Deviant

Chapter 13

Elias

“Not to your liking, Mom?” I ask when my mother makes a face at the soup. “Tough shit. You know my cooking skills will never get much better than this, no matter how hard I follow those damned YouTube videos you keep sending me.”

Her eyes light up in a laugh, my tight chest easing somewhat that the ALS hasn’t stolen her sense of humor yet.

“How about this? I’ll make little airplane sounds like you used to do when we were kids and didn’t like our dinner?”

She rolls her eyes at me in defiance, but the glimmer of laughter is still present in her clear, blue eyes.

Nora and Aidan lucked out in that department. They got her eyes, whereas I got the dark blues of that asshole of a sperm donor. Aside from my name and the bastard’s eye and hair color, that’s where our similarities end.

As promised, I fly a half-filled spoon of pea soup into her mouth like an airplane, making the engine sound along the way. Her nose scrunches again at the taste, but she doesn’t turn her head this time, allowing me to give her another bite.

Fuck this illness.

She could still feed herself not two weeks ago, even if very poorly. But now, she can barely put two words together, much less do anything else.

Watching a person that you love just fade away like this… it’s fucking infuriating.

This unseen enemy she’s fighting all on her own is one I can’t do anything about.

And it fucking sucks.

I’m angry all the time.

All the fucking time now.

And once she’s gone, I fear what I’ll do.

Nora and Mom were the only people who kept my anger and fury at bay.

With Nora gone… and Mom quickly withering away… Aidan and I will be left to our own devices, and that’s not a good thing. I might end up killing the fucker just for breathing funny on me.

Fuck.

I can’t think like that.

Not yet, anyway.

Not while my mom still needs me.

“Shit,” I yell when she starts choking on the soup. “Shit! I’m sorry. Damn it all to hell,” I curse as I drop the soup bowl on the floor in my haste to help her.

This is all my fault.

I can’t be this fucking distracted.

I go to one knee to start cleaning up the mess when I feel my mother’s fingers run through my hair.

I crane my neck back to stare at her gaunt face and repeat, “I’m sorry.” And as I stare at her fragile frame, my anger dissipates instantly.

She shakes her head and frowns.

“No… sorry,” she says breathlessly.

“Don’t talk. Save your strength.”

She shakes her head even more profusely.

“No… sorry,” she repeats. “Just… grace.”

I hang my head down low because I no longer know the meaning of the word. I’m sure she would prefer me to cut myself some slack, but I can’t.

I’m all she’s got, which means I can’t fuck up like this.

If she’s counting on Aidan, then she’s in for a rude awakening.

The little shit already looks at her as if she were a chore instead of the woman who brought him into this world. The selfish fuck doesn’t even try to hide that he’s counting down the days until he no longer has to care for her. But that’s my shit-stain brother for you. If it doesn’t jump on his dick, then he can’t be bothered with it.

Fucker.

Yeah, he might have our mom’s eyes and her blond hair, but that’s all he got. The rest he inherited from our father.

When my mother lightly tugs at my hair, urging me to look up at her again, I do as she wishes.

“It’s… ti… me,” she says, exhausted.

“Time for what?” I ask in confusion.

“Death.”

A cold sweat starts to bead down my back at the conviction in her voice.

“No,” I retort, getting up from my knees.

She nods, her steel gaze never wavering from mine.

“I said no. I won’t do it,” I bark out, knowing exactly what she’s asking of me.

A few months after Nora passed, my mother came to me with one request—that I give her a mercy killing once she could no longer cope with her condition. My mindset then is the same one now—hell-to-the-fucking-no.

“Don’t look at me like that, Mom. I won’t do it.”

Her gaze dims in sadness, but she doesn’t break eye contact with me for even a second.

“You… will.”

“I won’t.” I shake my head vehemently. “I told you before that I can’t do that. I just fucking can’t. Not to you.”

I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep sending someone else to meet their maker. I’d sleep like a fucking baby with their blood still on my clothes.

But my mother?

Killing the one person who has always loved me unconditionally since birth?

Yeah… there are some fucked-up things that even I can’t do.

I don’t love easily.

Fuck.

I don’t love, period.

In all my life, only two people earned that sentiment from me—my mom and my baby sister. No one else. As long as those two were alright, the whole of Blackwater Falls could fucking burn to ash for all I cared.

I never really wasted my time psychoanalyzing myself as to why I’d be just fine watching the world burn as long as the people I loved were safe. It’s just how I’m built, and I’m okay with it.

Perhaps if we were out in the real world, I would try to be a different kind of animal—one that gave a fuck. But living in Blackwater Falls, not giving a shit, actually works in my favor. After all, I suspect it’s one of the traits that has kept me from being chosen for the Harvest Dozen all these years – that and the fact that I’m a little unhinged when it comes to holding grudges. They want people they can manipulate. Easily killed. They don’t want me. They know if they made the mistake of choosing me, I’d give them a fight they would never forget.

Fuck.

Not only would I win the games, but I’d go to the ends of the earth to kill every motherfucker who organized it.

Whoever is behind this fucked-up ritual must know that.

So why tempt fate when there is no need for it?

Smart fuckers.

“Let me clean this up and get you another bowl,” I say, pretending that my mom didn’t just ask me to off her.

She turns her face away from me, knowing she’s lost today’s battle. Unfortunately, I know that she’s stubborn enough to ask me again, thinking she will tire me into doing what she wants.

But I won’t submit.

I will not take my mother’s life.

Anyone else’s, is fine. Not hers.

Her’s is sacred.

Once I’ve picked up the now-cracked bowl off the floor along with the spoon, I leave her bedroom and walk over to the kitchen to grab a mop and a bucket. I then return to her room, getting the silent treatment as she watches me soaking the mop with the green-toned broth. After finishing, I go back to the kitchen, grab a fresh bowl of soup, and return to her room, disappointed to see her no longer in the mood to be fed.

“You have to eat,” I demand, but she won’t have any of it. “So, is that your big plan now? If I don’t kill you, you’ll just starve to death? Is that it?” I ask, her attitude wearing my patience thin. When I see a crack of a smile start to play on her lips, I lose my shit completely. “Fine. You want to die so badly, then die already! What’s fucking taking you so long?! You’re so ready to be with Nora that you forget we need you here, too. I fucking need you, too! I need you, Mom! Me! So how about you reflect on that shit before you start fantasizing about all the ways you could die.”

Her hurt expression stabs me in the chest, forcing me to storm out of her room rather than having to look at it for another second.

In my agitated state, I end up in Nora’s room, kicking and punching everything in sight. With one fell swoop, I pull down all her anime books from the bookshelves, along with her precious knickknacks and photo frames. They all pile on the floor as I continue to expel all my rage in the only room of the house that should have remained untouched.

My anger blinds me to the point of not knowing what I’m doing any longer. It takes me a good half hour to get a hold of myself, but after my fury runs out of steam, I sit on the edge of my sister’s bed and hide my face in my palms.

Life has always been fucked.

It’s how things are in this town.

The minute you are born, death just hangs over your head like a fucked-up halo.

But this… I don’t think there’s another family in all of Blackwater Falls that has suffered as much as ours.

It’s as if we’re cursed to die before our time, even if The Scourge doesn’t get us.

Mom from her ALS.

Aidan from some STD, most likely.

If I had to guess, then I’ll probably get killed after picking a fight with the wrong person.

And Nora… Yeah, well, her so-called best friend got her in the end.

Fucking-Rowen-Hawthorne.

If anyone deserves to die, it’s her.

Even she knows it but is too chicken shit to do the job.

As I survey the utter chaos I’ve created in my baby sister’s room, I get up from the bed and start putting everything back in its rightful place while envisioning how I could help Rowen finish the job.

I could push her off the bridge one night.

I could climb up her bedroom window and put a pillow over her head until she suffocates.

Or I could kidnap her one afternoon right after her shift and take her deep into the mountains. Then tie her naked to a tree, cut her up real nice and slow until the wolves catch her scent to finish her off.

So many options.

So much potential.

Just imagining all the ways that I could hurt her takes me into a Zen-like state, making me completely relaxed.

Feeling lighter than a few minutes ago, I continue to clean up my baby sister’s room, leaving it neatly organized without any signs of my short-lived destruction.

As I arrange the last set of books onto the shelves, a little black notebook catches my eye. A flood of memories comes back to me, one particularly more vivid than the others—Nora walking around with this notebook a month before her death.

“The fuck are you always scribbling in that notebook for?” I tease before lighting up a cigarette.

“Like I’d ever tell you?” Nora retorts teasingly, smirking as she continues to write down whatever little secret she’s hiding from me.

“Fine. Keep your secrets. See if I care.” I chuckle.

“Oh, don’t play coy, big brother. I’m sure it’s eating you up inside, not knowing.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” I take a drag just as I hear a familiar engine nearby. “Better hide your little black book, though.”

“Why?”

“Cause here comes your girlfriend,” I tease when Rowen’s station wagon pulls up in our driveway.

“Shut up. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s Aidan’s, remember?”

“Someone should tell her that then. The girl only ever comes over when you’re here. Aidan has to fucking beg her to come. And from what our thin walls suggest, he begs her to come a lot… and without success.” I laugh.

“Ew. Please don’t tell me that you hear them fucking?” Nora scrunches up her nose in distaste.

“Believe me, I try not to. But our asshole of a brother is a talker and moaner.”

“I think I just threw up a little.”

“Yeah, yeah. You hit that yet or not?” I ask as Rowen parks her car, taking a minute to look at herself in the rearview mirror to fix her hair.

“No. Of course not.”

“But you want to, don’t you?” I goad, knowing my baby sister has been jonesing to get all up in Rowen’s business.

Hey, even I wouldn’t mind a taste. Ever since she turned eighteen and finally lost her cherry, she’s been looking like a treat—one I wouldn’t mind taking a bite of.

Poor girl is wasted on my brother.

Fucker wouldn’t know what to do with a girl like that if he was given a manual.

I, on the other hand, would know exactly what to do with Rowen.

I wouldn’t have to beg her to come.

She’d come on demand.

“Doesn’t matter what I want,” Nora says, pulling me out of my wicked fantasies. “She’s not gay.”

“Thought you told me most girls were fluid.”

“No,” Nora rolls her eyes. “What I said is that not everyone’s tastes are that black and white. I bet even you could be tempted to dip your toe in more manly waters in the right setting and with the right person.” She wiggles her brows at me suggestively.

“Not saying that you’re wrong. Who knows? Maybe my prince charming is out there waiting for me, and I don’t even know it.”

“And now you’re patronizing me,” Nora grumbles.

“No, what I’m saying is that I highly doubt that dick tastes as sweet as pussy does, and you know how much of a sweet tooth I have.” I wink.

“You really do have a way with words, big brother.”

“I think so.” I shrug with a cocky smile.

She shakes her head in laughter just as we both hear Rowen slam the car door behind her and skip toward us.

In a little flowery summer dress, no less.

The girl reminds me of a Lana del Rey song—a melancholy soundtrack playing in the back while a bombshell sings her soul out, knowing that each word that falls from her lips will have men on their knees in utter worship.

Fuck.

My sister must have one serious case of blue balls with that girl always hanging around her all damn day.

I wouldn’t be able to resist such temptation, that’s for goddamn sure.

And I wouldn’t be a lousy fuck like my limp-dick of a brother, either.

I’d fuck her so good and raw she’d be walking differently after I was done with her.

Before Rowen reaches us on the porch, I don’t miss how Nora hides her little black book between the throw pillows on the patio couch.

“Hi,” Rowen greets cheerfully, with rosy cheeks and pink pouty lips. She doesn’t spare me a look as she bulldozes over to Nora, hugging her like she hasn’t seen her in millennia.

Rowen’s ass is almost visible from where I’m standing, and I can’t help but take a little peek at her white-laced panties, barely covering her luscious ass.

“Nice,” I mouth over at Nora, who has her eyes on me.

“Stop,” she warns.

I lick my lips and grin, tugging on my cigarette, wishing I was biting one of Rowen’s ass cheeks instead.

“Let’s go inside,” Nora says to her friend, still eyeing me to behave.

As much as I find the idea of fucking Rowen appealing to me—if only to fuck with Aidan a little—I would never do that to Nora. I know her feelings for her best friend go way beyond sexual infatuation.

She loves her.

And you don’t fuck with people that you love.

As Rowen passes me by to head inside, I catch her glancing over at me ever so discreetly, her cheeks reddening in shyness.

Yeah, that would get boring too.

Rowen’s body might be primed for a good fucking, but her temperament is just… blah.

Bland and boring.

And I don’t fuck boring.

She’s a byproduct of Blackwater Falls, unfortunately. No life in her whatsoever—only indoctrinated submission.

I watch Rowen and my sister walk into the house while I finish my cigarette on the porch.

Mom hates the smell of cigarettes, and though she disapproves of the bad habit, the only imposition she’s made is that I not smoke inside the house.

As I walk to the coffee table to stub my cigarette out, I’m reminded of the little black notebook Nora hid from her best friend.

Hmm. She’s keeping more secrets from Rowen than just her crush. I wonder what else she could be hiding.

Curiosity gets the best of me as I slowly walk over to where the book is stashed and pick it up. Unfortunately, I don’t even have time to crack it open since Nora reappears and snatches it away from my hands.

“Curiosity killed the cat, big brother. Remember that,” she warns with a stealthy glare.

I watch her re-enter the house and leave it at that.

So, she has secrets.

Who the fuck doesn’t?

Might as well leave her to them.

I sure as shit wouldn’t want her messing around in mine.

With her little black book now in my hands, I can’t help but wonder if Nora might still be with us if I had been more vigilant. But as I flick the pages of her book, it dawns on me that my baby sister had bigger secrets than I could have ever imagined.

“Goddamn it, Nora,” I mumble as I read all the intel and research she had done on The Scourge and how she was strategizing a way out for our family by being chosen for the Harvest Dozen.

She was always smart. Clever too. And most importantly, she was motivated. Combined with her stubbornness, there was no way she wouldn’t have done anything in her power to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was to save our mother’s life.

Pain stabs me in the heart how she deluded herself into believing that leaving Blackwater Falls was the answer to all our problems.

ALS doesn’t have a cure. It was bound to take our mother away from us, whether we lived here or anywhere else. But I guess Nora needed to believe that she had some kind of control over the situation.

Hmm.

When I reach a passage where Nora describes her talks with the old priest, I’m reminded of how Rowen’s life was almost cut short when she paid the wacko her own visit.

Wait…

Wait just one goddamn minute.

Could it be that Rowen is trying to follow in my sister’s footsteps?

Is that her plan?

Fuck. It must be.

But while Nora’s intentions in getting selected were to save our mother—a naive notion at best—I doubt Rowen’s are as selfless.

If I was a gambling man, I’d bet my last dollar that she’s trying to get selected for The Scourge so they could do the job she’s been too much of a coward to finish herself.

“My, my, my, isn’t this fortuitous?” I smile sinisterly as I read each line my sister wrote.

But how do I feel about that?

About someone else getting the pleasure of watching the life bleed away from Rowen’s eyes?

The fuck that’s happening.

No.

I’ll be the one to have that privilege. No one else. I’d kill the fucker who even dared to try.

But still, if that’s her intention, then I need to make sure she gets what she wants.

I always knew that all Rowen needed was a little push.

And this book right here in my hands, with all its details, is all the motivation she’ll need.

Soon, Rowen. Soon, you’ll have everything that’s coming to you.

I promise you that.