Chapter 12
Timothy
Farrow had slunk under the bed and vanished.
No goodbye or anything, the same as last time.
What did I expect from a monster? Nothing, yet it was disappointing.
I’d hoped that he’d pull his dick out and finish in front of me.
Perhaps I hadn’t been good enough. But if he wasn’t enjoying it, what did he want the videos for?
I pulled on a clean pair of boxers and walked around the bed to turn off my laptop. I reviewed the recording, but all I saw was a vague dark shape that might have been nothing. Even his shadow on the wall lacked definition.
But it was enough to prove that I had not imagined Farrow.
He was real.
The longer I studied the recording, the more the shadow lost definition, and the doubts rose. Was I losing my mind?
With a shake of my head, I closed the laptop and turned away. Maybe I needed a different kind of camera, one that worked better in the dark.
I needed a lot of things, but my part-time minimum wage job wasn’t going to provide them. Neither was my father. I can only imagine what he’d say if I asked for a camera that recorded in the dark, or that I wanted to increase my collection of toys.
There were places online that sold all kinds of weird dildos. One of them might be fun, or I could just use what I already had. Why should I care about what kind of show I put on?
It wasn’t as though I was getting anything out of it.
What I needed was some extra money.
I turned off the bathroom light and flopped into bed. The one thing I hadn’t thought to negotiate was how long this would continue. Obviously, when I moved out of home, it would end. Then Farrow could go back to terrorizing Taya and Bunny.
I fell asleep thinking of Farrow’s ever-shifting eyes and the way he watched me as if he wanted to devour me. I needed to record him.
* * *
When I got home from stacking shelves, my bedroom door was open, and Bunny was sleeping in the middle of my bed, which was fine when I was home, but I had shut my door before I left.
I glanced around my room searching for anything that had been moved, but I didn’t notice anything with my first glance.
I tossed my jacket over the chair. When I’d put it on this morning, I’d found a twenty-dollar note in the pocket, which I didn’t remember stuffing in there, but that was the joke, wasn’t it?
People were always pulling their coats out of the cupboard and finding money in the pockets.
That was something Mom had always laughed about. She said she was lucky.
I’d also found a scratchie, unscratched, on the bus.
It was still in my wallet, waiting for me to see if I’d carried around a bit of cardboard all day or if I’d won something on it.
For a moment, I closed my eyes and fantasized about winning the twenty-five-thousand-dollar prize.
That would be sweet. I’d be out of this place so fast…
Not that twenty-five thousand went far, so I needed to pass the rest of my subjects and finish my degree.
“Why are you in my room, girl?”
She looked up and gave a half-hearted wag of her tail.
“Well, I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
Bunny glared at me as if I should be sorry, then rolled over and went back to sleep. I walked through to the kitchen expecting to be on my own, but Dad sat at the kitchen table eating lunch. He must be working from home today.
“You were in my room.” There was no point in pretending it had been anyone but him.
“It’s my house.” He didn’t bother to look at me.
“What were you looking for this time?” I grabbed a glass and poured some orange juice. “Porn magazines? It’s all online these days.”
“You need to leave your door open when you aren’t in there.”
“Why? I don’t want Taya in there touching my things, breaking my models, my laptop, and such.”
He turned around. “She’s your sister.”
“And how would you like it if I wandered into her room whenever I wanted? That would be weird. So no, she can’t go into my room. I am entitled to privacy.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re not entitled to anything. You will babysit on a Friday night without giving your stepmother a hard time.”
“I have plans.” I didn’t, but that wasn’t the point.
“Then cancel them.”
“Why should I? You wanted this new family. Or are you worried that she’ll run off the same way Mom did?”
That might have been a step too far because he stood, and his face turned red. “You don’t know anything about what happened, but you’re just like her. Always up to something.”
Dad blamed everything on Mom, even years later, and I hated it.
I hated that she’d left, and for years I’d blamed myself.
But it wasn’t me she’d left, it was him.
“Yeah, I’m a regular miscreant. I don’t smoke or do drugs.
I have been in the same part-time job for the last three years, and I’m one year short of finishing my degree.
As soon as I’m done, I’ll be moving out.
I don’t want to set a bad example to your new child. ”
He softened his tone. “I’m worried about you.”
“Why, Dad? I failed one class…and guess what, so did a bunch of other people. It was a hard class.” And I’d known that and still made excuses to party. If I’d known it would bite me on the ass this hard, I’d have kept my ass in the chair, not in the air.
“Something has changed.”
My heart stopped. Had he found out about the deal with Farrow? Impossible. “What do you mean?”
He glanced away and shrugged. “You know what I mean…”
“I don’t.” If he wanted to accuse me of something, I wasn’t going to make it easy. “I have done everything you’ve asked of me, but you act as though I am the wor—”
“It’s gone quiet. You’re too quiet.”
I stared at him, my eyebrows pulling together. Was he talking about the house noises caused by Farrow, or was I paranoid? “Would you rather I throw wild parties and listen to my music without headphones?”
“That’s not…” He grimaced. “Your mother was mixed up in some dangerous things, and I’m worried about you. Especially when you came home with that.” He pointed at the dragon on my arm.
My eyebrows lifted. “I got it in memory of her.”
It had seemed like a good idea on the tenth anniversary of her death.
Plus, I knew it would irk my father. When she left, he’d gotten rid of everything that had been hers.
There’d been nothing for me to hang onto.
There was no indication that she’d ever existed.
It was as weird as fuck, and this conversation wasn’t helping.
“I know. But it made me wonder how similar you are to her. Did anyone approach you at college?”
I finished my juice. Even though I wanted some lunch, I didn’t want to hang around in the kitchen for any longer than I needed to.
I pulled out the bread, ham, and cheese to make a sandwich and pretended to be unbothered even though I was sweating.
“You’re being weird, like I’ve joined a gang or something. ”
“Have you?”
“What? No! No one has spoken to me about anything.”
Did Mom know something about monsters?
Did Dad?
Is that why he was worried about the house being quiet? I was going to have to ask Farrow to rattle some windows, just not in Taya’s room. She didn’t need the same nightmares that I’d grown up with.
“Are you sure?” Dad pressed.
I wasn’t going to be the first one to say monster.
“Yeah. Of course I’m fucking sure. Why are you looking at me as if I’m about to do something nefarious?
” I pressed my sandwich together and gave it an extra squish, and then took a bite.
“Was Mom in a criminal gang? Did she run off because the cops were after her?”
His face paled, and he shook his head. “She was friends with dangerous people. That’s all. I was worried they’d found you.”
Did Farrow know my mother?
The five-day wait now felt like forever.