Chapter Twelve
June
“Bitch, where the fuck have you been?” Rose demands. Her box braids swing forward, brushing my arms when she pulls me in for a hug.
I pray to whoever is listening that the fire in my chest will stay in control for at least the next two hours. “What do you mean?”
“You disappeared!”
“I did not,” I argue, taking the last available seat at our unofficial table. Donovan, our normal Taco Tuesday waiter, brings four margaritas before I’m fully settled.
“You kind of did,” Evelyn says. “Even I texted in the group chat more than you last week.”
I look at Sadie for help. She sips her strawberry margarita, then says, “I’m with them.”
Well, this is happening now, I guess. “Sorry, I… uhm, sort of met someone and did the annoying thing where I got swept up in him for a bit.” Which is true, just not in the way they’re thinking.
Their reactions are immediate and predictable.
“I’m sorry, what ?” Sadie yells so loud that several tables give us dirty looks.
“You’re just now telling us?” Rose says.
“Who is this guy?” Evelyn asks, distrust lacing the question.
“I’m sorry. I almost told you guys on Saturday but decided to wait so I could see your faces.” Lie. I waited because I’m a fucking coward when not carving up sadistic men.
“Then tell us to come over! You know I would’ve,” Sadie says.
My lips roll between my teeth. “Uh, yeah. Well, I’ve been at his house since Friday.” I figured a weekend is more digestible than six days.
“WHAT?!” Sadie and Rose yell. Half the restaurant glares at us, causing my cheeks to blush.
“Time got away from me. I didn’t want to go home,” I lie.
“Again, I ask, who is this guy?”
This is the part I’ve been most nervous about. I can’t lie without risking exposure. There’s no chance the girls won’t look him up. Then they’ll try to have me committed for shacking up with the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club.
“His name is Theo.”
“That’s a hot guy name,” Sadie says, tucking strands of thick black hair behind her ears. She’s recently gotten a haircut, so it’s once again styled like a bob.
“Theo who?” Evelyn demands.
“Don’t freak out, okay? And no more screaming.” I pause, take a breath, then say, “Theo Zervas. He owns a bar in North Tucson.”
“Oooh, we love a business owner,” Rose says.
“Does this mean we get free alcohol?” Sadie asks.
My laugh at the question instantly dies at the look on Evelyn’s face. Her lips are parted, eyes widened, and her eyebrows cinched together. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“What, why?” Rose asks.
I nervously run my finger through the salt on the rim of my glass. “No.”
“What the hell, Graves?” Evelyn slaps her hand on the table. “What are you thinking?”
“What’re we missing?” Sadie asks. “Is there something wrong with owning a bar?”
“The type of bar this guy owns, yes.”
“How do you know what bar he owns?”
“Because I know who Theo Zervas is,” Evelyn says.
“It’s not like that, I swear,” I promise, more truth in that than anything else I’ve said.
Sadie leans forward so she’s nearly in the middle of the table. “Somebody please explain what’s so wrong about June finally getting laid? For four days straight?”
I groan. “Theo is also in a club that some people might consider bad news.”
“He’s the leader of a biker gang full of criminals.”
There’s a beat of silence following Evelyn’s pronouncement. Then Sadie sits back and says, “That’s kind of hot.”
“Sadie! It is not!”
Relief pulls my lips up, and I’m eternally grateful for Sadie Oliver.
“Who doesn’t want a bad boy every once in a while?”
"I don’t,” Rose says.
“How about bad girl?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s hot.”
“Guys!” Evelyn hisses. “June is dating the leader of a GANG, and all you have to say is ‘that’s hot’?”
“Club,” I say. All four of us blink slightly at the correction I hadn’t planned to make.
“What?” Evelyn asks.
“It’s a motorcycle club , not a gang.”
“They’re criminals.”
“It’s still not a gang.”
“Who cares?” Evelyn says.
I open my mouth, then close it again because I don’t care. I shouldn’t care.
“He’s not a drug dealer or trafficker or anything like that,” I say.
I spent months watching Theo, and of that much I’m certain.
He occasionally partakes in recreational drug use, but he doesn’t sell anything beyond alcohol.
Other Saints do, especially Axel and Bella, bartenders at the Iron Cage, but none of the super hard or dangerous drugs.
And I’ve never seen them sell to children.
“Notice how you didn’t deny he’s a criminal,” Evelyn says. “Come on, June. You should know better than most people not to get involved with someone like this.”
“She’s just having a little fun,” Sadie says. “It’s not like she’s going to marry the guy.”
“Definitely not,” I say.
“Then why see him at all?”
Because I don’t want him to turn me into the cops for being a serial killer. “Because it’s fun, like Sadie said.”
Evelyn’s look is full of disbelief, like she’s realizing I’m not the person she thought I was.
I feel tiny under the terror of what she’d do if she knew who I truly am.
I know what people would think. Hell, I’m a therapist. If one of my clients told me they were having fantasies of murdering people, I’d report it and suggest testing them for antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, or another mental illness.
Unfortunately, knowing those things does nothing to fix what’s wrong in me. Because I know people would say there’s something wrong with me, even if I don’t think there is. I think I’m doing the world, and my clients, a favor.
But what I think doesn’t matter. It definitely wouldn’t matter to Evelyn.
She’d be disgusted. She would turn me in. I would lose everything.
“Just be careful,” she says. “You know how slippery slopes like this are.”
“Speaking of slippery, is he a god in bed?” Rose asks.
I choke on my margarita and start coughing. Thankfully, the question is exactly what I need to pull free from the thoughts that threaten to nail me to a wall of anxiety.
“We are not having that conversation,” I say.
“Boo, lame,” Rose says. Then she turns to Sadie. “You always have good sex stories. Who had the honor of getting you off this weekend?”
Sadie’s eyes remain on me, like she’s debating asking more questions. For a second, I think she sees fire leaping in my eyes. Then her expression morphs into a smile, and her attention turns to Rose. “Lionel, and let me tell you, he’s getting much better.”
Relief loosens my muscles, even as they feel like they’re melting from the heat of the flames that were fanned by that conversation, not doused. By the time we leave and I’m climbing in an Uber that I convinced Theo to let me take, one thing has become painfully clear.
I’m not going to make it three more weeks.
I need to kill someone. Soon.
~
Thursday morning, I don’t have to be in the office until eleven.
Unfortunately, instead of using that time to sleep or relax, Theo insisted that we have our first riding lesson.
I argued, even suggesting I help around the club or hang out with Luna, who has quickly become my favorite Saint.
But he refused, so now I’m standing in the middle of a field of dead grass at eight in the morning, wearing riding gear and struggling to listen to Theo drone on about the parts of a bike and each step to learning to ride one.
“Are you listening, little reaper?” he asks, snapping his fingers in front of my face.
I reach out and grab the fingers, bending them back until he winces. “Don’t ever snap your fingers at me if you want to keep them unbroken.”
“How violent.”
“I’m serious.” I wait for him to nod before letting go.
“You need to pay attention. Mistakes can be lethal.”
“Then how about I just don’t learn?”
I expect him to throw our agreement in my face, but instead, he says, “Because you want to learn. I can see it in your eyes every time you get off the bike. You’re chasing the high.”
My lips press into a thin line, which makes his rise into a wide smile.
“Now, what’s this?” he asks, pointing to a little pedal in front of the right foot peg.
“Rear brake.”
“Good!” He moves on, quizzing me for ten minutes before announcing that it’s time I get on the bike and get used to the mechanics.
“No,” I say.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I mean, no, I’m not getting on the bike.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.” Part of me does want to, but the cautious side of my brain screams now is not the time. Not with how unstable the fire in my chest is. And not when it’s solely me and Theo here.
“Why are you being so difficult?”
“Why do you insist on telling me what to do?”
“I’m trying to teach you.”
“And you have. I think that’s enough for now.”
“Come on, little reaper,” he says, patting the seat, his eyes almost pleading.
I shake my head.
The vein in his neck that always seems on the verge of bursting bulges.
His fingers curl into his palm, and he stalks toward me.
I realize what he’s planning to do a second before he leans down to pick me up.
With record speed, I dodge his grab, yank the knife from my boot, and press it under his chin.
He freezes, holding his palms out in surrender.
“Try it. I dare you,” I all but growl. Theo was going to physically force me onto the bike like I’m a doll he gets to manipulate whenever he wants.
His eyes jump around my face, possibly looking for a hint that I won’t slit his throat.
Any other day, I might not, but today, right now?
All I can hear are the crackling, roaring flames, and all I can feel is the scorching heat.
My body begs me to press a little deeper and drag.
My skin aches to feel his warm blood cover my hand.
Seemingly deciding that I am, in fact, serious, Theo slowly steps back.
“I see it again,” he says. I cock my head in question, keeping the knife raised.
“That thing in your eyes, like you need something right now or you might lose all sanity,” he clarifies.
“I get it. I feel the same thing. It’s like a tornado in my brain, and every second I don’t feed it, the winds grow stronger, and more shit is sucked in until I feel like it’ll break every aspect of who I am. ”
I almost drop my hand in shock. That’s exactly what the fire feels like. I’ve never had someone explain it so perfectly. No teacher, therapist, or client.
But I carefully don’t move or speak. I won’t admit to Theo that what he sees is a desperate need to take a life.
“What is it? What does your tornado need?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say, though there’s no power in the word.
“Little reaper.”
“Stop it. Stop calling me that!”
Frustration tugs at the vein in his neck and the muscles in his jaw. A second later, he throws his hands to the side in defeat. “Fine. Don’t tell me. But don’t say I didn’t offer. Let’s go. I’ll take you to the office.”
Reluctantly, I lower my knife. Then I climb on behind Theo and promise myself that I’ll do it this weekend, whatever it takes.
There’s a list of backup victims in the hidden compartment at my office.
None of them are fully researched, but all have been verified as men deserving of death.
It won’t be my cleanest kill, but it’ll be enough.
It’ll have to be.