I placed the thermometer under my tongue and the metallic taste of it filled my senses, drawing my thoughts away from Merl again. I was going to need a thousand distractions to keep him from my mind. The strangest thing was, despite all the emotions I felt towards his death, guilt didn’t once come into it. I felt responsible though. I felt the weight of his death like a ten ton truck on my shoulders. But he’d been hurting me. He would have hurt me far worse too. So in the end, all I’d done was survive.
The thermometer bleeped and I took it out, gazing down at the number.
“Well?” Saint demanded, still at the bottom of the stairs.
“Normal,” I told him with a breath of relief and I could have imagined it, but I swear his shoulders dropped a fraction.
He walked away, moving around the room as if assessing whether everything was in its rightful place. When he reached Kyan, he tidied the pillows around him and placed the Xbox controller back on top of the console with the other two, perfectly aligned. Then he got out a handheld hoover and used it to collect the crumbs from the bag of chips Kyan had apparently devoured before passing out, even running it over his chest and not stirring him at all. He slept like the dead.
When Saint was done cleaning he stood by the refrigerator, seeming out of place as he stared at nothing in particular.
I settled myself back down on the edge of the balcony, poking my legs through the holes between the railings as I surveyed him. There was something fascinating about him and I took the opportunity to observe him like I’d been tempted to a thousand times before. His features were so perfectly symmetrical that you couldn’t help but stare and study them. He was beautiful in a cruel sort of way. Like the devil had painted him pretty just to make this twisted creature even more lethal. His allure was a deadly trap. And I somehow couldn’t imagine him being intimate with a girl unless they were down on their knees, worshipping his cock like it was the spear of fucking destiny.
He suddenly threw his fist into the fridge, leaving a sizeable dent in it and I sat upright in alarm.
“What the hell?” I asked as he shook out his hand, eyeing the mark he’d left on the refrigerator. He took hold of a magnetic reminders board and slid it smoothly over the dent.
“Great, now we need a new refrigerator,” he muttered like that was the worst thing that had happened tonight.
“Are you alright?” I asked, kind of hating myself for it. He didn’t deserve for me to care, but a twitch in my heart said I did.
“My routine is fucked, Barbie. All of it is fucked. What am I supposed to do with myself?” He turned his gaze to the clock on the wall with a growl, muttering something about it being twelve forty three and that being an insult to the whole of humanity.
“Maybe you should get some rest,” I suggested, noticing the dark circles under his eyes.
“I suppose,” he said in growl. “But if I don’t sleep until tomorrow morning and start again fresh I’m going to kill myself.”
Woah, grumps alert.
His gaze moved from the couch where Kyan was sleeping to the chair beyond him, his lips tightly pressed together. Finally, he strode up to the fire and lay down on the rug on his back, shutting his eyes. I half expected him to fold his arms across his chest like Count Dracula, but after a while, his head lolled and a peacefulness fell over his expression that I’d never seen in his waking life. It was captivating. Almost angelic. Which was entirely paradoxical.
I cocked my head, unable to look away, especially when he rolled onto his side and curled up like a child. It made him seem almost human.
With the boys out for the count, I got to my feet, heading back to bed and checking my phone. I had a couple of messages from Mila making sure I was okay and I shot her one back confirming it and asking how she was doing in quarantine.
Mila:
All good, girl. I’ve been texting Danny pics of my kooch to study – totally diagrammed that shit too. Next time I see him, maybe he’ll be a better lay. Pray for me!
I laughed, replying with a row of prayer hands then I brought up my dad’s number and pressed call, hoping upon hope that he’d answer at last.
The line was dead. And I finally accepted he must have ditched his phone. What I would have given to hear his voice now and fall into the familiar rise and fall of it. He’d know exactly what to do in this situation. He’d tell me what I needed to hear so I could be okay again. But I didn’t have him here. I only had myself to rely on.
I laid back down on Saint’s pillows and my mind arrowed in on my body again. I didn’t feel right, but maybe that didn’t mean I was sick. Or maybe it did. And the virus was coming for me like a silent storm. At least my other enemies in this house were in plain sight, made of flesh and blood and bone. This one was invisible and it didn’t care who I was or what I was made of. Weak or strong. Young or old. If it was in me, there was already a sixty percent chance I was going to die. And so help me, I wasn’t ready for
