Page 15

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Theo was so engrossed in trimming the rose bushes he didn’t hear the gardener until a throat cleared behind him.

Theo spun, clutching the shears guiltily in one hand. “Russel! You’re early.”

Russel gave him an amused look, his tool bag bumping against his hip.

“Says the teenager up before six a.m.,” Russel said. He nodded at the half-trimmed rose bush behind him. “Stress gardening again?”

“No stress. Just gardening.”

He held out the shears. Russel didn’t take them.

“I heard about the game,” he said, mouth scrunching apologetically.

Theo sighed. “Awesome. You know there are towns where no one cares about the high school basketball team? ”

“Sure. Towns that have more than one high school.” Russel shifted his tool bag to the other hip. The material was getting thin on the bottom, even with the patches holding it together. “At least they’re rescheduling. That’s pretty good luck.”

“Uh-huh,” said Theo. Good luck, and somebody bribing or threatening the other school. He wouldn’t put it past his parents to do either. His mom was better at bribes, his dad with threats.

“They said you looked pretty rough,” Russel said. “Are you feeling alright now?”

“Yeah. Feeling great.” Theo held out the shears again.

Russel shook his head, dropping down to sit on the grass. “You keep at it. Gotta get that stress-gardening done before your parents get up.”

Theo let out an awkward laugh and turned back to the bush. They’d done this more when he was younger and didn’t know what he was doing. He’d wake up early and meet him outside, and he’d show Theo hands-on stuff the YouTube tutorials never went into.

“Hope your parents didn’t give you a tough time,” Russel said as he continued to trim the rose bushes. “Not like you could do anything about being sick. What did they want you to do, throw up on the court?”

Theo laughed again.

Yes , was the honest answer. His parents had been waiting for him when he came home last night. He’d opened the door to find them sitting in the front hall. They’d taken chairs out of the kitchen so there was no pause between opening it and meeting their carefully cool gazes.

Fairgoods don’t give up , Victor had said, his hand a tight fist in Theo’s hair. If you have to puke on the other team, fine. But you finish the game.

You just had to lose against the Wayside Hawks, Carol had added with a shudder. Honestly, vomit would have been too good for them.

They hadn’t brought up his impossible jump. Theo wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. He was just glad they didn’t notice the succulent tucked in his pocket and that they let him go to bed when he faked needing to puke for long enough. For a while he thought they were going to keep him there in the front hall all night, Victor gripping his hair so hard it hurt. But they’d let him go. It almost made Theo feel worse—they had to be planning something. There was no way he would screw up that bad and not have any consequences when he got home.

“Well,” Russel continued. “I hope you’re taking it easy today.”

“You know it,” Theo lied. He was studying, then hunting, then studying some more. Felicity had texted him a few times to ask if he was alright—she knew how his parents could get. She’d even asked if he wanted to get a coffee. Theo had been touched, but the idea of pretending to drink coffee with her made him so tired he’d told her no. He’d see her tonight anyway .

“We’re heading over to the Fletchers’ for dinner,” he said. “It was supposed to be a celebration dinner, but…”

He dropped the shears on top of Russel’s gardening bag. “Anyway, I’m gonna go inside. Before they wake up.”

“Right,” Russel said. He had this look he got sometimes, like he was worried but didn’t want to say anything. It was sweet. Theo liked it when people worried about him, even if it made his stomach squirm in mortification and a strange sense of danger. Like if anybody found out that Theo wasn’t doing great every minute of every day, he’d be in trouble.

He puffed his chest out, making his smile extra cocky. “See you, Russ. Remember to put the wire back over the tomatoes when you’re done this time.”

Russel snorted as he left. Theo pretended not to hear it. There were only two people who could make him feel like a little kid: his parents, and Russel. He didn’t need to feel any smaller. Not with what was waiting for him in that house.

Theo sat in his room, waiting for his parents to come up and tell him his punishment. He listened to them bustle around the kitchen, talk about work, take phone calls. They sounded…normal. Theo even heard them laugh and dance around the living room, his dad humming along to a song Theo didn’t recognize.

By midday Theo thought he might be safe to go on a trip. They hadn’t forbidden him from leaving the house yet. He wouldn’t be breaking any rules. Technically he’d be breaking their family motto— Fairgoods are vicious —which he was leaving the house to deliberately disobey, but they didn’t have to know that. You couldn’t be vicious all the time, he told himself as he tucked a new pair of knitting needles tucked into his backpack. Even his parents weren’t vicious all the time. They were known around town as stand-up people who you didn’t want to get on the bad side of. And they were lovely to each other. They were lovely to Theo , when he was behaving. Viciousness was just…a reaction for when things weren’t going their way.

Theo knew how they would want him to act with Kade “Monster” Renfield, who lived on the poor side of town and got arrested and snarled at teachers. They would want him to hold the venom over his head as leverage, ignore the fact that he needed Kade even more than Kade needed him. Turn it into a power play. Never talk to Kade more than he had to. Ignore him in the hallways.

They wouldn’t want him to apologize . Especially not with new knitting needles to replace the ones Theo broke in class. But Theo couldn’t help it. He’d put Kade through enough. The guy deserved something from him.

Theo considered his bedroom window. It was safer than going through the house. He took two steps toward it and froze .

Footsteps were coming down the hall. There was nothing this way except his bedroom.

He had time. He could blur out the window and be on the ground outside before they reached the door. But fear rooted him to the spot. He yanked off his backpack and slung it under his bed just in time for the door to open.

Victor nodded at him. “Theo?”

“Yes, Dad?” Theo looked him straight in the eyes, like he was taught. Even though everything in him wanted to stare at the ground and cower.

Victor leaned on the doorframe. It was uncharacteristically casual of him. Theo wondered what the game was. Should he get on his knees? They liked that sometimes. Other times they claimed he was making fun of them, and he got punished with another hour awake. So he usually waited until they told him to do it.

“I’ll stay up tonight,” Theo started, one of his parents’ favorite punishments. “I know I messed up. I really was sick?—”

Victor sighed. “I believe you.”

Theo’s jaw snapped shut.

“I want to say we took pity on you last night,” Victor continued. “But honestly, one of us would’ve needed to stay up to check you were fulfilling your whole punishment, and neither of us could be bothered. Especially if you were throwing up.”

Theo nodded fervently. “That’s fair. I’m sorry.”

“I believe you,” Victor repeated softly. “Now that we’ve had time to cool down…we talked about it. You didn’t want to throw up in front of everybody like you did on that aquarium trip, right? You couldn’t lift your arms over your head the next day. Nobody would want a repeat of that.”

Theo nodded some more, hands shaking at his sides. He’d forgotten about that aquarium trip. He tried not to think about the rest of that day, his parents making him hold his arms up until they went numb.

“But you can’t focus on your fear,” Victor continued, striding forward. “You have to think about what will take down your opponent. If you have to projectile vomit on somebody, go for it. We won’t count that as you making us look bad.”

“Okay,” Theo whispered. He cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the terror squirming in his stomach. He wasn’t worried about physical punishments anymore. He could lift weights the whole night and not break a sweat. Their disappointment, though—he felt that like a knife. All they had to do was look at him wrong and he was a little kid again, begging for forgiveness.

“So I’m not embarrassing us if I’m vicious,” Theo said. He always wanted to know the rules. Some of them made sense—get good grades, be a good athlete—and others he could never figure out, like their hatred of athletics-enhancing drugs. They’d let him have a party at the house where everyone else got wasted, but god forbid he have a drop to drink. He could live with their rules, he just wished they would be consistent .

Victor nodded. “We’ll accept a lot if you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

He reached up. Theo tensed, waiting for a hand to clench in his hair. But Victor’s hand settled on his shoulder, squeezing hard.

“I worry about you sometimes,” he admitted. “That you’re…I don’t know. Putting on a show. That it’s not in you, deep down.”

“It is,” Theo said, rushed. “I swear. I’ll be better, Dad.”

“I know you will.” Victor reached up further, ruffling the blond curls they shared. He did it with a smile, but Theo could see the threat behind it: even the loosest hand could turn into a fist.

Theo ran to Kade’s place through the woods. Yesterday someone had asked him why they’d seen his car parked on this side of town. He’d never been more grateful he’d parked a few blocks away from Kade’s house when he dropped him off.

He stared through Kade’s bedroom window. Kade was on his bed, flicking through a magazine. His shirt rode up, exposing a pale sliver of his hip.

Theo tore his gaze away and knocked on the window.

Kade flailed so hard he almost fell off the bed. He looked around wildly, and Theo thought of rabbits in tall grass. Then Kade’s gaze landed on him, his bony shoulders tensing.

Theo waved impatiently. His hands were still shaking from his talk with Victor. He clenched them hard around his backpack straps.

Kade bolted over to the window and jerked it up. “Did I miss a text?”

“No.” Theo dug the knitting needles out of his backpack and shoved them at Kade. “Here.”

“What’s…?” Realization dawned on Kade’s pinched face. His lips parted.

He looked so different with his guard down. Like you could never cut yourself on him. Like he’d never launched himself at a classmate in the cafeteria or got arrested for shoplifting. In that moment, looking at those knitting needles like they were something precious, he looked…soft.

Theo swallowed back the startling heat surging through his cold chest.

“Just take them,” he said, shooting another nervous look around. He’d be able to hear someone walking up, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was being watched.

“You got me knitting needles,” Kade said disbelievingly. He reached out and touched a pointy tip with one gentle finger, and Theo stupidly thought of Sleeping Beauty. Kade had that fairytale savageness. But he’d be a fae or some half-human creature, not the princess who got saved at the end .

“Yes,” Theo snapped. “Take them already!”

Kade stared at him. “Why?”

“Because I broke your other ones, obviously!” Theo twisted again to look. Just a barren lawn opening into the forest. It didn’t stop the skin crawling at the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t even be here. Just take them.”

He shoved them at Kade’s chest, careful to only touch his shirt.

Kade took a step back. Some of that guardedness was coming back, that soft boy becoming sharp once more.

“Is this your way of making up for doing something nice? You have to be an asshole while you do it?”

Theo groaned, frustrated. His hands were still shaking. He couldn’t make them stop.

“I’m not trying to be an asshole,” he snapped. He sucked in a breath, hoping for calm. It didn’t help being assaulted by Kade’s hungry scent, which was strangely familiar after spending so little time with it.

Theo had imagined this going differently. A few jokes to ease the tension. Kade would say something witty and Theo would come up with something witty to say back, for once. Theo wanted to make him laugh. Properly, openly, not the jagged bitter thing he heard in school.

“I do try,” Theo realized. “I try really hard, actually. I…my parents, they…”

Immediately the panic swarmed in, tense and overwhelming. He checked over his shoulder. Still no one. Still that looming sense of doom, your parents will know you’re being bad, you’re going to get in so much trouble.

“Never mind,” Theo said hastily. “Yeah, I’m a jerk sometimes. Everyone knows that.”

Kade gave him an unreadable expression. That softness was back, but there was something underneath it that would have made Theo sweat, if he still could. A terrible understanding.

“Your parents are assholes?” Kade asked.

“What? No.” Theo scowled. “My parents are great. Why would you say that?”

Kade snorted quietly. Finally, finally , he took the knitting needles, careful not to touch Theo’s hand.

“Lucky you,” Kade said slowly. “My parents were…let’s say they were complicated .”

Theo tried not to let his dread show. Was Kade an orphan? He remembered making some Orphan Annie jokes to him in freshman year. Kade had looked like he was going to maul him right there in Homeroom. Now Theo thought he should’ve.

He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to be…less of an asshole. Don’t tell anyone.”

Kade sniggered, twirling one of the knitting needles in a way that reminded him of Felicity making coins dance over her knuckles.

“That you’re secretly being nice to Monster? No one would believe me, golden boy.”

Theo shoved his shaking hands in his pockets. “ You’re not the monster, Kade. Pretty sure I got that one in the bag.”

Kade hummed. “You’re not that bad, mate. Monsters don’t bring their food knitting needles.”

Theo decided to let that food comment slide. He looked past Kade into the bedroom he’d once climbed into. It was cleaner than before—fewer clothes piled on the floor, fewer mugs scattered on every available surface. There was a desk in the corner heaped with scraps of fabric and what looked like a half-covered sewing machine. Was this a thing for Kade?

Kade asked, “Does this mean you’re going to let me sit in the passenger seat now?”

“No.”

Kade groaned loud enough that Theo panicked, watching the door for someone to come in. No one did.

“It’s for your safety too,” Theo tried. “If the vampires know you’re in on this, they might?—”

“What, come after me?” Kade rolled his eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, blood boy.”

Theo pushed down a surge of bitterness at the nickname and tried to think what somebody who wasn’t an asshole would say. “So you knit?”

“Nope,” Kade said instantly, still spinning the needles between his long fingers. “They’re for defensive purposes.”

“A knife might work better.”

“I don’t know.” Kade leaned over and started rummaging through one of his leather jackets, which was draped over a chair. He came out with a broken half a knitting needle. “I think I can do some damage with this.”

Theo stared at the spiky end. “You kept it?”

“Sure. Fun to fiddle with.” Kade gave it a little spin and tucked it back into his jacket pocket. “Still going to the Fletchers tonight?”

Theo nodded.

Kade gave Theo’s knitting needles another spin. The stainless steel caught the dim light of Kade’s bedroom, making Kade’s gray eyes light up like a solar flare.

Theo swallowed. “Any advice?”

“Sure,” Kade said. “Don’t get staked.”