Oblivious to my harsh gaze, he continued, “Well, you know what they say, to get over a girl, you gotta let a new one climb aboard. Why don’t you let Tasha help you put those back in?”
Khaos liked to bend the rules until you broke, instead of the rules doing the breaking. He knew there was something happening between Abigail and I, and this was him forcing me to cop to it.
I didn’t bend or break, so I let Tasha climb on top of me as I dropped my pound of metal on my chest for her to pick through and try to put back in place. She was a caramel color that only made me compare her tan to Abigail’s. Her eyes weren’t almond shaped like Abigail’s either; they were more round with lash extensions that weighed her lids down. She smelled like coconut and tanning oil on top of me when she untangled my gold chain and started organizing my jewelry without any words, just a smile.
“She’s the closest thing I have to your girl. Quiet, polite, that docile shit you like. Anything you can control.”
I did like control, just not being controlled. Big difference.
A lesson my girl needed to learn.
I don’t know how I fell asleep with Tasha on top of me putting my piercings back in, but I did. When I woke up, the sky was in a state of sorbet dusk, and the party was still going strong, like before was just the pregame to the main event. It never ended.
Khaos laid down on the chaise lounge next to me with a worried look in his eye. Khaos never worried, so if you had the privilege of seeing that expression, something was wrong.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on? You just spent 8 hours at my house, and 7 of them were asleep—dead asleep, I might add. I had shit balancing on your nose, through your nose ring. I almost teabagged you.”
“If you put your balls anywhere near my face, I’m gonna to gut you.” Scrubbing my face, I sat up, shocked I slept through the DJ now producing music instead of someone’s iPhone and a speaker. The quality between night and day changed drastically.
“Tumor.” It spilled out of me.
Keeping my eyes forward, I refused to see him react.
“So you aren’t crazy after all? It’s a tumor?”
Scoring down, I flung my legs over the edges. “Guess so. That death rattle has a method to its madness. Nothing worse than thinking you’re nuts, when it’s a tumor.”
Khaos wanted me to make heads or tails of something I had barely begun to process. There was a tumor, pressing all the wrong buttons, making me feel like I had a monster living upstairs.
“What are you gonna do, bro?”
“Nothing. I’m not risking being Jason again…” Even saying my own name tasted weird in my mouth. The name alone felt like I was talking about some guy I wasn’t fond of.
“Are you fucking serious? All because you don't wanna risk going back to being Vic, the original?”
That was enough reason. I used to be exactly like Vic. Hard ass, suck up, perfect little Clave member. The only difference was I was ruthless and had a license to kill. Strategies didn’t even get his hands dirty, not like mine.
“Do you want me to go back to being that? All these fucking antics… on your own.”
I watched him pick up a bottle of spiced rum and tip it back into his mouth. He was already mourning me, and I wasn’t even dead.
“There’s a taco bar…” The light in his eyes now snuffed out, I groaned to myself at his words.
“Dude. That is so demeaning. Fuck, man… they’re women.”
Hiking a thumb over his shoulder, I followed it to see catering managing a legit taco bar. “Seriously. Del Taco is catering, but I’ve got every flavor topping too… Daniella, Tasha, Heidi, Kat, Ashlee, Brittany. You name it.”
Standing up, I let my open hand push him back. Shaking my head, I made my way toward the food. I used to be the better version of what Vic was trying to be, until something broke inside me. Reality settled in, or maybe I just got tired of being controlled. That’s when my nickname became something else entirely.
The old me wouldn’t have even hung out with Khaos unless I was forced. Vic was the only one of the four I deemed worthy of my time, because he was as blind as I was.
The blind leading the blind.
Now I was the sanity leading this crazy motherfucker.
“You gonna admit there’s something between you and Abigail yet? Wait… are you still a virgin?!” His voice dripped in sarcasm that he was fluent in.
“Do you always talk this much? It's just easier to ignore when we’re around other people?”
“Ohhh, you’ve got jokes now… cute. It’s okay to be a virgin, man. I can give you plenty of tips.”
Pushing him away from me, I focused on putting tacos on my plate. I never gave anyone the inside look to me or my life. They only got the surface, lacquered and mirrored to reflect whatever the fuck energy it was they brought to the table. It was all a parlor trick to keep people off my case.
“I’ve had sex, okay… Plenty... Abigail included.”
His hand clamped down on my shoulder and shook me in a silent celebration. “Okay, now I know something is going on between you two. Is Grimm, the dark and twisty killer for hire, in love?”
His words felt like a weight on my shoulders that could probably be abolished if I just admitted whatever I felt had well ran past the lines of a crush, but not yet touching that word. I didn't exchange that word with my parents. I felt protective of her, attracted to her, out of control with her in a way that was healthy instead of what that normally meant: my monster being on the loose.
“I don't love. We’re four horsemen. We have a job to do, and it doesn’t come with the luxury of falling in love with anyone they don’t choose for us.”
Khaos rolled his eyes so hard I saw the whites longer than I wanted to.
Fucking creep.
“We can do whatever the fuck we want, man! We’re horsemen. We are the fucking princes of the Clave. Fucking royalty!” He was all dramatics and shouting, like he was about to make a speech. “Their rules are fucking gold-plated. They wanted to control what shouldn’t be controlled. We were the apocalypse waiting to happen, but they had been trying to stave off with rules and bullshit elbow rubbing.”
His parents were the most liberal, hailing from Paris and having ties with the occult. He knew the reality of our situation because his parents trusted him enough to know. Meanwhile, the rest of us were in the dark, just trying to fill the roles we were given.
My parents were the top of the food chain and had the tightest lips you ever saw—straight lines across their mouths—a line you weren't crossing.
“Get down from the fucking table, you psycho.”
Standing between bottles of alcohol and ice buckets on the table, he jumped into the pool, blowing water everywhere. I felt the water dampen my back, still shirtless, thank god. I wanted an escape from my life, and it was getting my back wet, while I decided between fish or beef tacos.
Tasha, the same girl who shoved my metal back into me, came up alongside me with her hand landing on my forearm. “I didn’t get to introduce myself earlier… Tasha.”
“Not interested.” I didn’t even look up at her. The only girl I wanted threw a tantrum and ignored me all day, all because I spoke the truth sitting on her lips that she refused to admit to. Abigail looked at me in a way that felt like she could love me even if I was broken, in a cult of psychos, and not even promised to her. I knew how she looked at me, because I looked at her the same fucking way. If only I were different or she was less… perfect.