing is that his good behavior continues, so much that I almost feel like I’m suddenly protecting a different person.

He’s not talking my head off anymore.

Tate’s too quiet now.

Even shy, sometimes.

Neither of us mention what happened the night in the yard.

But I stare down at my dick, every day in the shower, and I picture what it looked like disappearing past his lips. I grasp hard and stroke myself firmly, thinking of nothing other than his willing mouth. I swear I could have bound each of his limbs, have him choking on my cock, have my goddamn hand over his throat and he would still try to give me attitude somehow… but the minute I give him even a little of what he wants, he worships me like a god.

It’s maddening.

And when I was that close to his lips, I lost control.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as I tug on my cock, coming hard yet again under the hot spray of the shower a full week later.

I’ve thought about it every day.

It feels like a sickness, like I’ve come down with something that has no possible cure.

The moment I come, I’m thinking about the mysterious symbol again.

I’ve gone over it with Maks this week, and done as much research as I can, but as far as I can tell the thing was gibberish. An empty threat, just like Tate thinks it is.

When I get back to my room, I’m alone in the space, which feels like a novelty these days.

I reach for the drawer at the bottom of my desk after throwing on clothes.

A drawer I haven’t been going for as much, lately.

When I pull out my black leather journal, I almost feel like a bad son, because I haven’t written to her in so long. I sit down at the edge of my mattress and reach to grab a pen from the desk.

I keep this notebook only for one purpose. When I think about my mother, I write to her, in Russian. None of my Onyx Society brothers would be able to read the language. Even if they took the effort to translate it, all they’d find would be simple memories.

Letters to a person who is dead.

I clutch the pen in my hand, and I write without thinking too long about it:

Mom—

Remember Star Cafe? That one day when I was twelve, maybe thirteen? You took me there, when I was feeling down. I’d just started drinking coffee, and I felt very mature to be sipping it, creamy and sugary, from a white paper cup just like yours.

A raincloud opened up past the windows outside and drenched the whole block.

You saw the grim look on my face.

You knew I was still thinking of what happened the night before.

It wasn’t the first time I saw Father kill someone, but it was the first time he didn’t try to hide it at all. He walked past me, back into the house, with blood still on his hands.

But growing up too fast wasn’t all bad, here with you, was it? I was old enough to have coffee, and old enough to know about Dad. And the cousins. All of us, and who we are.

You looked out at the downpour and smiled, turning back to me.