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Do you see anything strange happening at CGU?
ECHO
Wow. No texts from my big bro for years and now two chats in two days? Is this you trying to be a better brother?
I wince. It’s not that I don’t care for my sister. I do. But she took my decision to leave the family and embark on my own path personally. I was the brother who was the nicest to her when she was young, and she hated me for leaving for Colorado when she was eight. She’s barely in her twenties now, and we never really mended things. Xeno passed her number off to me, and I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even have the new one in my phone. I can’t exactly blame her for giving me some attitude. At least in years past I remembered to message her for her birthday and holidays.
ECHO
I only heard you’re in town from Xeno, and Mama wants me to get you to come to dinner.
VINNY
Is Jo invited?
ECHO
Do you want her to leave alive?
I sigh. Echo is more than aware of the murders that took place and resulted in my departure from Citrus Grove, but she was a kid when it happened. It’s real to her in a sense that people died and it’s probably mentioned at school, but that’s it. She didn’t live it with me, and it shows how little she likes my wife despite none of it being her fault. Since she’s not really giving me a lot to work with, I decide to jump into the root of why I’m messaging her.
VINNY
Are you friends with any of the students who go to the penitentiary? We’re just here until things settle with this copycat killer. We haven’t heard any updates for a few days, and if we aren’t needed here we’d rather go back to Colorado.
I wait for her text, and to my surprise she calls instead. Echo hasn’t called me in years. I clear my throat, answering the call with more confusion in my voice than I prefer. “Echo?”
“Vincenzo,” she replies, and she sounds so grown up. I’m suddenly regretting not going to see my sister at the university yet, but I didn’t need to show up and cause a scene if she isn’t interested in seeing me. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” I ask uneasily.
“There’s this new professor everyone’s raving about,” she explains. I’m not sure where this is going, but even as a kid Echo loved gossip so I’m sure she’s heard lots of rumors since we arrived back in state. “Rowth… something. She’s not one of my teachers so I don’t really know her name. She’s doing this huge study on psychosis and the student body is eating that shit up. She’s even gotten a few of the nurses and doctors to come over from the penitentiary. I know Jace is part of it. He’s the grad kid that gets to go on all the visits, but the program’s never been more popular than it is right now. Everyone’s all gaga over the Citrus Grove Slayer again.”
I have to resist the urge to groan at that. “No one needs to be fantasizing about Alastair.”
“Oh.” Suddenly the attitude is gone from her voice, and she sounds amused. “Does that bother you V? You don’t wanna think about my friends wanting to fuck the guy you used to date?”
I glance to my right, but Jo is distracted between a show and her phone. She only glances up for a moment and offers me a smile before looking back to the TV. She knows I’m talking to Echo, and I appreciate her giving me the space to do so. I stand, heading to the kitchen. “Echo, that’s not what happened.”
“No?” she mocks. “Well sorry Vincenzo, but it’s not like I knew that much about your life. I heard all these rumors from everyone but you never told me anything.”
“What rumors?” I bark.
She sighs. “Don’t go and be all offended now. It’s old news, right?”
“Who told you these rumors?” I press. My parents were enraged after I chose to leave, and I can just imagine them painting a shady story for my younger siblings. Xeno knew too much to be fooled but the others were all under ten and it would be easier to convince them of my sins.
“Mama was the first,” she admits. “Then in school as I got older. There used to be a group of girls who were all about your friend. They were part of a group called the Slayers.”
I cringe. No one ever mentioned that, and I did my best to not look into rumors about Alastair once we left Florida. I knew there were fanatics who obsessed over him, but giving themselves a name feels like a step too far. “What happened to those girls?”
“They grew up. Serial killers are a big thing in highschool. You know, kids like the darkness and all that shit. There was some author writing these stories inspired vaguely by the CGS and some of the Slayers turned themselves into a book club just to have an excuse to read it.”
Alright, it still creeps me out but sounds slightly less horrible. “A book?”
“Oh yeah, it had a bunch of news reports in the pages and details from the OG case. It wasn’t online for very long. The book got banned and just sold off the author's site for a while.”
“Did you have a copy?”