The Dark Ones Read Free Page B

really do it. And he was close to that point. Those fuckers simply could not talk about her that way. She was better than any of them.
    Kill you , he thought.
    Watch you bleed. Watch your fucking life spill out on the ground .
    They hadn’t known he was there. No way they’d have been running their mouths like that otherwise. He had come up behind them during a break between periods. It was three of those fucking rednecks. Locals . Just thinking the word made his lips twist in disgust. He had lived in Ransom more than a year and a half at this point, but he would never think of himself as local . This town wasn’t his real home. That was Atlanta. Always would be. One day he’d go back there. Or maybe not. Maybe he’d head up to Manhattan instead. Or L.A. Or Chicago. Anywhere big and bustling and full of life and possibilities. Anywhere but here. Here felt like death.
    The fucking locals would always be here.
    Good , he thought.
    Let them rot in this nowhere place .
    They had been clustered around a set of open lockers in the hallway. Mark’s own locker was nearby on the same side of the corridor. The ten minutes allowed between classes was winding down and the hallways were emptying out fast. Yet these three idiots were in no apparent hurry to get to whatever remedial course was next on their schedules. Mark had felt the usual reflexive disgust as he neared them. All were clad in T-shirts advertising wizened classic rock bands and NASCAR drivers and dirty jeans with rips at the knees.
    He was maybe twenty feet from them when he heard her name. He tensed immediately, his hand freezing on his locker’s combination knob. They still hadn’t noticed him. He knew this because he heard her name again. And he heard their barks of derisive laughter. If they’d seen him, they wouldn’t have been laughing.
    They knew better.
    “Yeah, she’s a slut,” one boy said.
    There was more of that stupid laughter and then one of them said, “Sluts are cool, though. I’d fuck her.”
    Mark’s hand came away from the combination knob.
    More laughter.
    He stood up straight and turned toward them. His blood was boiling.
    One of the boys made a sound of disgust. “You’d fuck one of them city bitches? Your dick’d fall off, boy. All them cunts got every STD in the book.”
    Mark’s hands curled into fists.
    Kill you , he thought.
    Fucking kill you .
    He started toward them. He cleared his throat. Their laughter cut off immediately. They turned to look at him, the mirth draining from their stupid faces lightning quick. It was him against three of them. But there was never any doubt how it would go down. One mumbled an apology of sorts and took off down the hallway at once, seeking the safety of a classroom. The other two paused just long enough to slam their lockers shut and then they were running like little bitches, too. Mark derived a small degree of satisfaction from the level of terror he’d elicited from the boys without even voicing a threat. Without uttering a single word .
    And yet it wasn’t enough.
    He’d stewed over it all day.
    They couldn’t talk about her that way.
    Even now, many hours later, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
    Until a tapping came at his window.

T HREE

    Three soft taps, with a brief, deliberate pause between each. Tap. Tap. Tap . Very light, almost inaudible. There was a reason Mark silenced the TV every evening as midnight neared, and it had nothing to do with appeasing his parents. Their bedroom was at the opposite end of the big house, far enough away that noise was not a concern. The alarm system, however, was another matter, and was the reason for the tapper’s light touch.
    Mark swung his legs over the side of the twin-size bed, got to his feet, and crossed the room in three quick strides. At the window, he slid two fingers between blind slats and peered through the narrow gap. It was her. She saw him peeking at her and smiled. He flexed his fingers, widening the gap between the