18. Eden
EIGHTEEN
EDEN
Teddy flips his knife into the air, catching it by the blade with utter precision before he flips it again, and again, and again . We’re waiting for Vic in the ring, always practicing under his watchful eye. I stand with arms crossed near the back wall watching Teddy, my soul festering, annoyed at the lack of an explanation for his disappearance today. I know why I’m annoyed, but I’m not ready to broach that topic with myself yet.
I’d rather hate him just a little bit longer before I sink into the temptation he presents, before our lives become inexplicably intertwined.
“I loved it,” he says finally, his voice velvety smooth and deep, and I catch his eyes through the dusky light, the teal seeming to glow at me.
“Loved what?” I grumble, shifting from foot to foot, anxious to have any of our conversations overheard. Dick and Daniel are holed up in their office, probably plotting my demise. A few of the girls pace around the ring, Chastity casting me a glare every chance she gets now. She’s made it clear she’s attracted to Teddy, and the lack of attention he gives her makes her even more venomous towards me. I can’t help it; it’s not like I asked for him to sink into some weird obsession with me.
Cash confirmed it today, though, during our pickleball match against Brant and his partner. Said something about Teddy being protective of me. When I’d asked why, Cash had stood straight, paddle dangling from his hand, confusion on his pretty face. “Because he’s fucking obsessed with you?” He’d said, as though I were clearly missing out on something and very stupid because of it. We hadn’t spoken about it again, because in his distracted state, Brant had directed a hit right to Cash’s temple.
Thankfully, the hole-ridden plastic ball hadn’t done much damage. I’m still annoyed with him for picking me up like a sack of potatoes and flashing my plain white underwear to everyone in the vicinity of the bus stop, though. It’s strange, having two people—I think —I can now consider friends. I’ve been alone for so long, just me and my sick dad. The day the courts sided in his favor, he’d taken me home, and I’d watched a movie with him for the first time in well over five years.
But at the end of it, he’d held my hands in his and told me about the cancer, promising to fight it to the bitter end.
Teddy saunters toward me, his eyes alight with mischief, and the look digs its claws into my soul. He belongs here. Not at the circus, per se, but in all the darkened corners of the world, on the very fringes of society where evil and good meet, brushing against each other in the moonlight. I’ve always found comfort in darkness.
Maybe that’s why I find comfort in him.
He leans a shoulder against the wall, eyes tracing my face as his smile slowly unfurls. “Your coordinates.”
A jolt of heat hits my heart and fans out, centering between my thighs. The days draw ever-closer to Saturday, to prom and our agreement, and every day, I grow a little more terrified and a lot more…turned on.
“Did you…what did you think? Will it work?”
His canine teeth appear, his smile growing.
“Oh, it will work alright.”
I can’t help my own smile, feeling assuaged at his response. It may have been a bit of a test, one I had a feeling he would pass. I don’t think I’ll ever share my secret with him, how often I find myself there, going from room to room, speaking with the dead.
I still remember being punished as a five year old, shoved into a dark closet, my mother locking the door and barring it. She’d expected me to be afraid, to cry and scream and beg to be let out. But I’d sat down and listened, and my world became something entirely new. The voice at our old house on that farmland in Oregon had been soft and quiet and sweet, a little old lady who hated my mother and would always do things to frighten her.
Flicker the lights. Scoot glasses off the counters. Open the cupboards. Being so small, she knew it wasn’t me, and I watched with smug satisfaction as my favorite ghostly friend drove her mad.
I’d sobbed the day we moved, and my life has been hell ever since.
“Not too…strange?” I ask nervously, though I sense I shouldn’t be. Teddy seems to like the same things I do. When I thought of losing my virginity to him, I knew I didn’t want it at my home, or his, or some random hotel. I wanted it to be in a place where I’m at peace.
He shakes his head.
“No. It’s perfect. How’d you find it? I couldn’t find any records.”
My smile slips from my face, and I flounder for an explanation that will make sense and satisfy his genius. Gaping like a fish, I jump as Vic approaches me from behind. I whirl, thankful for his interruption.
Because how would I explain to Teddy that the reason I found that asylum was because a ghost visited me?
“Alright kids,” Vic rasps. Teddy’s eyes simmer in annoyance at the interruption, but I spin toward Vic, beaming to hide my strike of fear. I’ve never told anyone about the ghosts, not even my father. People think mediums and clairvoyants are insane. Which, maybe it’s good I’m willingly putting myself in an asylum, but that’s besides the point. “Today, boxes.”
My shoulders drop and I whine, “No, Vic, c’mon!”
Teddy glances between us, arms loosely crossed.
“Boxes?”
Vic grins, a skeleton with prominent teeth and terrifying eyes. “Aye, boxes. Miss Clemm will be theatrically chopped in half by you.”
Teddy’s smile is sinister and sexy all at once, and I glare at him.
“Sweet. Hop in, Edie.”
“Stop calling me that,” I hiss, indignant. Cash can get away with it, but I don’t need Teddy thinking we’re going to become closer than we already are. Even if that’s what I undeniably and annoyingly want, I know it’s something I can’t have. I need to lock that desire away in my heart until I’m free of this hell.
Vic chuckles, brandishing a saber, and I stride away from them and toward the boxes. I hate being stuffed in them while Vic practices, but he’s usually quick. Teddy being new to this will take longer, and I have to wonder if I’ll suffocate.
But the moment my foot graces the step that will lift me into the box, the wretched voice of Dick calls down the stairs, stilling the breath in my lungs. “Teddy…Eden, upstairs, please. Now .”
Teddy’s shadow blankets me, and in the chill of the office, I shelter myself beneath it, feeling cocooned and safe in his presence as he stares down Dick and Daniel. Peeking up at him, I watch in fascination as his jaw flexes, his gaze brooding and dark, his brows pulled low. I can feel it, the way he leans slightly toward me, as though poised to strike out at the threat with one hand and shove me behind him with the other.
For the first time ever, I’m fighting a smile instead of tears in this room.
Dick clears his phlegmy throat, bringing me back to reality. Daniel, standing dutifully behind his disgusting father, plays on his phone. Whatever Dick is about to say, it can’t be too bad if he’s not involving himself.
“Tara let slip you were going to prom this weekend. With someone named Eden .”
My heart becomes encased in ice and ceases beating. Before a panic attack sets in, Teddy speaks with grace and fluidity and a touch of that threatening darkness.
“Yes. We are. I wanted to go and figured you would like me to take Eden.”
Every eye in the room is on Teddy, and confusion muddles my thoughts. What the fuck is he doing? Dick chuckles and shakes his head.
“Why in the hell would you think I’d want that?”
“Because you’re not taking that experience away from us, and I figured you’d want someone to keep an eye on her. She’s about to bring in a pretty penny, isn’t she?”
Daniel’s arms slither loose and fall to his sides, and Dick goes pale before an angry, mottled red creeps up his wrinkly neck.
“You insolent little freak,” Daniel seethes, turning his glare to his father. Dick holds up his hand, his eyes studying Teddy.
“I should’ve known,” he hisses. Teddy’s smirk is arrogant as hell. “What else did you find?”
Teddy brings his hand up, flipping his palm over to study his cuticles nonchalantly. “Not sure. But I wouldn’t chance it by making me mad and not letting us go.”
Dick is about to turn purple and spew like a volcano, and the beginnings of a panic attack have my hands trembling. What is Teddy doing, playing with fire of this magnitude?
“You’ve exiled me to a school that can’t accept men liking men. I want to go with Cash. Eden is my cover, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything…untoward. Feel like it’s a win-win, right, Edie?” Teddy says, glancing down at me, mirth hidden in his gaze that only I can see.
Slowly, giving him my trust in this moment, I begin to nod.
“Yeah…Yeah,” I say, clearing my squeaking voice, looking at Dick. “My dad kept…pestering me about going. I couldn’t tell him about…working here, so…”
Dick grits his teeth.
“Fine,” he seethes, pointing a gnarled finger at Teddy’s chest. “But I’m warning you now, if anything funny is going on, then it’s her I will be punishing, not you.”
Rage rolls off Teddy in that instant, so potent it’s tangible, an entity of its own. My body recoils in fear instinctively. I know Dick doesn’t mean me, but the person he is referencing is unknown.
Whoever it is, they must mean the world to Teddy, and my anxiety only grows. After a long moment of the two staring each other down, Teddy speaks, his voice low and rumbling like thunder across the Puget Sound. “Careful who you threaten, Dick. Because once she’s gone, so are you.”
He turns on his heel and strides out, leaving us all in the wake of his unrelenting fury.
I may have my secrets about speaking with phantoms, but something tells me he has his own secrets…
And I think it also involves the dead.