6. Teddy
SIX
TEDDY
Cash is saying something, but I don’t hear him. I’ve stared at Eden, waiting patiently like a lion in the grass for her to look my way just once, for days now.
It’s been three days (which is a lifetime to me), and she refuses to acknowledge me. She’s stubborn, I’ll give her that. It’s kind of a turn on. I’ve done nothing but fantasize about all the ways I’d like to fuck her, and it isn’t helping my obsession that I’m truly holding back for once in my life. If I allowed those voices to control me in this situation, I’d have already made her mine in every way that counts. Each time her eyes skirt past me, my obsession grows, snarling like a caged bear.
“Are you even listening?”
“No,” I grumble, dropping my glare to my tuna sandwich. Mom knows I hate tuna but forced it upon me this morning anyways as I ran out the door to catch the bus, saying I needed more protein in my diet. Would be convenient if Dick would drive me so I’d have more time to eat breakfast, but the one time she’d asked, he’d refused, saying the bus builds character.
“God, you dick, I said we need dates for prom. I refuse to go stag or with you. You’ve been all mopey lately. Go kill someone.”
I’d love to, starting with Dick. She’s there because of him, I know it. He has something on her, and she’s working to pay him off. It’s how he operates. But after Monday, she never came back. She also hasn’t been in gym class, so I can peg her absence on her ankle. Every night I get to that stupid fucking circus, every word Vic yammers goes in one ear and out the other, my mind forever searching for Eden.
“Eden’s dad. What more did you find out?” I ask, glancing at Cash for what feels like the first time in a week. He rolls his eyes, but I can tell he is trying to help me. If anyone understands my crazy ass, it’s him.
“Nothing. No next of kin. Nothing about a previous wife. They’ve lived here for four years, moved up from some small town in Oregon.”
“And for sure terminal?”
He nods solemnly. Although I was banned from telling my mom about Dick’s extra sources of income, he never told me I couldn’t say anything to Cash. Naturally, he is up to speed about everything, and just as confused as I am. Dick’s son’s business is shady as fuck, but I’ve yet to determine just how shady.
“Maybe she’s paying for treatment?” he suggests with a shrug.
I shake my head. “No, he refused it, remember?”
He shrugs again, standing and clearing his tray as well as mine. I follow suit, still lost in a clouded daze, my mind focused solely on the puzzle that is Eden as I throw away my half eaten sandwich. Our next class is gym, so I know I won’t have a chance to corner her there. Then I have AP World Literature, and last, art. All three with her, but not many opportunities to chat.
My head has been stuck in this storm cloud for days now, and it’s all her fault, the little temptress. By the time I catch the bus downtown, my fingers are twitching, my leg bouncing, the bloodlust potent on my tongue. I haven’t hunted in weeks, and I need to satiate the urge before I storm up to Eden and demand she spill her secrets. There wouldn’t be much fun in that, which is what annoys me further.
“No, no, no,” Vic rasps, exasperated. Gritting my teeth, I turn to glance at him over my shoulder, motioning to the circular board with a weathered red bullseye in the center. Splinters of aged wood fleck off and fall silently to the floor, three of my knives residing quite snugly in that crimson center.
“How is that wrong?”
Arms crossed, lips pursed in his British annoyance, he tips his bald head to the board. “Too much deviation. One slip, and it’s death.”
I still haven’t quite figured Vic out, but his ghostly presence isn’t vile. Not like Dick or Daniel. And he’s decent to the girls—a little crotchety, but kind. He doesn’t leer and salivate in their direction like every other fucker here. Aside from Eden, there are four other women, all older, all eyeing me with suspicion and a touch of lust. The standard must be in hell if they find me attractive, because I know it has something to do with the fact that I’m kind, and polite, and would never hurt them unnecessarily.
I toss a knife in the air, flipping it from blade to handle and catching it ceaselessly, a nervous habit. He nods to my little display. “You’re good with the blade, but your mind is too busy. Clear it, or you’ll kill someone.”
I can’t help the biting grin that paints my lips, and Vic’s eyes simmer in the darkness. I think he knows, or at the very least suspects that I am not what I appear to be; some emo high schooler who hates the world. I mean, that is true, but there’s definitely more. He takes a few measured steps forward, lowering his voice and driving his eyes into mine when he speaks.
“You would never forgive yourself if you harmed an innocent.”
My heart gives a heavy thump, but I smile, brushing off his comment as though he didn’t just acknowledge I’m a voracious serial killer.
“Is anyone truly innocent?” I quip, keeping our eyes locked as I flip the knife through the air, grinning all the wider as I hear it sink deeply into the wood. His eyes never leave mine.
“That’s not for you nor I to judge, Teddy Poe.”
A noise at the top of the stairs snags both of our attention, and we glance up the darkened ascent. Daniel and Dick are making their way down, chattering quietly about something. Behind them, a dark haired little beauty silently follows, her eyes refusing to rise and meet mine. Potent rage pumps through my veins like magma, and I grit my teeth so hard a headache blooms in my temples.
They get to the bottom and disappear behind the risers, and Vic moves to rip my knives from the wood.
“How long has she been here?” I ask, the question leaving my lips unbidden. When he doesn’t answer right away, I tear my eyes from where I could last see her and glare at his skeletal figure. Gripping the knives, he uses his thumb to wipe one of the blades clean, not meeting my gaze or acknowledging my question.
“Hello?” I prod with annoyance.
His gray, lifeless eyes flick to mine, filled to the brim with a type of ferocious protectiveness I feel in my soul.
“You’ll leave that one alone, understood?” he seethes, pointing a shiny knife tip at me. I know, in my bones, that he’s killed before and would do so again. I recognize that look. I’ve seen it in the mirror on nights when I hunt for child predators and frat boy rapists.
So I also know I need to approach Vic with caution, or he won’t be willing to share anything of substance with me. Shoulder rising in a shrug, I feign nonchalance, swiping my water bottle from the floor and taking a long pull before I speak, his predatory eyes watching my every move. “We go to school together. She twisted her ankle because of me. Just feel bad I guess.”
He doesn’t seem fully convinced of my motives, for she’s the only one I’ve shown any interest in since I started a few days ago. The same can’t be said for the women towards me. They’re all older, strikingly and objectively beautiful, but nowhere near Eden. Her allure sings to my soul like a siren. I’d happily drown at her hands, if that's what she wanted.
She’s just as filled with darkness as I am, I just have yet to figure out what kind.
“Been here a year. My best performer. Only one that isn’t afraid of my knives.”
Fuck, she’s perfect. Why hadn’t I been able to see it sooner? Why was I such a selfish dick throughout high school? It could’ve been her and I and Cash for four years, a band of misfits amongst nepo-babies. Although I am mentally kicking myself, I also know that I was far too distracted, trying to find a way out for my mother and me, trying to get my impulses under control and failing miserably, begging the voices to give me an ounce of reprieve so I could be normal.
I just don’t care to control myself anymore, and that’s fucking dangerous.
“Is it because of her dad?” I press, a shot in the dark. His eyes narrow in suspicion.
“You’ll have to speak with her yourself, laddie. Everyone in here is entitled to their secrets, no?” He cocks a weathered brow at me, the suggestion hidden in between his words.
I frown, glancing at the stairwell again, aching for another glimpse of that little sprite.
“Yeah,” I mutter. I’ll figure hers out the hard way, I guess.
Whether she likes it or not.