Page 118 of Handsome Devil

The next two weeks, I walked on clouds. Mrs. Dagmar offered me pieces of information about my adoptive father like morsels of chocolate, each of them bringing me to new heights.

He studied math in college.

His work took him all over the world.

He loved playing chess and planned to take me on vacation to Italy after he picked me up from the boarding school to sightsee before we went to America, so we could get to know each other.

For the first time, I didn’t think about death. I thought about life. And it was both exciting and frightening.

My last night at the dorms, I heard Andrin’s footsteps down the hall. It was five in the morning, and I wasn’t asleep. Too much adrenaline coursing through my body every time I glanced at the big suitcase that stood by my door.

Three months had passed since Andrin had last come to me. I was hoping he’d forgotten all about me.

My body turned to stone. I stopped breathing when I heard the door whining open. I squinted my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. Though he made no noise, I felt his dark energy swirling around the room, gaining momentum, like a hurricane. My bed creaked when his shins pressed against the wooden frame. He hovered over me.

“Oh, Boy, you’ll want to open your eyes for this one.” He sounded smug. So of course, I had to open my eyes. “I have a parting gift.”

Andrin’s face was clasped between the shadows.

“Look what I brought this time.”

I blinked my vision into focus, sitting up. Scraps of sunlight grazed my pupils. I squinted at Andrin’s hand. He was holding a gun.

I choked, coughing on my saliva.

He was going to kill me. I wasn’t even surprised. Somehow, I always knew I’d never live to see a good day. My mysterious adoptive dad was a standard deviation. An isolated error.

“Don’t worry, Boy. It’s not your brain I’m going to blow off. Get up.” He balled the collar of my shirt, wrenching me to my desk.

I landed on the edge of my wooden chair and got a good hit in the nuts but was too stunned to register the pain.

“Grab a pencil. I have an equation for you to solve.” Andrin rummaged through the front pocket of his slacks, his other hand digging the barrel of the gun into my right temple. My heart nearly tore out of my chest it beat so hard.

Guns were for pussies, I decided then and there. If I ever had the privilege of killing the bastard, I would do it with my bare hands.

“There we are.” He produced a small, folded note, unfurling and planting it in front of me on the desk.

Cold sweat dripped into my eyes. It was a not an equation, per se. It was…

“Fermat’s last theorem,” Andrin finished the thought for me. “There are three positive integers, a, b, c, that satisfy. Get going.”

I stared at the problem, pulse throbbing against my eyelids. My palms were slick with sweat. The metal mouth of the gun burrowed harder into my flesh.

“How long do I have?” I cleared my throat.

“Ten minutes.”

“And if I don’t find the solution?”

His hand that held the gun sailed from my head to the window. I craned my neck, and then I saw it.

Apollo.

He was tied to a tree not too far from my room, running in circles, yanking at the chain, staring at my window. He heard when Andrin tapped the gun on the window. He flinched and blinked to express his terror at being chained. Begged me to come help him. My heart dropped.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Picked him up last night. He thought he was being adopted.” Andrin laughed, like an old pet’s hope was amusing. “Rabbits are such stupid creatures.”