Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

The day I was taken, it was sunny out. It’d been raining all week and I’d been so incredibly excited by the warmth. Richard, my older brother by less than a year, was scrambling eggs in the kitchen while my oldest brother, Christopher, yelled at someone from work on the phone. I was nine. I thought I had the world figured out.

Mom and Dad were gone, but they were always gone so that wasn’t new or surprising. Maybe a small part of me had hoped that they’d be there on my last day—that I’d get to say goodbye, even though they wouldn’t have known that’s what I was doing—but their absence didn’t change my plans.

I wore white sneakers, because they felt like new beginnings.

I wore white sneakers, because Lydia’s favorite color was white. Because she’d told me she was going to be my new mom now, and I needed to start acting like I belonged with her.

Lydia was sugary promises and visions of the future.

Her clothes were never dirty.

She laughed at all my jokes.

Brought me gifts.

Told me I was special. I was perfect. That I should’ve been hers all along.

At the time, I hadn’t seen her for what she was. She had seemed so pure. Kind. No one had ever treated me the way that she did. I thought she saw something in me, something my parents never had. I thought she’d take me away to somewhere brighter and better. Somewhere where the monsters couldn’t find me.

Somewhere I’d be needed and loved.

I was a dumb kid—most kids are.

But I was exceptionally stupid. Because it took losing everything I’d ever known to realize that snow can cover spilled blood. That monsters sometimes wore Gucci slides, smelled like cinnamon-flavored gum, and promised happy endings.

If Lydia was a spider, I was the fly that flew willingly into her web.

I’d paid the price for my stupidity the second I climbed into her car that sunny day and realized the truth. I wasn’t the only person who had been affected by my choices. I was innocent, naive. I hadn’t realized what I’d done, or who had been hurt.

It’d been sixteen years since that sunny day from hell. Sixteen years and nearly every night, I’d lain awake, replaying that memory over and over. Replaying the year that led up to it. The gifts, the cookies, the lies. The doubts she whispered in my ear till my thoughts were hers.

It’d been sixteen years, and despite the fact she was in prison now—I was still trapped in Lydia Evan’s web.

Jesus fucking Christ, could this room get any more crowded? At twenty-five, with eyebags dark enough a customer at work that morning had asked me, “Who won?” I wasn’t sure why I was torturing myself.

Because you’re a glutton for punishment.

I should’ve gone home after open-mic night ended, before the horny crowds rolled in and the bass dropped low. But, like the sad sack I was…I’d stayed.

Stop acting miserable and fucking do something.

That had been my mantra when I’d texted Blair and found out he was heading off on a date with Richard. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t resent him for that. In fact, I was proud of him, honestly. Happy that Blair and my brother had found each other.

Part of me was even relieved.

An ugly, bitter part of me that I tried not to acknowledge.

Because the truth was, now that I’d moved across the country to Elmwood, Maine to be with Blair like we’d planned, there was no buffer to protect me. And without Lydia around to distract him, he kept giving me those sad green eyes and asking me, “How’s therapy going, dude?”

And I’d lie and pretend, like always.

“Soooo great. I’m not a basket case at all. Thanks for asking.”

“I don’t think about the fact I had to use bleach to clean your blood from the kitchen tile only a few months ago or anything.”

“Or the fact that I thought you were dead for a while there. That Lydia had finally snapped and killed you.”

“I’m just fucking dandy, really.”