Chapter 38 Aston
Aston
THE PRESENT
Talk about a first date to die for…
RIP
I wake up the day after Halloween feeling unrested and just all sorts of off.
Not only was my sleep plagued with the weirdest of dreams, making for a very tossy-turny kind of night, but I’ve got a killer headache.
I suppose that’s what the stress of being wrongly accused of murder does to a person.
That and the whole wondering if maybe you did in fact commit murder, and only hallucinated getting railed by your maybe-boyfriend (totally-boyfriend) in the middle of a cornfield like something straight out of a kinky Malac fanfic (that’s the ship name for Malachi and Isaac from Children of the Corn for you normies), because mentally escaping to a fantasy world is the only way you know how to cope… thing.
Now go back and read that again—I know you want to. Slowly this time, so it actually makes sense. I’ll wait.
Okay, where were we…
Oh, right, my dreams last night be whack.
In one, I was a beautiful butterfly cannibalizing other beautiful butterflies.
In another, I was a beautiful butterfly yet again, but I was cannibalizing a very human, albeit still beautiful, Vale.
Dream-Vale just laughed though, like getting gnawed on by a butterfly tickled. Maybe if I was an ordinary butterfly. But I’ll have you know, Dream-Butterfly-Me was vicious! I had piranha teeth.
Still, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Vale laugh like that, even if it was manufactured by my brain, so that was quite the treat.
But the dream that stuck out the most was the one where I stood in a room of mirrors.
Dead bodies were scattered all around me, blood dripping from the walls and floor.
Etta James’ song “At Last” was playing—I think I even might have been singing along in my sleep—and I was slow dancing with a life-sized butterfly knife.
Yeah…
Flip-fucking weird, right?
I can’t wait to regale Dr. B. with it this week, so he can go all Freud on my ass and tell me how I want to bone the mother I never met.
It didn’t have a face—in case you’re wondering. The knife, that is. It looked exactly like mine, only ginormous.
And with a surprisingly good sense of rhythm!
I wasn’t scared though. Not at first. Heck, Dream-Me wasn’t fazed in the least. Dead bodies aside, I remember feeling…safe. Special even.
After all, it wasn’t my corpse soaking the floor with puddles of blood that splish-splashed under my feet.
It wasn’t until the music slowed, morphing into something discordant—Etta’s voice replaced by something deeper and sinister—that the energy changed. And I became aware that my knife friend and I were no longer alone.
If we ever were.
The figure, dark and masked, moved through my dream like smoke—soundless and unseen until he wanted to be noticed.
He had no reflection. Like a vampire, the mirrors could not capture him.
Somehow, I just knew, this was his doing. The carnage at my feet. He killed them. Not me.
But why?
Why spare me?
It was at that point, the dream, weird and arguably fucked up that it already was, veered into nightmare territory. Becoming fractured not unlike the explosion of glass as all the mirrors shattered outward.
I remember closing my eyes and covering my face with my hands to protect myself from the onslaught.
I remember the music cutting off with a blood-curdling scream and the wailing of sirens.
I remember arms, thick and muscular, wrapping around my midsection from behind. My hand thrusting out as my eyes flew open. My knife! Where’s my knife?
Whirled around, a hand closed around my throat, squeezing and cutting off my air before I could so much as gasp at who stood looming over me.
Vale.
The upper half of his face was hidden, but I could make out his mouth. A cruel barely-there grin I registered at about the same time that a flash of silver winked in the darkness.
And then—
Heat.
So much heat spreading across my chest.
A glance down showed the hilt of my knife—back to its normal size—sticking out of my chest.
Blood gurgled up my throat, pain exploding across my body, and just before I jolted awake, I recall thinking—
He didn’t spare me.
He saved me for last.
Anywhoozles…to say I’m tired, cranky, and confused this lovely, rainy November morning would be an understatement.
Can you blame me?
It’s not every day you get falsely accused of murder and find out your maybe-boyfriend (totally-boyfriend) is a psychopath (allegedly) all within the span of a couple hours.
Not to mention the whole getting railed in a cornfield thing…
Talk about a memorable first date.
No fucking wonder I’m so out of sorts today.
After a nice long bubble bath using Tillie’s lavender scented salts, I sneak into the room across from mine, and crawl into bed for some cuddle time in with my Ediepoo, humming and singing Heart’s greatest hits to sweetly lure him from his deep slumber.
And when he does, he promptly falls out of the bed with a shriek. “What the fuck, Aston?”
“Who do I have to murder?”
The look he sends me is nothing short of adorably scathing.
Scooting up so my back’s against the headboard, I hold up my hands and say, “Hey, I’m innocent. I’m allowed to make jokes.”
Pushing to a stand, he smooths out his over-sized Hendrix tee. “Someone died, Aston.”
“Yeah…and whoever did that to your face is next.” I’m quick to add, “Not that I killed the first one. That totally came out wrong. I just meant I’ll be…contributing to the…cause or whatever.”
Eden just stares flatly at me.
“Does it hurt?” I say with a wince. In the light of day, his eye looks a lot worse than it did last night. It’s not quite sealed shut, but he looks like a raccoon. At least on one side. “It looks like it hurts.”
“It’s fine.”
“What happened?” I say with more seriousness than I think either of us thought I was capable of. Rather that draw attention to it though, Eden just slumps, hanging his head.
“Come here,” I say, patting the spot in front of me.
With a little huff, he shuffles over, and plops down in front of me, crisscrossing his legs to mirror my position.
I hand him the pillow next to me, and he immediately hugs it to his chest. Head hanging, hair curtaining his face, he mumbles something I can’t make out.
“What was that?”
Inhaling deeply, he says in a quiet, yet clear voice this time, “I shouldn’t’ve worn the mascara.”
For a long moment, I don’t move a muscle. I don’t even breathe.
“Your date did this.” Not a question. I figured as much, but I wanted the confirmation. What I didn’t know was why the asshole hurt him.
I mean have you seen his face? It’s precious. I don’t know how anyone could dare look at Eden’s pouty little lips and big doe eyes and think, yes, this would look great wearing my fist.
Eden nods jerkily. “He noticed when he leaned in to kiss me,” he says, his tinny voice breaking. Making him sound so much younger than his seventeen years.
He. So, it was a boy. I figured, especially in the wake of him getting decked in the face. But you never know. Girls can be dicks and throw punches too.
“That. Bitch.”
“It was a guy,” he grumbles.
“Yeah, and? Boys can be bitches too. Anything can be gender-neutral if you make it so.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking.”
My lip curls. “You were thinking I want to wear make-up and look hot as fuck for my date. And there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong here is some tiny-dicked, insecure, misogynistic douchebag couldn’t handle just how good you looked.”
Eden peeks up through his lashes, and I don’t miss the blush staining his cheeks. “You sound like him,” he mumbles, and I make a face.
“Say what now?”
Shaking his head, he hunches inward, and says quickly, “Not him. I meant the guy who stepped in and broke Eric’s nose before he could do any more damage.”
Eric. I mentally file that away for later. Not that it will probably do me any good, unless I get a last name and a good lawyer. Yoo hoo, Daddy Riviera. You best be ready for me.
Then, what else Eden said registers.
I blink. “Wait. Someone…stepped in?”
He nods. “Yeah. I, uh, didn’t get his name. But he…um, made sure I was okay.”
A slow grin splits my face. “Ohmygod, you’re so red right now!” I steeple my hands to my lips like I’m praying. “On a scale of zero to Vale, how hot was he? Was he older? Did he have a six-pack?”
Eden curls his lip at me. Not quite a sneer, but not quite a smile either. “He was wearing a shirt.”
I wave him off. “Some things you can just sense about a person. Trust me. It’s like… like skin texture.”
“Like skin texture…” he repeats slowly.
“Stop trying to distract me. How hot was he? Tell me everything. Did he do the thing?”
“What thing?”
“You know, the thing. Where the sexy antihero gets all up in your grill, pinches your chin between his sexy calloused fingers, forcing your head back, to growl all deep and sexily, who hurt you?”
Eden blinks slowly. “He saw who hurt me.”
I wave my hand dismissively. “Semantics!”
“That’s not…”
Snapping my fingers, I say, “Focus. Was he hot?”
He rolls his eyes, shrugs, and mutters, “Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Eden huffs and throws his hands up. “Fine, he was gorgeous. What does it matter though? I’ll probably never see him again.” He lets out a cute little growl, before adding on a mumble I have to strain to hear, “Probably already forgot about me—Ow! What was that for?”
“You were saying mean things about my best friend again.”
Rubbing his forehead, he mumbles bitchily, “You didn’t have to flick me.”
“Don’t say stupid shit and I won’t.”
Jaw working, he crosses his arms over the pillow and blows hair from his eyes. “Just statin’ facts. He’s way out of my league. Older too, to answer your earlier question.”
“Like Daddy, I’ve been a very naughty boy old or…”
“Like, at least eighteen.”
I roll my eyes. “Wow, barely a whole year. Boring.”
“Anyway, now that we’ve covered that, you wanna tell me what the hell happened to you last night?” He arches a stern brow that makes me want to pinch his cheeks.
So I do.