Black Promises (Blackwoods College)

Jarrod rolled past the driveway slowly but didn’t go down it.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“We’ll have to get a look at the house, but it’s secluded. I’m guessing he’s got security and cameras all over.”

“Probably, yeah.” I twisted the hem of my sweater. I hadn’t thought about that.

“The dog’ll be a problem, but I can deal with it. The cameras will be worse.”

“Can we, like, cut the power?”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t matter. They’re probably on batteries too.”

“So what then? We kill him somewhere else?”

“Give me time. I’ll come up with something.”

I crossed my arms and went quiet as he drove us back home.

I’d thought about this a thousand times, and yet now that we were making serious moves toward ending the bastard’s life, I realized how much of my daydreaming was just pure fantasy.

Jarrod was all practicalities.

My plan was to break into Dr. Silver’s house one night, shoot the dog, then shoot him as he came downstairs to find out what was happening.

But there were so many ways that could go wrong, and I had no exit plan, and no way to keep myself out of jail.

Jarrod wanted to do this, but he also wanted to make sure we didn’t get caught.

It was strange. From my perspective, there was no life beyond this killing. In my mind, this would be my last act: I’d get retribution for me and my brother and all of Dr. Silver’s other victims, and then there’d be nothing else.

I couldn’t conceive of an existence without revenge.

Jarrod was thinking long-term.

It should’ve freaked me out how easily he took to this task.

But I didn’t give a damn.

So long as I got what I wanted.

Jarrod could have me afterward. There’d be nothing left, anyway.

He’d get a shell, an empty vessel.

The thought of him pumping his thick cock inside of me sent another jolt of excitement between my legs, and I wondered—

If we made it, what would happen to me?

After fucking Jarrod.

Would I always want more?

8

Cora

Music blared from my little brother’s room. Sam liked to play his emo goth death metal as loud as he could, mostly to drown out my parents fighting and to piss them off as much as possible.

Tonight, it was mostly the latter.

“Sam! Turn it down!” Dad’s voice echoed up the steps. “Don’t make me come up there.”

It was an empty threat and he knew it. Dad never did anything beyond yell. That was the way in my house: plenty of anger, plenty of shouting, but it never escalated.

We were a nice, middle-class, suburban family.

Dad was a lawyer. Not one of those big, rich, fancy corporate lawyers, as he liked to constantly remind me, but he still did pretty well for himself. Mom worked a variety of odd jobs, from paralegal to court stenographer. She was smart, but she didn’t go to college, and I always wondered if that bothered her.

They were ecstatic when I got into Blackwoods. Dad promised I wouldn’t have to worry about money—even though I ended up taking out a few small loans anyway. Living at home helped a lot financially, which was how I could swing it at all, plus the scholarship helped.

Mostly I was lucky. From the outside, my life was idyllic: comfortable, clean, and easy.

But from the outside, anything could seem amazing.

That was one of the first things my generation learned. Instagram taught me that young—anyone could seem happy and wealthy and beautiful if you didn’t look too closely.

That was the Boyle family. We were the American Dream, the nuclear family, the white picket fence.

Of course, everything was rotten. Beneath that nice, happy veneer, my household was a simmering pit of despair and ennui, barely held together with my dad’s salary and my mom’s fervent desire to avoid conflict at all costs.

I slipped out into the hall as my dad shouted up again and knocked on Sam’s door. The music turned down and he answered. “What’s up, big sis?”

“Not much, little bro. Dad’s yelling at you again.”

“Oh, yeah?” He squinted past me. “He come up here yet to punish me?”

“Not yet, but I think he might do it this time.”

He snorted. “I’d love to see the day.”

I would too—at least then my parents would show their true colors instead of hiding behind their false sense of security.

They pretended like everything was okay, but Sam and I, we knew better.

“Can I come in?”

He stepped aside. I walked into his messy boy bedroom. Teenagers were genuinely the worst, and Sam was no exception. Clothes littered the floor and junk food, empty soda cans, and what looked like a used bong cluttered his desk. He had his laptop open to a videogame I didn’t recognize, something with cars in a futuristic-looking massive soccer field, and his phone was mindlessly looping a TikTok video.

He flopped down on his bed and I stood near his dresser. “How’s school going?”