Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (13 page)

“What
happened to you today?” he asked sincerely.

“Shit,” I
replied through bursts of laughter. I shook my head at the ridiculousness that
was my life. He looked confused, but I sighed happily and kissed him on the
chin. “I’m going to take a shower.” I turned and left him standing there. I was
halfway down the hall when I finally said, “Where’s my mom?”

“Putting in
applications for an apartment.” I stopped in my tracks. “For you,” he added.

Jesus H.
Christ. I closed my eyes and blew air from my lips. Let it go, I told myself. I
didn’t ask any more questions. Any answers he had, I probably didn’t want to
hear anyway.

My room was
just like it always had been when I still lived at home. Only clean. I opened
the dresser drawers to find ten-year-old jeans and t-shirts folded neatly.
Socks, undies, it was all there. I dug through my sock drawer for a pair of
underwear and heard a clank when something hit the wood at the bottom. It took
just a second to shove stuff away and see what it was. I smiled so wide my eyes
nearly closed.

I couldn’t
believe my mom still hadn’t discovered my secret box. Chuckling, I took out the
wooden box, no bigger than my two hands, and plopped down on my bed. Inside
were all my treasures from high school. A few snapshots of Tatum and me, and a
few of our other friends we never saw anymore. One was pregnant last I

heard
, but
it had been awhile. A note from Brody Sinclair, the only fancy note I got in high
school. Fat girls in high school didn’t get much play. I didn’t bother opening
it. I didn’t need to be reminded of that douche. A half empty pack of smokes.
My mom’s brand. I’d likely stolen it from her purse or something. A mini BIC
lighter and a small metal pipe. My curiosity took over and I smelled the bowl,
still packed with decade old marijuana. It still smelled good. I hadn’t smoked
pot since college; Mike wasn’t exactly a condoner of street drugs, no matter
how harmless.

I pulled a
stale cigarette from the pack and lit it. It crackled and tasted like shit. I
choked and made a face, but smoked it anyway. My mom didn’t smoke in the house
and she would be pissed if she knew I was smoking in my room. So, I grabbed the
box and all its contents, and went to the bathroom that my room shared with the
guest room. I flipped on the fan and the light in one swoop.

Sitting on
the toilet lid, I smelled the weed again. I thought about Angela and her crack
pipe and how fucked up she was.

“Not even
close,” I whispered to my conscience and put the pipe to my lips.

The idea of
some form of relaxation after such a shitty weekend overtook any qualms about
smoking weed at nearly thirty. Unlike the cigarette, the pot lit and smoked
just as if it were fresh. I took the smoke into my lungs and held it before
blowing it up toward the fan. After two more rounds of this and my mind was
numb. Well, numb enough to move on for a while. Horrendous events had
transpired, and as soon as my head slowed down long enough to process it all,
I’d likely need a nice sabbatical in a rubber room, but for the moment, I was
cool.

Ultimately,
I found myself staring at my naked reflection in the mirror for an unknown
amount of time.

“Ugh,” I snarled
at my own unattractive body and moved along to the shower. Whatever those two
men saw, I wished they would snap a picture of it so I could have seen it too.

Water ran
over my body and washed away all the sweat, and shit, and magical coating I’d
acquired in my time away from a shower. I left my hair pulled up in a bun, not
having the time or energy to fuck with it wet.

The fan
whirled above with a consistent white noise. My high was alive and kicking, and
I felt great. More so, I felt clean. Shit, I almost felt safe. I touched the
trinket around my neck and reassured myself I had my own power and it was
strong enough to, at the very least, keep me alive long enough to figure out a
plan.

Stepping
forward, I let the water wash over my face last. I’d tried to wipe away all the
shit-smear I’d been wearing all day; there was only so much you could do
without a shower. I leaned forward, hands pressed against the wall in front of
me and let water cover my face.

Something
pressed against my back. I jumped, but it only took a second before I realized
what it was and decided, in the same instant, I wasn’t going to do a damn thing
to stop it. I didn’t move from my spot, but he didn’t care. So many things ran
through my head, but thanks to my herbal enhancements, I didn’t bother to
acknowledge any of them. His hands ran over my naked back and around my waist.
He pulled me to stand upright and wrapped his arms around me, pressing the full
length of him against my back.

“Pretty
brave of you,” I smirked.

“I figured
it’s the only way to be when it comes to you.”

“Took you
long enough,” I chuckled. He’d always seemed so poor-me pathetic when it came
to him and me; it was more of a turn-off than he’d anticipated.

“So…” he
started, “exactly how high are you right now?”

Balls! Busted.

You’re
taking this way too easy. You’re not going to chew my ass for this? Who are you
and what have you done with Mike? Of course, I didn’t actually say all of these
things. Instead, my stoned ass said, “Why?”

You witty bitch, you
.

“I need to
know what happens from this moment on, isn’t swayed by drugs.”

“Does it
really matter?”

He was quiet
for a minute. “Yeah. Yeah it does.”

Honorable.
Shitty, but honorable.

“Fuck it.” I
turned, still in his arms, and faced him.

My boobs
pressed against his wide chest, I stood on tiptoe to kiss him. He kissed back,
but I felt like he was holding back. So, I pushed the issue. Naked and pressed
together in such a fancy way, it wouldn’t take much to pull him into sex-fueled
mania. He’d spent so long working for this very moment, and he was finally
getting somewhere, yet his morals where going to thwart things? Not on my
watch. Morals? Eh, fuck those guys.

I used my
weight to push him backward and against the wall behind him. Once pinned, I had
all the control and he’d be forced to deal with it. I was high, sure, but I was
also horny as fuck, and it was mostly his fault. This hour anyway.

It only took
a minute or so of my prodding and pushing before he finally gave in. His strong
hands reached under my meaty thighs and lifted me up. He turned and pressed my
back against the wall. I wrapped my legs around his body and held on tight.

“I love
you,” he said, breathless. His body pressed against mine held me in place so he
was free to have his way with me.

I inhaled
sharply. “I love you too,” I said, and pressed my lips against his.

“Dylan?” My
name echoed in the bathroom, over the fan and the running water.

I screamed
and every one of my limbs flung outward. Mike promptly lost his grip and I slid
to the floor of the bathtub. I looked up between Mike’s naked legs and saw my
mom standing in the doorway of the bathroom through the glass doors of the tub.
He tried to move from her view and tripped over the top of me. He slipped and
his foot crashed directly against my lady parts. I grunted and fell to the
side. Hey, it hurt. He kicked me in the cheek before gracefully slammed face
first into the shower caddy and bust his lip.

“Mom!” I
screamed, as she rushed out of the room and shut the door behind her.

I envisioned
her fist pumping on the other side of the door. If she’d caught me in the
shower with any other naked man, she’d have stood there while he got dressed
and walked him to the door while spouting off about safe sex and STDs. But
she’d caught me naked with her favorite person of all time. It was all good.

I sat at in
the tub with my knees pulled to my chest, or as close as I could get, and
rubbed my now sore cheek. Mike leaned against the wall under the water and held
his bleeding mouth. The scene pretty much summed up our entire relationship.

“Well, that
was fun,” he said, his lip getting fatter by the minute.

I laughed at
him, but instantly started to feel uncomfortable. It was too natural, too
normal. Like nothing had changed. My heart was happy to be in a state of
normalcy or the veil of it anyhow. I knew it wouldn’t last. Something would
happen to fuck it all up. It always did.

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK
“Honey…” Mom called through the door. “There’s a man here to see you.” She said
man like it was a filthy thing she didn’t want in her house, but would allow
because it was the humane thing to do. “He says it’s about Tatum and you need
to hurry.”

Like I said,
something always fucks it up.

I looked up
at Mike and he looked at me. Last time he and I went hunting for Tatum, I
killed two guys and shot someone who didn’t really need to be shot. It was a
wonderful time to be had by all.

Obviously,
we got dressed as quickly as our new injuries would allow. The dated clothes in
my drawer fit well enough to get me through the night. Jeans and a Smiths
t-shirt still made up my current wardrobe, so it was as if I was at home. Mike
just put back on the clothes he’d been wearing. He’d neatly spread out his
slacks and blazer over the edge of the bed before sneaking in to play with my
tits. Some things never changed.

My mom
wasn’t at the door when we emerged, thankfully. She was likely glowering at the
man in her house. It was a man other than Mike who was looking for me. She
wouldn’t have been so disdainful if it was some ugly old guy, or a cop, or
shit, even Malcolm. There was only one other person I could think of that would
hunt me down at my mom’s to talk about Tatum.

Just as I
suspected, Cyrus sat on my mom’s couch looking very uncomfortable. My mom sat
in her recliner, the one by the dog bed, and glared at him. I wasn’t surprised
to see him sitting there, seeing as though I already guessed he’d be there, but
Mike was shocked. I could hear it in his grunt the second he caught sight of
him.

They each
stared at each other, each sizing the other up. The last meeting between these
two had ended with Cyrus bleeding on my floor. He’d been so pathetically
defenseless he’d sort of turned me off. But now, he exuded raw energy as he
stood his ground. It was all very ‘call of the wild’. And really very stupid.

“All right,
cool it. We have no time for this
douchery
.” I held
my arms out between the two like you saw people do in movies between two drunk
guys in a bar.

Cyrus caught
my eye and held it a second. I felt guilt so deep in that one glance, my
stomach turned. I was sorry for Cyrus. I’d been a dick and he didn’t even know
it. But, I was more heartbroken over the fact, that in the one glance, my love
for Mike waned and
he’d
never know
it. I had a shit ton of figuring out to do as soon as I got my life back. Until
then, I was stuck in my mom’s living room with two men I’d tried to fuck, on
the same day no less.

I looked
away from Cyrus before my expression could give anything away. In that motion,
I saw my mom and the look she held. She knew. Mom always knows.
Fuck
.

I looked at
Cyrus. “Let’s start with how the fuck did you know where I was?”

“It’s not
hard to search a name on the internet,” he said matter-of-factly.

“We’ll take
care of that,” Mike responded to my horrified expression.

“That’s not
the point. I tried to call-“Cyrus started, but I quickly cut him off.

“What’s
wrong with Tatum?” I asked, praying she hadn’t chosen the dark side and
sprouted a set of fangs.

He sighed
heavily and looked away from me. “Malcolm phoned not long after I left you.”
Mike swallowed hard behind me. “She’s gone.”

“She left
him there?”
Fuck yeah, go her.

“No.”
Damn
. “She was taken from him.”

“By who?” I
scoffed skeptically.

“You sound
as though this is an impossibility.” He had a point. This scenario was very
familiar. “Malcolm is certain you and he have a mutual enemy.”

He didn’t
need to say any more. “That bitch.” My heart sped in my chest. “When do we
leave?” I asked without thought.

“
We
are not going anywhere. I am going
back to Louisiana to assist my Primus-
“ Mike
scoffed
and Cyrus glared at him. “Malcolm needs my help and I am going to help him. I
will find her, Dylan.” He finished the last with a look to me.

“You are
well aware of why Azelie, the cunt face witch, would take Tatum.
Me
.”

Mike
listened intently, trying desperately to figure out what we were talking about.
Doing his cop thing.

“Haven’t you
damned yourself enough?” Cyrus stopped and pinched his lips between his teeth.
“Would she do the same for you?” His striking green eyes searched my face,
prodded in my head, willing me to assess the situation more appropriately.

Either he
was psychic or he noticed her lack of friendship recently too. I didn’t know if
he was right or not. Tatum was the closest thing I had to a sister and I
couldn’t sit by and do nothing. Shit, it wasn’t as if I had a killer life to
live or anything. I’d mucked it up pretty well for one lifetime.