by Nicole Thorn
Her nose wrinkled. “You’ve only slept with two guys? You’re almost eighteen, loser.”
I blushed. “Only kissed two guys, and a girl freshman year.” And a woman…
Everyone gasped at me. Seth snorted in laughter. “Aww, that’s kinda cute.”
My cheeks still burned. “Thanks…”
Rosita seemed unconvinced. “Are you keeping your junk on lockdown till you’re wedded, or are you just picky? I mean, I get that. Make them work for it.”
I shrugged. “I never had time to find the right guy. I haven’t lived in a place longer than six months since I was a kid.”
Hillary laughed. “Plenty of time for some fun. You don’t need to be in love to get off, Lynn.”
“I’d like to be.”
Rosita patted my head. “Good luck with that. Every guy in this school is lame.”
“Hey!” Axel and Seth shouted. “Not cool,” her brother said. “I know my way around lady parts backwards and forwards.”
“Eww,” his sister said.
Seth grinned and put an arm around Bird. “Don’t be so uptight, Rose. Everybody has sex. Pretty much.”
“Eh,” I managed to say.
Bird made a face. “You gotta get in while you’re still young and hot. It’s gross once you hit forty. I mean, can you imagine some old man thrusting on top of you?” She made a gagging sound, and then doubled down on it when Seth decided to act her scenario out. Bird giggled and shoved him off her.
She righted herself when she decided to finish her list. She only informed me of some of the things she put on the list. She wanted it to be a surprise. One I didn’t care about.
Lunch ended and we all had to go back to class. Everyone continued chatting about the newest body, but I focused on my schoolwork. The teachers got pissy, too. Several students were sent to the office because they wouldn’t shut the hell up.
When school ended, Bird invited me to go shopping for my party supplies, but I didn’t want to go. It seemed rude to shop for a party when families grieved. I didn’t know them, but I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
I picked up something to eat on my way home since I didn’t feel like cooking for myself later. I could only get fast food, but I didn’t mind anymore. Ever since I had been a kid, I’d lived off fast food for the most part. It had been why I learned to cook in the first place. Also why I had a little more than most girls. Not that I minded. I packed in all the right places, so I didn’t care that I had a little extra.
I brought the food home and ate in the living room. I figured if I got hungry later, I could have some ice cream. That always did the trick. I put on some show about werewolves and vampire things and instantly regretted it. It had been the wrong thing to watch while trying to eat, but it thoroughly entertained and distracted me.
An especially bloody scene made me take a break from my dinner to go through the mail I picked up. I had four birthday cards from relatives that never spelled my name quite right. At least they had tried.
Altogether, I counted out about two hundred bucks. I could get a ton of books with that, so I tucked it all away into a card and set it aside so that I could place a late night order sometime. Everything looked like a good idea at two in the morning.
Hours went by before Netflix basically called me a loser. Yes, Netflix, I have to watch another fucking episode. I hit the button and laid down.
I picked out this couch with the last housekeeper we had. She had really great taste, and my parents didn’t have time to do the shopping with me. So this happened to be the most comfortable couch in the world, at great cost to my parents. And because they abandoned me, I bought one for my housekeeper, too. Maria had been a sweet lady, and my parents didn’t pay her enough. I took care of that as much as I could. Mom and Dad didn’t even notice. I wished I could have known that woman longer. She had been so motherly to me in the time we knew each other.
I had finished eating right before an episode ended, and I decided to move to my room. It hadn’t gotten late, but I had a habit of falling asleep watching TV. I’d rather wake up in my bed for those occasions.
I threw out all my trash and cleaned up the living room before I headed off to my bedroom. I checked my phone on the way and I didn’t have a single text.
Which made it safe to put on my jammies, so I pulled out a pair of shorts and a shirt from my drawer. They matched, having little dancing waffles on them. Why? I didn’t have a clue, but they looked cute. I left them on the bed and headed into my bathroom.
The all white room had seemed dreadfully boring to me when we bought the house, butI liked how my light blue decorations popped in it. Though, they didn’t catch my attention when I walked in this time. A little pink box sat on my counter. It had been wrapped beautifully. It looked about six by six inches, and just as tall. The wrapping paper had little pink clouds on them that all said ‘I <3 u’, and the whole thing had been tied with a blood red ribbon.
The box looked beautiful, sitting there. I didn’t have a clue who would have left it. Maybe my father, as an early birthday present. He didn’t know me well enough to have a clue what to buy me, but whatever he chose would be interesting.
I picked up the little white card on the top and noticed the calligraphy. My father couldn’t have done that himself. The words read: To Lynn. Your heart belongs to me.
Weird, if this is from my dad…
I pulled the ribbon off and dragged the silky fabric through my fingers before I dropped it on the counter. Then I pulled the lid off. Alstroemerias filled the box. The little red flower had purple specks decorating their center. They looked stunning, and I breathed in deeply, putting the box to my nose.
The smell hit me like a baseball bat to the face. Blood and rot; Two scents that I knew in a damn second. When I pulled the box away, I stared at the flowers and tried not to gag.
Something peeked through the petals. Something a deeper red. I picked a few flowers out, tossing them on the counter. When I saw what they hid, I screamed. The box dropped to the counter and more flowers bounced out, revealing the heart inside.
My scream cut off when everything I’d eaten the entire day decided to leave my body. I doubled over by the toilet, trying not to cry from the pain of the exodus. It didn’t work. Afterward, I collapsed by my tub. My face hit the cold tile and I groaned.
My breaths came in short, painful pants. My stomach cramped from the sudden vomiting, and it made my whole body hurt. I ended up staring at the ceiling, catching glimpses of the flowers in my peripheral vision.
It had been real. I knew it had been a real heart. No one could fake that smell. It stuck in my nose. I didn’t know if it would ever go away.
When I could, I got myself up off the floor. I didn’t want to look again, but my eyes stuck to the box. I couldn’t even try and think of who would do this to me. I had to focus on little things. Steps. What I had to do next. One, flush the toilet. Done. Two… my mouth tasted awful. I couldn’t brush my teeth in the bathroom. It would contaminate the crime scene. Is it a crime scene? I guess I didn’t know, but I needed to not touch anything else.
I stumbled out of my bathroom, grabbing my phone on the way to the other bathroom, near the guest room, and I had it all decked out. I ripped open a new toothbrush from a pack and ran the water.
As I dialed 911, I thought about how the box had been left in my bathroom. In my locked house. Someone broke in and left it for me. I’d been in my living room for hours, and it sat in my bathroom. Is someone still here?
“911, what is your emergency?” a woman asked me in a flat tone.
I had started crying, but I tried my hardest to speak anyway. “Um, I was… I was home and I went into my bathroom. There was this thing. Someone broke into my house and left a box in my bathroom…” I stopped to sob.
“Ma’am, are you in immediate danger?”
“I don’t know,” I cried. “There was a heart in the box.”
“I’m sending someone your way. If you think y
ou’re in danger, lock yourself in a room. There will be someone there in five minutes, honey. I have your address, and they’re coming for you. Do you want me to stay on the line with you?”
I slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it. “Um, no. I have to… I have to call my mom.”
“Okay. Just remain calm. You’ll be safe soon.”
We hung up and I squeezed too much toothpaste onto the brush as I called up my mother. I broke down and I didn’t think I could go over the story twice.
I scrubbed my teeth while the phone rang. It went to voicemail the first two times I called, but she picked up on the third. “Lynn! What have I told you?”
I cried so hard. “Please come home, Mommy.”
Her tone changed in a moment. “What happened?”
“Someone broke into my room. They left a bloody heart on my bathroom counter. I called the police.”
Her end of the line went silent, but I could hear sirens in the distance. “Lynn, are you okay?”
“No. Come home. Please. I don’t know what to do.”
“Just stay right where you are. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
I hung up and rinsed my mouth out as best I could. The sirens sounded right outside of the house. I listened to them as I gathered the strength to open up the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
Guardian
Isaiah
I leapt to my feet the second I heard the address from the dispatcher. He wanted to send someone else, but I didn’t give him the option. I got in my car and flew down the street before he could tell me no.
I didn’t hear the call, but overheard the dispatcher say there might still be an intruder in the house, and someone left a body part in her bathroom. I couldn’t think clearly. She was in danger, and I had to stop it.
I’d been watching her house for days, checking in on Lynnie at night. I never spoke with her, and she never saw me. I didn’t want her to. She wouldn’t like it. I knew this crossed a line, but I didn’t care. I needed to see her.
My head ran with all the possibilities of who could have broken into her house. Her family had a lot of money, so if it had been a normal break in, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. I would have found him, killed him, and been done with it.
But it couldn’t be something that simple, no. Someone hadn’t come to take her things. They wanted to scare her. Who could want to scare someone like her? Who could want to scare an angel?
I got to her house and parked alongside the sidewalk. I threw my door open, barely turning the car off. Then I pounded on her door, getting ready to break it down if I had to.
It took a miserable amount of time for the door to open. When it did, Lynnie stood weakly on the other side. She had bloodshot eyes and splotchy red cheeks. New tears followed the path of the older ones, refreshing the trail. She saw me, and threw herself against my chest.
Unprepared for that reaction, I stumbled back on the porch. Her arms came around my waist and she grasped me tighter than someone as small as her should’ve been able to. More sobs came as she held onto me for dear life. I knew that she felt afraid, as opposed to grieved. Most of the time, I couldn’t even identify human emotion, let alone understand it, but I knew what she felt in that moment.
I didn’t know how to soothe another person. I simply never learned how. But Lynnie looked to me to do something. I could at least fake it.
I rubbed her back and hushed her as best I could. She tried to calm down, but had no luck. I decided that she shouldn’t be standing. She needed to rest. Without a word, I peeled her arms from me and picked her up. Her head rested against my shoulder as I brought her to sit on the porch. I placed her on the ground and sat beside her. I tried to give her room, but she outright refused. She moved over, curling up and putting her head back on my shoulder.
“What happened?” I asked in a whisper.
Lynnie tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’ve been home for hours. I was in there, watching TV. Then I went to go get ready for bed. I went into my bathroom and there was this box on my counter. I thought that maybe my dad left it. My birthday is Friday and, I don’t know, he’s never given me a present like that before.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Back when they did give me actual presents, the maids always wrapped them. I should have known it wasn’t him.”
I shouldn’t touch her. Mustn’t sully the angel. But she sat right beside me. She wanted me to make her feel better. I rested my hand on the middle of her back and ran it up and down the length of her spine, slowly and calmly. She reacted gently. Her eyes locked on me and she wiggled a little closer. Acceptance.
“What did I do wrong?” she whimpered against my chest.
My free hand went to her head and I held her close. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Lynnie. There are bad people in the world and they like hurting the good people.”
Another siren alerted me to the sheriff. I had to loosen my hold on Lynnie when he showed up. He couldn’t see me holding her like that. A scared girl clinging to a warm body, sure. But that warm body clinging back would raise a few eyebrows.
The sheriff came to the porch and walked into the house, moving past us. “Barker, you could have waited for me.” He went for his gun, pulling it from the side. “Is the house clear?”
“I didn’t check.”
He looked to Lynnie and sighed. “Can you keep an eye on her while I check?”
“Yeah.”
He took off and I stayed put. He had turned his siren off, but the lights still swirled on his car. Surely that would get some attention from the neighbors.
When he moved out of sight, I pulled Lynnie back to me. She tilted her head up. “What if he’s still here? He could have been hiding. He could come and kill me.”
“See this?” I moved to gesture to the gun on my hip. “If he’s here and I see him, I’ll blow his brains out.” As soon as the words left me, I realized that I shouldn’t have said them to a eighteen-year-old girl who’d just been traumatized with gore.
But her eyes locked onto mine. “You promise?”
I smiled and rubbed her back. “I promise.”
“Good.”
I patted her back, making her perk up. “You’re a lot tougher than you look.”
She shrugged. “I kinda have to be.”
“Barker?” Sherriff Draper called from a room not too far from where we sat. “Come see this. The house is clear.”
I turned to Lynnie. “Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll just go throw up again.” She held her face in her hands and I listened to her shallow breathing for a moment.
I had to leave her, and I followed Draper’s voice until I found myself in Lynnie’s bedroom. She had set it up with simple decorations. Her bed looked far too big for one little body, and her sleep clothes had been tossed on it. Those little shorts that killed me hung off the end. What I wouldn’t give to pull those off her.
The sheriff stood in her bathroom, which had been connected to her bedroom. He stared down at a box on her counter, wrapped all pretty with a little bow beside it.
“I can’t tell if it’s human,” Draper said, peering into the box. I pulled my attention back enough to look as well.
Flowers had been included in the gift, which I found almost as disturbing as what lay under them. The heart almost seemed like a mockery, considering the package it had come in. “It’s human,” I said because I knew all too well what a human heart looked like close up.
I had caused this. I knew it. Only one person in this town other than me would do something so sick. The Ripper taunted Lynnie, and it had to be because of me. I couldn’t see any other connection. I set him up twice, and everyone jumped so quickly to believe it. I didn’t know how he knew her connection to me, but he did. He hadn’t done this for Lynnie. He did it to punish me.
Why? Why would he care if I talked to a girl a couple of times? Just a normal girl.
Oh. Dammit.
She is not just a
girl.
I’m an idiot. I thought I killed Miss Finch because I had been itching for some relief. I had been dumb enough to buy that because the truth didn’t seem fathomable. The teacher had been easy, and I convinced myself that I did it because of that. No. I did it because she hurt Lynnie. And Lynnie brought me relief where I didn’t know there could be any; in a person, alive and breathing. Looking at her did the same for me as ending a life. It made the pressure go away.
I didn’t know at first because it felt different. It felt calmer, softer. When I killed someone, it usually felt violent and bright. Lynnie acted as sunshine. Gentle but powerful. She could do anything.
How the hell did this happen? I knew I wanted to sleep with her, but emotions and sex didn’t have to go together. I’d never had emotions. I didn’t have the tool to understand what had been happening to me until it hit me upside the head.
What the hell am I supposed to do now? Not only did I want to get inside a eighteen-year-old (almost nineteen, I supposed) but I wanted more than that. I’d been watching her for days, sneaking to her house every night to make sure… Make sure of what? I hadn’t done it to keep her safe, or even to talk to her. I had just wanted to see her. Seeing her had been enough. I went to sleep after, and she came with me, safe in that false world I made in my head.
“You think this was our guy?” Draper asked. “I don’t see a lotta other options.”
“Neither do I.”
Draper covered the box with the lid. “That poor girl. Why would he target her? He could have just killed her if he wanted.” I hid a cringe. “But instead, he left her this. Why is that?”
“Changing his game maybe.” It didn’t matter why. I’d find him and kill him. He hurt Lynnie, and that meant he had to suffer.
“He killed a man,” the sheriff mused. “How far is he expanding this? The girl fits his original profile.”
A woman’s voice caught our attention. She spoke to Lynnie in a way that didn’t alarm either of us. It seemed safe, but I went out to check anyway. Draper followed.
The woman talking to Lynnie dressed nicely. She looked to be a bit taller, even without the heels. She wore skirt and a button up, complete with jacket. The picture of uptight. She had her brown hair tied back tight, and she had the same eye color as the angel on the porch.
