Chapter 6 Theo
THEO
Someone has come into my territory.
That’s all I know at first; I’m weeding the little vegetable patch I have out back when I catch a whiff of the citrusy scent of human fear.
It’s startling; the hikers who come out usually don’t smell of fear, not anymore.
There’s enough cell service, even on my peninsula, that no one’s ever truly lost.
But then the wind shifts, and I catch something under that fear. Something sweet and familiar.
Chloe. The trowel drops out of my hands and lands with a thump in the dirt. Oliver, I think, my heart hardening. But when I sniff the air, I don’t smell him at all. Just her.
The scent’s coming from the lake, and I have a momentary sense of panic. Am I supposed to kill her? That’s what I’ve always done when someone comes into my territory. The urge to do it is as overwhelming as rage. But I don’t feel either now. In fact, the idea of killing her makes me vaguely queasy.
However, I absolutely do not want her finding my cabin, or my garden, or any other evidence that I exist. I’m supposed to be a ghost.
Her scent rushes through the air again, and I bolt, moving quickly around the side of my cabin and darting into the thick tangle of trees, where I can at least crouch in the shadows and decide what to do next. Maybe I can scare her off, somehow.
But then I hear her voice for the first time.
“Hello?”
Just one word. It makes my heart jump around in my chest.
“Hi, I live across the lake!”
She’s definitely still down by the beach. I can tell by how her voice carries on the wind. But more than that, I’m struck by the sound of her voice itself—the soft, musical lilt of it. I’m struck in place, her scent wrapping around me. I don’t want to kill her. I don’t want to scare her, either.
I don’t know what I want to do.
Footsteps, faint and rustling. She’s moving into the trees.
I follow the sound trail she leaves behind.
Like all the humans who stumble into my territory, she’s wildly noisy, and it’s easy to track her through the dappled light of the forest. She’s on the old footpath that Mom and I would use, the one that linked the cabin to the cemetery and then to the pier.
The pier’s long gone. The cemetery isn’t.
I see Chloe’s trail before I see her, a ripple through the dense underlayer in the forest. Her steps skitter over the fallen leaves, creating a riot of sound.
I hide myself among the brush, my breath tight in my chest. Her fear has lessened into a kind of mild trepidation.
It occurs to me, given the way the blood pounds in my temples, that maybe I’m the one who’s afraid now.
Which is absurd. How can a monster like me be afraid of a human woman?
“I’m Oliver’s babysitter!”
I jolt at her voice, at how loud it is. I was so distracted by her presence that I didn’t realize how close that presence was.
Acting on a surge of panic, I melt further back into the trees, just as she pushes past where I’m standing.
And I see her. A glimpse of her, anyway: her long, thick hair, falling around her shoulders, and her bare arms with their golden sheen from being out in the sun.
She ducks beneath a long, spindly branch, then glances around.
For a split second, I see the flash of her eyes, and I feel like I’ve been skinned alive, like she’s staring straight through me.
But then she looks away and keeps going. I let out a low, quiet breath, but I swear my heart is louder.
I should kill her. I should burst through this brush and wrap my fingers around her throat and squeeze the air out of them. Or slam the back of her head against one of the nearby tulip trees over and over until the grey of the bark turns red with her blood.
It’s an image that turns my breath shuddery. That makes my cock grow in my pants. And I still don’t want to fucking act on it.
Her footsteps stop. She must have found the cemetery.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. It’s fine for her to find the cemetery. There’s no real sign of my presence there. But I need her to turn back, to go back to her side of the lake, before I do the thing I’m made to do.
I slip through the trees, gliding closer to the clearing. I duck beneath a shrub of azalea and, my breath thick in my lungs, peer through the gap in the leaves.
And there she is.
Seeing her like this, up close, is so much better than seeing her from across the lake. Her features are delicate and pretty, her lips full, her hair slightly mussed from the wind. Oliver’s portrait of her, the one I currently have tacked to the wall above my bed, really is an excellent likeness.
Chloe, I think, and my chest feels strange again. Overly tight.
Chloe tilts her head and steps into the cemetery’s overgrown grass. She’s looking at something.
And when she pulls the grass away, I know it’s my grave.
I feel like my soul is growing to crawl out of my skin. Chloe crouches down, runs her hands over the stone.
“Theodore Shorn,” she says.
Hearing my name in her soft, sultry voice makes my heart pound and my cock stiffen even more, enough that it’s uncomfortable, all that hard length between my legs.
The early-evening light spilling through the trees overhead gives her skin a soft, golden glow, and I want to know what it would feel like beneath my hand.
I want to feel the warmth of her blood pumping through her veins and the dampness of her breath on my cheek.
I imagine myself killing her again, this time settling on the intimacy of choking.
That’s not usually how I kill. I want the blood.
I want to see the inside of a body strewn across the floor.
But there’s no touching when you kill like that. The blade does all that work. And god, do I want to touch her.
I step forward, delirious with lust. And I step on a branch like one of my fucking human victims. The crack is thunderous.
Chloe gasps and jerks up, her eyes wide as she whips her head around. Her fear scent slams over me, and I have to bite back a groan.
“Hello?” she rasps. I squeeze my hands into fists, trying to stop myself from stepping out of the trees and killing her because I don’t know any other fucking way to show her that she’s beautiful.
“I’m leaving now,” Chloe says, her voice shaky.
Then she runs, the sound thunderous as she dives back onto the path.
I breathe, trying to get ahold of myself.
I don’t follow her, just listen to her retreating footsteps.
It’s only when it sounds like she’s nearly to the beach that I follow, my own steps slow and cautious.
I tell myself it’s because I want to make sure she’s fled, and not because I want to see her again before she does.
By the time I make it to the treeline, she’s already pushed out on the water. I recognize the boat as Oliver’s, and I feel a little skip in my heart. Did he send her out here? It seems strange that he would send her alone, though. He knows I don’t like trespassers.
Is she a trespasser?
I stand among the poplars, watching Chloe row back toward her house, with its huge windows reflecting the setting sun. The boat turns sideways a little, and for a moment, she’s haloed by golden light. Heat surges through me, flooding into my cock again.
Normally, killing is more than enough. What need does a monster like me have for sex? For companionship? The few years I spent with my father showed me how treacherous that can be, especially if a human is involved. The killing urge is always there, bubbling under the surface.
I can feel it now, even, hot and pulsing. I could chase her, I suppose. Splash out into the water and drag her into the darkness, killing her the same way I died that first time. I’d go under with her, though. I’d make sure she wasn’t alone as the light slipped out of her eyes.
But I don’t move from my spot in the trees, just reach down and unbuckle my fly so I can ease my cock out.
Jerking off is never as good as killing, although it’s a close enough approximation, and the pressure of my hand around my length makes me suck my breath in.
A new image flits into my mind, of me and Chloe.
But this time. I’m not killing her. I’m fucking her.
I imagine fucking her on top of my grave, burying myself to the hilt as she groans beneath me, her cunt as hot as the friction of my palm.
I stroke myself faster, rocking my cock into my fist, watching Chloe row into the golden light.
Pressure builds tight in my body, and she’s not even halfway across the lake when a pulsing, unfamiliar pleasure courses through me.
I groan, dropping my head back, as cum spurts between my fingers, splattering across the dead leaves on the ground.
Dizziness washes over me. An orgasm, and I didn’t even have to kill someone to get it.
I drop my softening cock and wipe my hands on my jeans, not sure what to think. Across the lake, Chloe bumps up against her pier and scrambles out of the boat. Her movements are quick and a little panicked, although she’s downwind now, and I can’t smell it, that sweet, pungent scent of her fear.
She stops, standing there on the edge of the pier. Then she turns back toward my peninsula. I stiffen and drop my hands down to my still-bare cock, feeling suddenly perceived even though there’s no way she can see me, not from that distance and not with me hidden by the trees.
But she watches, the wind blowing her hair around her face. And just for a second, I think I know what it would feel like for her gaze to touch my skin.