4. Micha
CHAPTER FOUR
MICHA
Arlo has been off with me ever since I pushed him away two weeks ago, and it kills me inside to see him so distant.
He acts like everything’s okay, like his stepbrother, roommate, and only friend didn’t reject him, but I see the pain.
He pulls away when our hands touch. He avoids looking at me for longer than a few seconds. And it’s driving me insane.
If only he knew what I felt for him.
When we reach a dark alley that doesn’t have any back doors or stragglers lying around, I stop, unable to keep my damn mouth shut any longer.
“What is it, Micha?”
As I part my lips to reply, I hear a faint jingle of bells. My head snaps to the way we came, scanning profusely for the source of the noise, and I swear I see a distant flash of green, but it’s gone in a blink.
I’m just freaked out. The circus always freaks me out.
Why I spent one of my two nights off this week going to that place, I’ll never know.
That’s a lie; I do know. Arlo’s happiness is far more important than my own discomfort.
“I hate this.”
His dark blonde eyebrows furrow. “The circus? I know. You said you’d come with me. I didn’t ask—”
“Not the circus,” I groan, unable to stop myself from taking a step closer to him, my hand itching to wrap around his slender throat, to feel his soft skin. I think about that often. “This, Arlo.”
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
Fuck, he always sounds so sweet, so scared.
I hadn’t prepared anything to say, and now I stay silent. He tilts his head, waiting for me to elaborate, staring into my eyes like he wants to delve into my soul. The air is charged, the darkness and seclusion of the area making my thoughts turn wild.
Until I push them away.
Arlo wouldn’t want me. The real me. Not forever, at least. So I can’t commit to him.
But I also can’t stop myself. I take another step, and he takes one back, hitting the wall.
His eyes go wide, like he’s trapped with no escape, and I hate how my cock hardens.
I despise the feelings I’m haunted by. The urge to hurt his skin so it leaves marks, to lock him in a cage so he can never leave, but Arlo is sweet and kind.
He’d run for the hills if he knew the thoughts I have of him.
Fear and arousal swirl around us in a heady mix. His green eyes never stray from mine, and it’s the first time he’s looked at me properly since I pushed him away. I wish I never had. But there was no other option. Otherwise I would have let him kiss me, and I would be lost to him.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I grit out, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides, trying to hold back from touching him.
“Like what, Micha?”
That voice. The innocent lilt behind it. It drives me fucking wild.
“Like you want to suck my big cock into that little mouth.”
His eyes go even wider, my cock hardens unbearably, and I know that if I don’t walk away right now, I’m going to make a mistake.
So, I take a step back. But the look that crosses Arlo’s face breaks me all over again, like I’m officially rejecting him for a second time.
“Fuck you, Micha,” he whispers, the words dirty and unusual from his mouth. They make me both harden behind my jeans and break internally.
I want to say something, but there’s nothing I can say. What I did wasn’t fair. I know how he feels for me, and I keep hurting him, over and over. I see his fingers curl into his palms, his chest heaving like he wants to punch me, and I must be messed up in the head to make someone like Arlo angry.
Both of us part our lips to say something, abruptly shutting them and twisting our heads to look down the alley when we hear that same faint jingle. Bells. Close by.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, both of us rooted to the spot and scanning the dark area like it’ll jump out at us.
The urge to protect Arlo from others is constant. I may want to hurt him, to watch him writhe and scream and ache, but with my hard cock and multiple orgasms. Hurting his heart hurts mine. And the thought of someone else hurting him makes me want to keel over.
I’ve protected my little stepbrother for a long time, in ways I know he’s hated me for, but I’ll never stop.
“Stay behind me,” I order. He pulls a face in my peripheral but doesn’t argue.
Another jingle makes my heart pound before I blow out a steady breath, controlling myself. I’m used to living in darkness. I work in a graveyard where unexplainable and creepy things happen in the dead of night. I’m accustomed to it.
A flash of green.
It’s so quick, less than a second, but I know I saw it before. I’d convinced myself it was nothing. But that… That was definitely something.
“Did you see that?” Arlo whisper-shouts.
I nod, barely.
Another jingle.
Another flash of green.
Both closer. Louder. Brighter.
Arlo takes a step away, his fingers digging into the back of my belt to tug me with him. He whispers, “Let’s go.”
I don’t run from the unknown. I never have. And I’ll never forget that sound or the flash of green light—it’ll haunt me if I don’t figure out what it is.
The bells get louder.
I take a step forward, breaking from Arlo’s grasp.
They stop. Silence. No green. No bells.
I take another step, and a silhouette makes me freeze. It’s dark, barely intelligible, low to the ground like a crouching animal. I can’t make anything out, no certain shapes or figures, but it’s as still as I am.
And then there’s that flash of green.
Eyes.
Blinking eyes.
It disappears again, and a scuttle ahead of me makes me stumble back, but it’s not charging at me. It’s retreating. The silhouette moves through the shadows until I can no longer see it, but I don’t move or turn to Arlo until I’m sure it’s gone.
“What the fuck?” Arlo exhales, the fear obvious in his broken voice.
“Let’s get out of here.” I turn and continue walking down the alley, Arlo quickly catching up with me. He’s still angry at me, but he’s also scared. That’s why he keeps up with me rather than storming off with his arms crossed and a cute little pout on his lips.
When we break out of the shortcut through the alley and step into the lit streets, he adds a few steps of distance between us. I don’t show how much that hurts.
“That green,” he mutters as we walk down the path beside the road. It’s late, so there aren’t many cars out.
“What about it, Pipsqueak?”
He pulls a face again, like me speaking to him right now is offensive, and I can’t help but laugh. He’s so adorable when he’s angry.
“Did it not look familiar?”
I pull open the glass door to the apartment foyer and let him walk through first. “What?”
“That green glow…” He shakes his head, his tight curls shaking, effectively cutting himself off. “Nothing.”
He presses the button for the elevator a little too hard, anger still fuelling his actions.
He’ll be fast asleep soon, but I work nights, so I won’t be heading to bed until the morning.
Which means I have all night to overthink our interactions and kick myself for upsetting him.
It also means I have all night to fuck my fist to the dirty and depraved thoughts I have of my stepbrother, one room away, sleeping soundly and completely unaware of my balls slapping against my fist as I thrust my hips and pretend he's there with me.
It’s as tense as it was in the alleyway when we wait in the mirrored elevator, the whirring of the machine not loud enough to cover the crackling tension. Whether that’s anger, arousal, lingering fear, or a concoction of them all, I don’t know.
Arlo refuses to look at me as we enter the apartment. He hangs his jacket up and storms to his room before I even fully shut the door behind me.
Well shit.
That’s just great.
My stepbrother hates me again, and it’s my own fault.
Most people get freaked out by death, by darkness, but I find both comforting. It’s why I love my job.
It’s the biggest cemetery in the city, and I was hired two years ago as the nighttime security guard.
Four nights a week, ten hours of pure solitude, and the only challenge is keeping myself awake.
I stock the small guard’s room with food, video games, energy drinks, and three portable chargers.
But tonight, the hardest part is stopping myself from texting Arlo.
I’m three hours into the night, and I’ve clicked onto our message thread more times than I can count.
I haven’t seen him since we got back from the circus yesterday.
Due to our sleep schedules, we rarely see each other, and Arlo doesn’t purposefully stay up to catch me when I wake up anymore.
He used to before he realised that I’m a total cock.
I miss him.
Groaning, I switch off my phone and slam it against the desk, leaning back into the chair.
A corner of the CCTV screen shifts, and I sit back up, grabbing the mouse to expand.
I can’t see what set it off or what caught my eye.
I quickly flick through the other cameras but find nothing.
After last night, my nerves are on edge.
I still can’t explain what we saw and heard.
I don’t like being left in the dark—figuratively.
This is where my job kicks in. I grab the big flashlight from the corner of the table and leave the small box of an office that’s covered in windows.
I’m situated at the front of the graveyard beside the entrance gate, which I locked after I did a sweep of the perimeter.
No one was here, and I would have seen someone come through the entrance.
But the metal fence circling the graveyard isn’t the most secure and not impossible to jump.
I step into the night, thankful I opted for a jacket earlier, as the breeze immediately hits me. My instincts are already telling me to watch my step, but I don’t get scared in this job, so the fact I’m on edge is a bad sign.
My neck nearly snaps with how fast I turn to look across a row of graves, a brief shadow catching my attention. It’s gone when I can focus on the now-empty space.
Twigs snap beneath my boots as I slowly make my way around the graves.
It’s not the rows of buried corpses and headstones that make me uncomfortable.
They don’t bother me. I’ve had to deal with vandalisers, late-night grievers who beg to visit their loved ones, and wild animals, but I’ve never had to go looking for something, searching the darkness and putting pieces together.
Maybe that’s what makes me uncomfortable.
When I get to the end of the row, prepared to turn and make my way down the next, I spot the shadow again. At the edge of the cemetery, beneath a tree, crouched low to the floor.
Just like last night.
And when that flash of green reappears, I’m expecting it, but that doesn’t make me any less freaked out.
I don’t know why I refuse to turn my flashlight to face the shadow and unveil the source of my discomfort. Whether it’s fear or denial, I’ll never know, but I point it downwards to my feet.
Last time, it retreated when I took a step forward. I do the same again, but they don’t move. I take another step, and another, closing that distance half a foot at a time. Regardless, they still don’t move.
As my boot hits the floor again, the shadow shifts, inching closer.
It seems they called my bluff.
“What do you want?” I shout. Again, they stop, but I can see the outline of them a little clearer. The space where their head should be looks too big, like eccentric hair, and they’re definitely on their hands and feet.
I’m losing my patience now. They were watching me and Arlo last night, so either I’ve got some weird stalker on my back or a ghost who I pissed off before their demise.
Just as I’m about to tell them to fuck off, a car comes screeching past, its bright headlights flittering over the graveyard for a mere moment, lighting up the grass in front of me.
I finally see it.
Or her.
It’s a flash. A few seconds at most.
Pink and green hair. Unnatural smile. Sat on the backs of her feet with her hands on the ground in front of her.
Between fight or flight, I always fight, but tonight, I freeze.
It doesn’t matter because the light sets her off, and I see her silhouette get smaller and smaller as she escapes at an insane speed on all fours.
She was in the circus. Her face is plastered all over town.
The contortionist freak from last night. The one Arlo was entranced by.
She followed us home. She followed me to work.
What does she want with us? And why was she wearing that creepy get-up? The hair, the face, the stitching, and that black, skin-tight jumpsuit.
To blend into the shadows? To stalk?
She may be gone, but that doesn’t lessen my pounding heart. The threat isn’t there, so I briskly return to the security box, slamming the door and locking it. I hold onto the handle, taking deep breaths. I’m not used to feeling fear. But that smile… It’s haunting me.
The rest of the night goes by slowly because I spend every single moment between tracking the view from the window and the CCTV screens on the monitor.
When I return to the apartment, Arlo asleep and his door shut, I stop outside of it, fist raised. I’m about to knock, to tell him what I saw.
But I refrain.
He struggles with fear more than I do. I’d freak him out if I told him.
So I make the decision to keep it to myself and return to my bedroom, despite the hole in my heart begging me to go see him, to make amends, to apologise.
I do none of that.
I sleep.