“It’s not a coincidence that we met.”
Her hand drops from mine and I breathe in to steady my satisfaction of her wary stance and the small hint of fear in her eyes. I don’t want her to fear me but my own ego still gets off on the fact that she does.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“What do you know about your father’s brother?”
She looks perplexed then a small chuckle rattles from her chest.
“What’s amusing?” I ask, angered by her reaction.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, my Dad doesn’t have a brother.”
Her Dad doesn’t have a brother? I shouldn’t be offended or surprised but I am. He never told her about me? The cunt so easily replaced me with his own child, and wiped me from his family and thoughts! I should throw her in front of a train and watch him drown in grief but I don’t want to hurt her. She’s a part of me. She understands on some level what no one else has, me.
“What about your Mom? Has she ever mentioned a brother or her parents?”
I have her attention now and her arms wrap around her stomach in a protective gesture.
“My Mom’s an only child. Her parents died in a traffic accident before I was born. Ryan, what is this? Who are you?”
“You’re right about your Mom not having siblings. She had a fake brother for awhile but he doesn’t count. Your Dad, however, has a brother. A younger brother called Ryan. Me.”
“That can’t be right. I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t he tell me about you?”
I roll my shoulders. “Because I was put away for a long time and he forgot about me.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “He wouldn’t just forget he has a brother, Ryan! There has to be more.”
“I did some bad things and that’s why I was put away. With him being a detective, it looked bad on him and he was angry with me.”
Cereus looks down at her feet. “How bad were the things you did?”
“That depends who you ask.” I smirk and shrug my shoulders. She doesn’t smile in return; her face is stone.
“I’m asking you.”
“Then not that bad at all.”
She nods in understanding.
“You can’t tell your parents about us spending time together, Cereus. They won’t allow it if you do.”
“Okay,” she agrees, and then shyly smiles up at me, her hands dropping to her sides.
“So you’re my uncle? I feel weird about thinking you were kinda cute now.” She chuckles but it’s an unsure chuckle, and I hate that she’s uncomfortable.
“Uncles, cousins and even brothers and sisters were married off years ago to keep blood lines pure. It’s not unnatural to find me cute, although cute is extremely unmanly,” I playfully tell her, making her scrunch her nose up and then laugh.
“I missed my train,” she says.
I hadn’t even noticed them coming and going. “Let’s feed you instead, then.”
“Skipping school? You’re not setting a good example, Uncle,” she says, sarcastically.
“Oh, don’t count on me ever doing that.”
I THROW MYSELF ON MY bed, the lumpy mattress cutting into my muscles and making it impossible to get comfortable. Cereus is magnificent. She’s like a silhouette cast from my own shadow. All those little urges niggle at her. She finds people as irritating as I do. She cares for her parents, though. She knows love; feeling it and reciprocating it but that doesn’t make me hate her like it should. It doesn’t make me want to take those people from her and watch the effect it has. I don’t need to see her break and it’s refreshing to be around someone just to be around them. I don’t want to see her blood, I don’t want to lick her tears or break her body sexually. It’s a new concept for me and I’m not sure what to do with it. The knock at my door pulls me from over-thinking.
“Guess what?” Isabella asks, sauntering into my room.
I wish I hadn’t opened the door now.
“Guess what?” she repeats and I imagine her choking on her own blood.
“Can I cut you?”
It’s out of my mouth without thought of consequence and the red haze that always takes me hostage in the height of a kill begins clouding my vision. She doesn’t run screaming though. Instead, she chuckles and begins stripping her clothes from her body.
“Ha ha, so who told you? Jodie? I told her not to tell anyone. They warned me about the kink people go there for.”
I have no clue what the fuck she’s talking about, all I can see is her pale flesh, a canvas waiting for me to decorate in her own blood.
“Have you ever been there?”