5 | Liam
Liam
Iarrive at the house as the day begins. The sun is blinding me as I park and exit the van.
I walk toward the front door, passing the motorcycles parked in the driveway—a clear signal that the guys are already home.
Not that I was expecting anything else. We are all very predictable; it’s almost boring.
I push my key into the lock and turn it until I hear the sound of the door unlocking.
I push it open and step inside. Silence has fallen over the house. The boys must be busy.
I take a few more steps, making my way toward the living room, and as I do, I hear the happy tippy-taps against the hardwood floor.
The large dog—some mix of a golden retriever and something I was never able to identify—appears after his presence has already been given away by his nails against the floor.
His tail is wagging like crazy. It lands against the bowl filled with keys on the hallway table, taking everything with it.
I catch the bowl midair, saving its contents in the process, as my dog crashes against my legs.
I almost lose my balance, but I still laugh because he is too adorable not to.
I place the bowl back on the table before I kneel down to his level.
“Hello, buddy,” I say as I pet him. His tail moves like crazy, smacking the back of my knees as he presses his body against mine.
I present him with a treat—one of those I’ve kept in my pocket constantly since I got him.
He sniffs it out before I can even show it to him and licks my hand to thank me for the treat I just offered.
He sniffs eagerly for another one, and a low laugh escapes me.
“You are a greedy boy,” I say. He looks straight into my eyes with that look that says, ‘Stop playing, peasant, and give me a treat.’ So, I give him another one, because that’s the type of father I am. Anything for my child.
I stand from my spot, almost losing my balance again since Dog is still trying to get another treat from me, pressing his body eagerly against my legs as if they will give up and surrender the treats. If you are wondering: yes, I named my dog Dog. So what? I couldn’t think of another name.
We found him when he was only two months old, a ball of fur hidden between stacks of hay in a maze we used to hunt a few years ago.
It’s been maybe three or four years since then; I don’t really keep track.
He was muddy, and his nearly white fur was stained red.
It was before we started hunting in that area, so I knew something was terribly wrong.
We looked around for hours, trying desperately to find his mother—no doubt dead or injured at this point—yet we never did.
Months later, we learned that a few houses away from the maze, there was a house where a family had been killed inside with an axe by the father, Lizzie Borden style.
The man took an axe to his wife and daughters, and during the mayhem, the family’s puppy ran away after stepping in the blood of his former owners.
They found the family two months after the incident, already rotting.
I guess no one was really looking for them.
Those are the types of places we choose to hunt—the ones where people go missing and no one really cares.
The almost-haunted ones, long forgotten by the world.
The town we are currently in is vastly different from that place.
It's so full of life, yet so boring. I almost prefer the abandoned ones.
They make the hunts more interesting. They allow us to bend the rules a little more, which Mike loves.
They allow us to spend less money on our stay, which Nathan loves.
And they give us many options for burial grounds, which I love.
Dog walks with me as I go further into the house, desperately heading for the bathroom.
I need a shower. I can’t live a second longer with that woman’s blood on my skin.
It has soaked my clothes, and the mud from digging her grave has formed stains that will be impossible to remove.
I should be used to this by now, yet I always hate when I have to get rid of my clothes after a hunt.
It’s not unusual, though—I have always been the one to dispose of the bodies.
Except for the first one—that was all Nathan.
And he did a terrible job with it. The man is not cut out for it.
He can kill, yes. I am pretty sure he would torture the victims if he were hunting on his own, too.
Hiding them, though, is definitely not in his set of skills.
The opposite, actually. This man is meant for business meetings and handling million-dollar deals, not traveling the fucking country with two criminals, killing women.
Yet here he is. Because when it comes to Nathan, his boyfriend is above everything else in life.
I don’t think I would call the bond between them love.
It’s a connection beyond anything I have ever witnessed, and it makes me both jealous and happy for them.
They would kill for each other. They would die for each other.
And if God claimed one of them, the other would sacrifice himself in an instant, no second thoughts.
They are meant to be no matter what, and secretly, I wish I had that in my life.
Someone I could call mine. Someone who would die for me. Someone who would kill for me.
“Good boy,” I praise Dog as we get to the living room, giving him one last pat on his head before walking past the couch.
“That took more time than usual,” Mike comments when he sees me.
He is curled in the arms of Nathan, who seems to be in a deep sleep.
On Nathan's lap is Mike’s laptop, playing a TV show.
I recognize the characters. It’s the one Mike keeps playing on repeat every night because Nate despises it.
It’s funny to see how their relationship works sometimes. Almost amusing.
“Yes, I had some complications—nothing to worry about,” I tell him as I continue walking to my room.
I don’t spare him another moment, mostly because I would like to avoid the interrogation, but also because I need these clothes off my body.
I can’t stand being in them a moment longer.
Besides, what else is there to tell? I have already let them know about the police incident.
I have no desire to admit that I took a little detour to check on Jessica.
Her existence must remain hidden from them.
Our lifestyle works to my advantage, and I am grateful for that.
The way we live, they won’t suspect my obsession with the girl until we are long gone—if ever.
We have been moving from town to town since we graduated college.
We don’t stay long enough to make any friendships, and we usually avoid drawing much attention to ourselves.
It’s almost perfect for them. Because for me, it’s just a lifelong sentence of being alone.
And it’s starting to feel like it more with every passing year.
It won’t be long before we need to move on, and I would like to keep her a secret for as long as I am able.
I usually don’t interact with women—or anyone, in fact.
Rule number six. My little routine of people-watching while drinking my coffee and enjoying a piece of pie at the local diner in every town we have visited so far is my own moment of peace. The boys respect it.
We all follow the rules religiously. They have no reason to suspect I would ever drift away from the rules I set myself.
For the longest time, this has worked so well that I’ve been worrying fate will catch up with us soon.
Maybe we will make a mistake or get bored.
Mike might eventually have a mental breakdown and burn a whole town to the ground.
Whatever it is, I doubt we will remain undetected forever, which is exactly why I allowed myself to indulge in this obsession, just once.
This time, everything feels a little bit off, though.
We are already close to our limit for this town, and we were supposed to have at least one more week here.
Mike is getting more restless every day as the anniversary of his family’s death fast approaches.
I am pretty sure that’s the reason, at least. It could be anything when it comes to him. The man is as unstable as they come.
I remember the day of the crash that took out his family.
We were ten years old. He was the only survivor.
My family had to step in and claim the surviving child, as we were the only living relatives he had, but my father was not happy to take him in and didn’t mind showing it.
Not even a bit. He didn’t even bother to pretend.
He didn’t shed a tear for his sister lost at the bottom of the river, trapped in the car her husband was driving, or for his niece, whom he admittedly seemed to like more than Mike.
He wasn’t grateful for his sister’s kid surviving the crash.
And if I am being honest, I don’t think anyone in our hometown was truly grateful for Mike surviving.
Rumors started circulating the moment he stepped out of that car, standing on that bridge with police cars surrounding him.
It was just a few years later when a fire claimed my family, and the town burst with gossip.
Now the boy who was rumored to have caused the crash that killed his family had claimed another.
If only they knew what truly happened. I wonder, would they have helped us if they knew the horrors those walls hid behind them?
Would they say the same vile things about my father as they did about us?
Probably not. Because no one cared about what he did to us.
And I don’t even for a second believe they were truly blind to his abuse.
They must have suspected it. At least once.