Page 20 of Heartless Heathens

“She said she’s not a student,” he told me quietly.

Interesting.

“Or maybe she’s trying to not get in trouble…” I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering what the hell the deal with this girl was.

“There’s no way she came out here on her own, no one could get out here by foot.”

“Unless she was already here,” I told him.

“Reesa didn’t know who she was,” he mentioned.

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter. No one had ever seen her around here. And what the fuck is she wearing? She looks like the ghost of Christmas past,” he added.

“Ebenezer,” I corrected him.

“What?” He asked me.

“Ebenezer is the one wearing the nightgown, not the ghost.” I explained, and he shook his head at me like he couldn’t believe I was getting into the semantics of it right now.

“I don’t even know who the fuck you are sometimes.” He shook his head at me and made his way back over to the girl.

Romina.

He whispered something else in her ear and she nodded again and a small smile softened around her lips. Felix was good like that, good at convincing others he wasn’t as dangerous as he really was. But once he’d sunk his teeth into you, it was over.

We were different like that.

I took what I wanted.

He made you think you wanted it too.

He stood up and stepped over to the fridge and I looked her up and down, studying this brand-new creature in front of me. Unbuttoning my collar, I leaned back resting my arms on the pew while I watched Felix walk back from the freezer, holding a pint of ice cream and two spoons.

They sat in silence sharing it, taking turns digging their spoons into the ice cream and shoveling it into their mouths. Every few minutes or so she would break down, whimper a bit and then sob again. Felix would squeeze her hand to comfort her and after a few moments she would just pick up the spoon to continue the cycle. Once he got up to throw it away, I stood.

“Romina,” I said and she whipped her neck back to look at me, that nervous fear still so visibly printed into her stare.

“Up.” Her eyes searched for Felix but he’d disappeared from the main room, probably to check on his brother. “He’s busy. You get me. Now stand, you’re dirtying up my house.”

She didn’t move,

I stepped closer until I stood just above her, her eyes full of a strange bewilderment I’d never seen anywhere else, until now. I gripped her hair in my hand and pulled her up to her feet, ignoring her cries of pain.

“Ah!”

“I’m not a fan of repeating myself. Got it?”

She was a fragile little thing.

Timid and weak.

“Y-yes,” she trembled out, looking up at me.

She might have been filthy but her skin still looked soft to the touch. Her bright blue eyes glimmered with twice as much life than mine could have ever attempted to show, dull and opaque. Her stare gave her innocence away, telling far more secrets than mine ever could.

I thought it was fear I saw, but the more I looked up close I noticed something else, a curiosity, a hunger inside her. I rubbed my thumb along the underside of her jaw, and I lifted her chin up so I could take a better look at her face.