The house phone has been ringing in the background and the answer machine clicks on. “Baby, it’s me. I need you to pick up the phone.” I can hear the worry in his voice and part of me wants to take Cereus and run but I’m not me without him and I don’t know if I would exist without him, or if I would just fade away.
“This isn’t over!” I warn Cereus, and grab the phone as I go into my study. “What do you want, you lying son of a bitch,” I grate down the receiver.
“Baby, I will explain everything. I know I messed up.”
“Fucking messed up, Blake! Ryan is out there and he’s been in contact with our daughter!” I scream.
“Listen, baby. I have a couple of patrol cars coming to watch over you and Cereus. I need you to keep the TV off and wait for me to come home.”
“Oh my God, why do I need to keep the T.V off?” I ask, panicking and grabbing the remote. He hears the TV turn on and begs me to turn it off. I scrawl to the local news channel and drop the phone.
“The owner of Blooming Daisy was brutally slain today in another grizzly murder only days after a teacher from a local high school was found bludgeoned to death. Police have made a brief statement in relation to the murders asking the public to be extra vigilant while they complete their investigation.”
No, no. My legs give out and I land in a heap on the floor, sorrow gripping me in its cold embrace. I don’t know how long I lay there, but the throb in my head and dry mouth tell me it is too long.
Tears have finally dried leaving the skin on my cheeks sore; my life is coming undone, how can this happen? How could Blake not warn Sean that Ryan was out there? He could have stopped all of this. Who was next? Blake, me . . . Cereus? I won’t allow it. I grab the small colt handgun Blake spent many years teaching me how to shoot, and stuff it into my handbag. I snatch the address Cereus gave me from the counter and stuff it into my jeans pocket. I call up the stairs to Cereus she’s not to leave the house and get no reply. She can hate me all she wants, she’ll understand one day when she has her own children. A patrol car is parked on the street next to our house, I don’t recognize the officers inside but one gets out and comes towards me, tilting his hat. “Good evening, Mam. We were sent by Detective Braxton.”
“I know.” I smile, trying to school my expressions to that of a somewhat normal person and not a crazed mama bear which is what I feel like inside.
“I need you to keep watch on the house and make sure my daughter doesn’t leave.”
He looks up at the house “Our assignment was to make sure you’re both safely inside, Mam.”
I look at his badge number, making him squirm. “What’s your name?”
“Officer Dudley, Mam.”
“Well, Officer Dudley, you can either stay and protect my daughter or I’ll call your captain and tell him you were snoozing in the car when I came out to offer you coffee.”
His mouth gapes and I leave him there and jump in my car.
MY FRONT DOOR CRASHES OPEN alerting me to a presence before a rain-soaked Cereus appears before me in my kitchen.
She looks down at the carving knife in my hand then quickly backs up. Her wet hair is hugging her cheeks, sticking from the moisture. She has no coat and is shivering, her top completely transparent, offering a look at the young flesh beneath.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, confused by her sudden appearance and demeanor.
“Is it true?” she pants, out of breath from her run over here.
I move towards her but she flinches back, her eyes once again going to the knife in my hand. I’d been using it to slice meat for a sandwich, which is still, half made on the surface behind me. Her eyes are focused on my movements, wary of what I plan to do.
Usually I would feed from someone’s fear but the rarest thing had happened to me over my time with her. I don’t want to scare Cereus. I’ve grown to like her and I have this need inside me that craves her. She’s part of me and connects me to the world. I’m tethered by blood, and appreciation for someone else, another life other than my own. I look forward to hearing what she has to say. I don’t love her but I don’t want to harm her or see any pain come to her. In my mind she’s mine. I felt a like for her Mom too but it didn’t stop me trying to kill Melody. But this is more powerful. She’s like me and she knows the real person inside and not the image I portray to others to reel them in. She has some of the darker urges like me and feels adrift in the world just like me. Hurting Melody was more to hurt Blake, to watch him come completely unraveled. I enjoyed playing with Melody’s life and thought I would Cereus’ when I first saw her. But I see parts of me in Cereus and it gave me my first real connection to the world I live in. She isn’t weak like most people. She isn’t irritating and gullible.
“You shouldn’t fear me, Cereus.”
Her body relaxes slightly, a sigh leaving her lips in a wisp lifting a strand of hair.
“I should fear you, but the crazy thing is, I don’t” Her feet pad the bare tiles beneath them, a trail of rainwater dripping in her wake. Her small shaky hand reaches out for mine wrapping around my wrist. Her arm raises my hand to her throat, the carving knife resting against the fragile skin where her pulse thumps in her neck. Her eyes delving into mine, searching.
“If you’re going to kill me, Ryan, then you’d best do it now.” Her hand slides up my wrist until it wraps around the handle of the blade.
My eyes are transfixed on the small red dent in her flesh from the pressure of the knife. A little more and the skin will separate, slicing open and leaking its red river, warm and bright, decorating her pale flesh. It would be such a waste to kill her.
“Because if the only reason you wanted to get to know me is so you can hurt me later,” she continues, “or to try and hurt Mom or Dad again . . .” Her movements are so quick, like a cat, her hand snatches the blade from mine and with a flip of her wrist reverses our positions. The knife digs into the side of my neck and the only thing I want to do is smile proudly at her. She’s magnificent, just like me. “ . . . I’ll be the one doing the killing.”
A pinch followed by a slight burn penetrates my flesh as she pulls her hand back. She cut me and did so with ease and no hesitation. I want to keep her. I want to go on a killing spree, with her holding the blade. She would so easily come over to the dark side and excel in my world.
“I don’t want to hurt you, which is a new thing for me.” I tell her.
“So, it’s true what Mom said?”
I smirk at the story Melody must have told her. I would be lying if I said the thought of Melody and her fear of me didn’t make me hard.
“All I can tell you is I am who I am, Cereus. I was born this way. You always felt a slight disconnect and a pull to the darker side. Well, I am the dark side. I don’t feel like others do. I was born soulless.”
“Was I?” she asks.
Reaching for the knife shaking in her palm and placing it on the counter, I tell her, “If you were, you wouldn’t be here threatening to kill me if I hurt the people you love.”
Her hands swipe at the trickles of the proof of her soul on her face. “Do you not love your family? Dad? He’s your brother.”
“I don’t work that way. I see him as more important than other people but even then it didn’t stop me nearly killing him.”
“Are you going to try to kill him again?”
“I don’t plan to, no.”
“Are you going to try and kill me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Do you love me?”
“No, I can’t love, Cereus, but I do favor your life over any other.”
“I love you, just so you know.”
“Even after what your mother has told you? Even after I’ve confirmed what I am?”
“Whatever else you are, Ryan, you’re my blood, my uncle and I love you no matter what.”
“Love is a weakness.”
“Love is a strength. It bonds us”
“How can it if I don’t feel it?”
“Because I will feel it for us both.”
“Can I listen to your heartbeat?” I ask.