21. A Wild Dog
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Wild Dog
“Stop it! Get off me!”
“You’ve been playing hard to get all goddamn day. And now that I give you the attention you were looking for, it’s a fucking problem?”
Leaning back against a tree, strumming his guitar, Keith hummed a soft melody. “...wild dogs… untameable… unlovable… with fucking mange…” Biting his lip, Keith strummed a different chord until it sounded right.
“Do you hear how you sound right now?! You’re being a creep!”
“And you’re being a fucking bitch!”
Keith paused to puff his joint before he went back to strumming, trying to drown out the ‘teenage lover’s quarrel’ going on before him. “...rotting flesh… falling fur… matches the decay in their heart… wild dogs… what are you good for…” Keith sang to himself.
“Please stop, Eric! You’re hurting me!”
“Stop being a fucking drama queen then!”
Keith abruptly hit the wrong chord and sighed as he laid his guitar back against the tree.
He casually strolled past the circle of theater kids recording the couple fighting.
Past the crowd of cheerleaders whispering.
Past the team of athletes snickering before he grabbed one of their baseball bats lying on the ground.
“Hey!” one of them shouted. But Keith ignored them as he blew more smoke out of his mouth, casually swinging the baseball bat.
“Eric, stop!” the girl whined when she looked past him. Her eyes widened. “Oh god!”
“You’re such a fucking-” Eric started.
“Hey,” Keith calmly tapped him on the shoulder with the bat. The irritated student barely turned around before the baseball bat violently smashed his face.
A loud crack shattered the atmosphere. Blood splattered. Teeth flew. The girl screamed. And Keith swung again with a gruesome blow before Eric’s body collapsed to the ground.
Keith loved the sound of bones shattering—especially skulls. The squelching of flesh was almost… cathartic. “...wild dog… what are you good for…” Keith hummed as he turned and walked away. He dropped the bloody bat next to the athlete as chaotic screaming ensued around him.
Hours later, Keith found himself sitting in the cold cellar of his estate after his mother locked him inside for 3 hours. With a joint hanging from his lips, he used his phone light to see in the dark as his bloodstained fingers scribbled new lyrics onto a crinkled, bloodstained notepad.
“...just another one of God's greatest mistakes… damn your soul to hell to take… wild dog… wild dog… what are you good for…”
He looked up when the door finally opened, and he heard his mother’s angelic voice.
The odd sensation of excitement coursed through his veins.
Looking up the dark, narrow stairs, he saw her talking to Jax, who towered over her.
Jax’s face was as hard as stone. His eyes so empty it was almost as if he were looking through her.
Keith called it Jax’s ‘Black Box’. The place he would go to zone out whenever he was being… ‘disciplined.’
“I’m not sure how you expect me to protect you when failure seems to be your only skill, Jax.
For the love of Roselyn, I can’t praise you for being brilliant when more often than not, you’re so goddamn stupid.
Is this how you show love? By embarrassing me?
I don’t understand why you enjoy embarrassing your mother like this.
Have I not done right by you? Is this punishment for being too soft on you? My dear boy, why are you so spineless…”
She had a way of wrapping her most hurtful insults with flowers. Lifting you up with kindness just to cut you down to nothing. Her words bred shame. Malice painted pink.
“I don’t have time for your melodramatic feelings, sweetheart. Act like a fucking man for once in your pathetic life. No wonder your father can’t stand-”
“Màthair ? * ,” Keith spoke up in Gaelic, getting her attention.
Jax and their mother both looked down the stairs in Keith’s direction, and Jax immediately shook his head before she walked down the stairs towards Keith. “My wild dog speaks,” she mused. “So, you’ve decided to act like a human again?”
Keith’s face fell as she approached him with a frown.
“Mo ghille leanabh ? * … My sweet baby boy, you look filthy and unkempt. Is this really how you left home this morning? These tattoos make you look like the convict you are, constantly fighting at school. This desperate cry for attention is pathetic, don’t you think?
My Roselyn, what are you good for? I keep asking myself. ”
Keith’s words were caught in his throat.
But she was already tugging at his hair.
“At least cut this disgusting animal from your head. Carried you for 9 months just to look like this? I really wish you were more like your brothers,” she said, walking back up the stairs past Jax.
“At least you’d be less of a disappointment… ”
Keith’s nostrils flared as he averted his gaze. Seeing his mother brought him joy, yet speaking to her sent him spiraling into depression.
“Hydrogen peroxide...”
Keith looked at Jax, confused. “When trying to remove blood stains... use hydrogen peroxide…” Jax repeated, walking down the stairs. “Once you get that right, she’ll find something else to cut you down for...”
Keith snorted with a smirk as he watched Jax grab a wet rag and some soap. “What was she yelling at you for?” Keith asked.
Jax shook his head as he tilted Keith’s chin up and started to wipe the dried blood from his neck. “Don’t worry about it…”
Keith remained silent as Jax cleaned the dried blood from his skin. “Why did you attack him?” Jax asked, breaking the silence.
Keith looked down at his written lyrics and shrugged. “...I was inspired…”
Jax paused as he looked from Keith’s notes to his brother, concerned. “...don’t let her break you, Keith…”
“Keith? Keith!”
Keith blinked several times before he looked down at Deja snapping her fingers in his face. “Did you seriously just zone out on me?” Deja asked.
Keith shoved the dark memory to the back of his mind and put on a lazy smile. “...this is what happens when I don’t get my fix of Deja Bomb-Pussy Louis. I constantly daydream about that ass.”
Deja rolled her eyes. “Shut up. Is that- You literally have blood on you, Keith.”
“Do I?” Keith looked down at his shirt. “Oh. Well, look at that.”
Deja shook her head. “I can’t. I need to call an ambulance or something-” she started, opening the door.
“Baby girl, no. Stop,” Keith said, grabbing her thigh. “There is no point in calling an ambulance because I decapitated him. His head and his body aren’t even in the same room. He’s deader than dead, K? What he needs is a mortician, not a doctor.”
Deja’s eyes bulged. “You decapitated him?! Are you insane?”
“Yes and yes. But you already knew this- Fucking hell, when did your thighs get this big?” he said, squeezing her.
“My god, Keith!” Deja shoved his hand off before she got out of the car and stormed towards the cabin. Keith sighed as he grabbed her bags and ran after her. Walking back into the cabin, Deja tossed her purse and beelined for the bedroom.
"Oh come on, baby girl," Keith said, kicking the front door closed before placing the bags down on the counter. "Don't tell me you're mad at me."
"You know what you remind me of when you react like that?” Deja said as Keith entered the bedroom. “You remind me of a petulant child who throws tantrums if he doesn't get his way.”
Keith smirked as he watched her undress. “But I did get my way.”
“You’re literally proving my point in the worst way,” she said. “Grow up, Keith.”
"Grow up? Why must you make trivial something that comes naturally to me?” Keith asked. Deja looked at him irritably, and Keith rolled his eyes. "Excuse me for malfunctioning when I'm around you. Nobody told you to look so goddamn sexy- What are you doing?" he asked as she walked past him.
"I'm gonna shower, and no, you can't come with me," she said before he could protest.
Keith frowned. "Why do you hate me so much?" he pouted. Deja rolled her eyes and turned to leave when Keith grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him. Wrapping his hand around her waist, he pulled her close. “I need you not to be mad at me…”
Deja was confused by the uncharacteristic seriousness in his gaze when he was just poking fun at decapitating someone over seeds. She slowly exhaled. “When facing a challenge, normal people find alternatives that don’t involve harming someone, Keith.”
“He harmed you. I harmed him. I don’t see the problem,” he insisted.
Deja shook her head. “Your response was extreme and unnecessary-”
“What’s extreme is this disturbing hold you have over me,” Keith said, cutting her off.
“Your very voice is my life force. Your laughter, your fucking smile haunts me- It’s like a drug.
I need it. I fucking need it, you get me?
I would literally burn a city to the ground just to see you- Look, I can’t- I cannot-”
Keith paused to take a breath and clear his mind, which had become a clusterfuck of thoughts, as often happened whenever he tried to convey his feelings to the woman who owned his heart. His jaw tensed as he looked at Deja. “I don’t like seeing you upset…”
Deja searched his eyes. He looked like he wanted to say more, but struggled to find the words. This wasn’t normal for him. “Okay… I get it…” she said, calming him.
Keith bit his lip, itching to say more. “We’re the only ones here-”
“I’m showering alone, Keith,” she said, turning around.
“But I can get your back.”
“No.”
Stepping out of the shower while drying her hair, Deja heard music coming from outside the bathroom.
“...rotting flesh! …falling fur! …matches the decay in their heart! …wild dogs, baby, wild dogs! …what are you good for…”
She scrunched up her nose at the morbid lyrics to the loud, heavy metal tune as she headed for her bedroom, where she saw Keith inspecting the products on her dresser. “Do you really use all of these?” he asked, holding up a moisturizer.
“Some of them.”
“What’s this one for?”