“We need to talk about Blake,” Saint said, ignoring my offer as he took the chair opposite me.
“Is that so?” I asked, tipping more whiskey down my throat.
“He’s not dealing with his mom’s death,” Saint said.
“It’s up to him if he wants to bury it,” I said with a shrug. “And it looks like he’ll be burying it real good tonight,” I added with a dirty grin.
Saint’s gaze tightened at that suggestion and he blew out an irritated breath.
“A good fuck might distract him tonight, but it isn’t going to make any difference to tomorrow.”
“I guess that depends on how much energy she’s got,” I joked.
“Can you ever just take something seriously?” Saint growled, giving me the alpha vibes. But I didn’t answer to him. I might have fallen in with his shit most of the time, but that was because I gave no fucks about it. Didn’t make him the boss of me.
“What even is serious?” I asked. “I mean, we’re born, we cry, we lie, we fuck, we die. The rest of it’s just speed bumps along the road.”
“That sounded like the world’s shittiest poem spoken by the world’s most boring asshole,” he replied.
I cracked a smile at that. “Fine. What do you want to do about it? Hold a séance? Sing Kumbaya, My Lord every morning while holding hands in a prayer circle? Or do you wanna go really deep and ask him to talk to us about his feelings?”
“Fuck that,” Saint said, waving a hand dismissively. “I’m not looking to waste my time on that shit. Blake can deal with his grief himself. What he needs is an outlet for his rage.”
I sat up at that, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees as I gave this idea my full attention. Crying and grieving and moping weren’t listed in my book of interests, but rage? I was all over that baby with an aching hard on and all the moves to satisfy it.
“So what’s your plan?” I asked, because Saint didn’t make suggestions without thinking them through. He’d been back and forth over this idea with a fine-tooth comb, sounded out each avenue, thought through all the ways it could go wrong.
“I’m still working on it. But Blake’s not wired like you; beating the shit out of some asshole won’t give him what he needs. He’s going to need more than that. Someone he can destroy in every thinkable way, a carcass he can come back to again and again to tear more strips off of them.”
“That’s fucked up, man,” I said, scraping a hand over my jaw as I smiled. “So who are we picking for the sacrifice?”
Saint’s lips twitched. “That’s the bit I’m working on. It needs to be someone who won’t just roll over. Someone who will need to be broken again and again and again.”
“Sounds like a tough position to fill,” I murmured, my mind wandering over the fuckwits who went to school with us. Most of them were pussies who wouldn’t stand up to us once, let alone repeatedly.
“Leave that to me. I’ll find someone. But in the meantime, I need you to help me keep him distracted or he’s gonna explode in an uncontrolled way,” Saint said, catching my eye to drive the point home.
“Doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world to me,” I replied. I’d quite like to see the golden boy go supernova and fuck shit up.
“Yeah, well some of us care about our reputations. It’s fine for people to fear us, but there can’t be evidence of us going batshit. That kind of mark stains. We need to protect him from himself.”
“If you say so.” I shrugged, swigging my whiskey again. I was getting a nice buzz going now.
“I do say so,” Saint snarled, his dark eyes flaring in that dangerous way they often did right before someone ended up in tears.
“Keep your panties on, I said I’m onboard. The dude can bury his problems in Tatum Rivers tonight and tomorrow I’ll be all over him like a Hades Virus rash. He can give me all the gory details about our new girl too so I’ve got something to jerk off over between now and the next time I can head into town,” I joked.
“If you’re so interested in her then why don’t you just go and join them?” Saint asked, rolling his eyes at me. “It’ll probably be the only shot you get anyway. After tonight, I plan on making that girl mine.”
I snorted a laugh, though it wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had, but I wasn’t sure the new girl would be up for a spit roast on her first night here. Probably too worried about her reputation for that. Though the idea of it was weirdly alluring and I had to wonder what it would be like to share a girl with one of my friends.
“I’ll pass, thanks. Her performance is probably better in my imagination than it would be in reality,” I said, not letting my imagination linger there too long.
“I’ll let you know,” Saint said with such cocky confidence that I couldn’t help but hope she’d turn him down. There was a first time for everything, right?
We got to our feet to return to the party and I took another long drink, pulling the bottle away from my lips a moment too soon so that whiskey spilled over my chin and dripped onto my shirt.
Saint’s eyes flashed with rage and I smirked at him. Man, I loved to poke the beast.
He lunged at me and in my slightly drunk state I didn’t manage to bat him off of me before his fist closed on the front of my shirt. His fingers slipped through the hole in it and he yanked his fist back suddenly, a huge rip sounding as he tore the damn thing in half.
“Next time, turn up wearing clothes without fucking holes in them,” he snarled, stepping right into my personal space so that our chests were damn near touching. “You look like a fucking hillbilly Hells Angel!”
A laugh tore from my lips and Saint cracked a moment later, smirking too as he acknowledged my win.
“I knew it would drive you insane,” I taunted.
“Well, joke’s on you – now you really do look like shit.” Saint stepped back, a breath of laughter escaping him as he eyed my ruined shirt.
“Naw,” I disagreed, pushing my bottle of Jack into his hand so that I could take the shirt off. “You just made sure every bitch at this party is going to be panting over me all night.”
I shrugged out of my leather jacket and dropped it onto the nearest chair. Someone would find it later and make sure I got it back.
“I’m not after pussy tonight anyway,” Saint replied with a shrug. “I wanna make sure no one got any ideas about challenging us over the summer.”
I snorted dismissively. The douchebags in this school wouldn’t dare stand up to us, but King Saint liked to lord it over everyone at least five times a term just to make sure.
I balled up the ruined shirt and tossed it over the balcony before reclaiming my drink from him and taking a swig.
“How long before I can bail?” I asked. Some nights I was the life and soul of the party, other nights, the party seemed to be sucking the life and soul out of me. Tonight felt like the latter and I was done.
Saint sighed. “What’s the point in the Night Keepers throwing a party if one of them doesn’t even stick around? Besides, if you think this thing is shit then what hope do we have for making sure the rest of them think it was epic?”