Page 7

I’m mildly satisfied with the direction Felix is taking his podcast, but it could be better. I sense he’s still struggling to go all the way, and I hate that for him.

I’ve been listening to him non-stop, to the point I’ve memorized every word he says in each episode. His favorite words are now my favorite words.

Because I’ve been watching so closely, I’ve seen the way The Nerd Word has sky-rocketed the charts, and the reviews are flooding in. I try not to be pissed about all these people, these humans fawning over him, begging him to say things to them. That is a no. Absolutely not. This whole thing was my idea. I wanted him to say dirty things to me. If I knew how to use technology better, I'd hunt them all down and cut their fingers off one by one so they could no longer type out messages to my Felix.

On the same note, if I were better with technology, I’d find him myself to see him face to face. See what he looks like because I still have no idea. Even though his podcast is moving up in the world, he’s yet to upload a photo, and he’s since started ignoring all of my emails I’ve sent to him, begging for a photo and personalized messages just to me.

I fall asleep each night, dreaming of him speaking dirty things to me, and sometimes it’s so bad I can’t get to sleep at all. I find myself wandering around the house, going through this woman’s things. This woman who is really starting to smell, by the way. I need to get rid of her body, but I’m not entirely sure how to at this point. I’ve waited too long, and all it’s going to do is make more of a mess.

I try calling my brother for the hundredth time since I’ve been up here, not expecting an answer since he hasn’t picked up once since I left. So when I hear his voice on the other end, I jolt upright.

“Azrael?”

“Zia, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me. I’ve been calling you for like two weeks!”

“I told you the phones don’t always work to call each other.”

Oh… yeah, I think he did mention that.

“Right… I may have forgotten about that.”

“What do you need? I’m a little… busy.”

“With what?”

“Just something.”

He grunts and I hear a man’s voice in the background. Then my brother says something that’s muffled and I can’t figure out what it is.

I ignore whatever is going on down there, and whatever he’s doing, because this is more important. “Okay, well, I need your help. Lots of help, Rae.”

“With what? You haven’t been gone that long.”

“For one, there is a rotting dead body that I don’t know how to get rid of, and—”

“Zia, I asked you not to kill anyone.”

“I needed a place to stay!”

He groans. “Is there only one?”

“Yes, just one.”

“Don’t kill anyone else, Zia. I’m serious. If you get caught, we’re both fucked.”

“Okay!”“What else do you need?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to find someone…”

“Someone who? Why? You didn’t go up there to find people, you went up there to hide.”

Think, Zia. If you tell him the truth, he’ll get mad. He doesn’t want you killing people, so stalking people probably isn’t good either. So what the hell kind of excuse can I give him that’ll make him help me?

“I found a potential job.”

“You did?” He sounds skeptical.