(First part: https://redd.it/o8vgiw Previous part: https://redd.it/okft1d )
For the past few months, I’ve been able to adjust to my job. My delivery partner was a major stabilizing factor. It was hard to be stressed about other co-workers looking at me as if I was a meal when Max was literally a big puppy I could spend my work hours with.
Sure, I did lose an arm and had it replaced with one that slowly was starting to ache all day, but it was worth trading an arm to keep Max around. I didn’t even hold much of a grudge against the creature that made me cut the arm off in the first place. So far, I did not overly regret being forced into my dangerous job of delivering mail to monsters.
I came into work feeling ready to get going for a change. I would get texts of door locations to go to and swipe my blank card to get inside what was called a Zero room. They looked like an empty office with a fold out table in the middle and a receptionist. I learned that the receptionists were one of Max’s many step sisters. I have yet to learn all their names or even knew just how many he had. Most were pretty frosty personality wise, but warmed up a little when I slide them a pack or two of gum. They were in charge of giving us the package and details of our deliver jobs.
Max was already inside the room and smiled at me when he saw me walk in. He had large dog ears he yet to fully grow into. If it wasn’t for his mouth full of sharp teeth his smile would be charming.
“We have a good job today!” He told me excited and unable to hid his wagging tail.
Max always said we had a good job. The last one we nearly died of heat stroke waiting on the side of a desert highway waiting for a large slug like creature to show up and pick up it’s package. That was a rough one. I made Max spit out so many small lizards he tried eating the moment I turned my back.
After doing the him exchange Max’s sister gestured towards six tote bags filled with letters and packages on the floor. My heart sank. It would take forever to go out and deliver these. Normally we only did a trip per package.
“It’s all going to the same place.” Silen told me reading my expression, At least I was fairly sure that receptionist was Silen.
“We get to go see all the girls today!” Max explained and started to pick up the totes to hang off his shoulders.
He was shorter than me by a little but very strong. I could only carry two of the totes, my bad shoulder unable to support the weight of a third. Max easily took it and carried the rest. I still felt back that I make him do extra work the time and after all these months couldn’t help out more. Max didn’t even notice my inner turmoil. He gave his sister a wave and I followed him out the door being weighed down.
He needed to keep stopping to wait for me to catch up. He knew better to take over and let me do my best trying to carry the heavy bags. The sun was setting and we walked towards a building that when I saw the sign, I paused a little confused. Surely, we weren’t dropping off all this mail at a strip joint?
My face red from embarrassment and the weight of the bags, I tried to catch up to Max. I didn’t make it in time. He knocked on the back door of the building and was let inside. Seconds before I reached the door, I heard shrieking screams. I was so worried Max walking into something he shouldn’t have I wasn’t thinking. I just barged into the back door and into one of the weirdest scenes of my life.
The door opened into an employee dressing area. It felt like it was poor planning that someone walking inside could see the girls getting ready. Max was surrounded by women all different species and all in different stages of undress. My face turned completely red and I did my very best not to look at anything I felt like I was not meant to see.
Until that moment, Max never really showed any interest in girls before. He treated everyone with the same bright and kind bubbly personality. So, I was shocked to see him in the middle of the women looking like he was very much enjoying himself as they all spoke in a mixture of languages. Then I realized he wasn’t enjoying himself because a lot of attractive girls was fawning over him. He was smiling away and wagging his tail because a bunch of people were petting his head and touching his paw like hands.
I felt jealous. For months I wanted to touch the soft pads on Max’s hands but didn’t fearing I would be dragged into a work sensitivity training program. I suffered being unable to touch the beans and all these girls just were going at it.
I knew that it would take a while for them to all settle down and I stepped aside trying to find a spot to put the tote bags to be sorted through later. When I looked up, I was staring at a face I never thought I would see again. We both stared at each other, frozen, the sounds of the other girls chattering around us.
“Vicky?” I asked finally.
She came towards me, looking like she was about to rip me to pieces. Before she could reach me, a different women came over between us. She was tall and had a slit mouth that went from ear to ear. Aside from that, she was rather pretty.
“Oh? I’ve heard a human was delivering mail. Vixen, do you know it? You talk to humans.” The women asked, mouth in a wide smile.
“We talked a few times on a dating site but never met. Right Toby? We never met. Right.” Vicky’s tone was very clear on what she wanted me to say.
I nodded, a little nervous on what would happen if I said otherwise. Vicky was the reason why I got my job. She was a monster that would eat men she went on dates with. We did meet through a dating sight, but I was spared. She could only eat certain types of men it seemed. She still tried to kill me, but I was lucky enough to, literally, run into the Silver King. Sure, she tried to eat me but I’ve forgiven her for that. If I held a grudge against everything that have tried, I wouldn’t have any friends left.
“Vera, why don’t you help Max get the mail out to everyone?” Vicky suggested.
The tall women smiled and nodded. She pushed her way through the crowd and soon the girls were getting back on task, Max was still in the middle getting mail together and making them sign a sheet once he handed them their packages. He was chattering in different languages I’ve never heard him use before. Vicky and myself stood awkwardly off to the side.
“I’m kinda useless here huh.” I commented watching Max work.
“Mostly yeah. But I think it’s alright. Max had been delivering our mail for years. He’s ideal because he’s friendly and knows a lot languages. But he’s always switching partners. His personality is so close to a human it’s off putting to creatures of the night. It’s… It’s good that he’s working with you…” Vicky told me, looking as awkward as I felt.
I had no idea Max switched partners so often. Herr I thought everyone loved him. It made sense. Him and Rufus, his father, were much different that all the creature’s I’ve come across so far. At first Vicky felt like she was similar to them. But then, she chased me through the woods trying to kill me.
Max came over to retrieve the last few bags and took my hand.
“Come meet all the girls.”
I was dragged forwards and shoved in the same spot Max was minutes before. I had a gaggle of supernatural females prodding me and pinching my cheeks. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Max was trying to introduce me to them all. But some didn’t have human names. In the future I may remember how their names sounded but would find it impossible to pronounce. At least they were friendly and only a few looked as if they were seconds away from taking a bite out of me.
A man came peeking into the room and said something I didn’t understand. The girls started to disperse to get fully dressed. I got some quick kisses on my cheeks, but felt as if it was in the same way you would kiss a cute animal. In the chaos Vicky was getting her mail from Max.
“Do you work here?” I asked her and Vicky stared daggers at me.
“Do I look like I work here?” She hissed.
I felt my blood turn cold knowing I asked the wrong question.
“Below are apartments for female creatures only. I live here dufus.”
She was being a bit grumpy with me. I imagine I would be the last person she ever wanted to see again considering how our date ended. Unable to read the room, Max came in with a save.
“Let’s all go out on a date.”
We both did a double take at his suggestion. Max didn’t know a lot about human culture but I thought he knew what a date was.
“Do you mean you want us all to go out for dinner?” Vicky corrected.
“Yeah! You told me about a place the makes breakfast stuff all day the last time I brought mail. I’ve never had breakfast before.” He said, his curved tail wagging showing how excited he was over the idea.
“That’s just going out for dinner Max. It’s not a date.” I told him but he didn’t even falter in his logic.
“People who like each other going out is a date! And we all like each other so let’s go.”
He took out hands and started to drag us towards the door. Normally we would check back into the Zero room to say we completed a job. Sometimes we would get a few more jobs to do, and sometimes we could just head home. I was starting to think Max got away with a lot of things because his entire family worked at the mail company. And because he was cute. That helped a lot.
“I didn’t want to go out with this guy I was meeting tonight anyway. I’ll send him a message canceling on him and Toby can pay for my dinner.” Vicky said as if she wasn’t already planning on going with us the moment Max suggested.
Max didn’t have any human currency, so I was glad my job at least paid well. The all-day breakfast diner was a quick walk away. It must do good business being surrounded by bars so the drunks could get some greasy eggs before heading home.
It was pretty empty when we arrived. Max sat next to me in a booth and Vicky was across from us. She was texting someone and had her head down when the waitress came by with the menus. I’ve been working with Max for a few months, and yet I’ve never gotten a clear answer about how other people saw him. He did have dog features. Could humans see his ears and just assume they were fake? Or did they see him as a normal person? I had a lot of questions but when Vicky put her phone down, I suddenly was unable to speak.
She was a very pretty girl. Long red hair she styled in flowing waves since the last time I’d see her. When she smiled, she had hints of dimples and her clothing always seemed to fit in just the right way. Almost any guy could easily be lured in by her looks. She was the best looking girl I’ve ever spent time with. But I felt no attraction towards her. I remembered what she truly looked like. Every time I looked at her, I felt the memory of her hot breath on the back of my neck she was just about to crush me in her massive jaws.
Max didn’t notice how tense I was or how awkward the air turned. He reached over and took a hold of one of the small syrup jugs and opened it a few times. He snickered. There was two of them and the spout looked like a bird’s face.
“These look like Chook-Chooks.” he said opening and closing the jug.
“Oh, they really do.” Vicky reached over and started to do the same. I had no idea what they were talking about but they looked like they were enjoying an inside joke. In a squawking voice she spoke while making the jug look like it was talking. “The thousand-year Pitch War? Never heard of it! Never started it!”
Her and Max cackled at something I would never really understand without at least a few hundred years of supernatural creature history for context. They both started to squawk and talk about a war I had no idea about before I needed to get them settled down.
“Alright you two, pick out what you want. Max you can try anything you like.” I told him full well knowing I would regret those words.
Max looked at me, eyes shining and started to go over a menu we were sharing. He would read something out loud and asked me about it. There was a few things Max couldn’t eat, like grapes or onions, so I needed to keep an eye on what human foods he ordered. He was reading the menu just fine and I was impressed by the fact that English wasn’t his first language. He must be pretty smart if he could learn so many, even if he proved otherwise sometimes.
When we ordered, Max pointed to what he wanted and I told the waitress. Vicky ordered two large meal combos and our waitress raised an eyebrow over the sheer amount of food. Regardless, she wrote everything down and was on her way.
“So, Toby what have you been up too?” Vicky asked and sipped on the coffee she ordered.
I started to tell her of everything that had happened so far with my new job with Max helping me with some details. She, like most people, gave me a dirty look when she found out I was the one who was responsible for Rufus losing a leg and being out of the field for a while. Apparently, he was very popular and a few creatures wanted some payback. I needed to be careful of where I showed my face in the future.
When our food arrived it nearly all didn’t fit on the table. I only ordered some fried eggs, bacon and some toast. I was done eating way before the other two. Vicky was good at taking over my job of making sure Max didn’t eat some grapes that had been mixed in with his other fresh fruit. When I was finished eating, I snatched away some home fries that was mixed together with some onions. The potatoes were big enough to separate and give back to Max, who was shoving waffles into his face and didn’t even notice our rescue efforts.
Oddly enough, after chatting with Vicky my weariness of her eased. I thought it would take more time to no longer be so afraid of her. I still wasn’t attracted to her but I no longer felt the urge to bolt whenever I saw her smiling. I really did forgive her, but my body refused to want to stay around something it knew to be a predator.
Overall, it was a nice dinner out that was almost worth the hit to my bank account. Somehow, they both got though the mountain of food. We went up to the front to pay and I left a good tip feeling sorry for whoever needed to collect all our dishes.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” Max announced.
“Ok, but only for five minutes.” I told him. Vicky gave me a look wondering why I was limiting his washroom break time. “He likes to stick his head under those hand dryers. If I don’t tell him a time limit, he’ll do it for hours.”
She nodded, understanding how Max can be. We left, to wait for him outside.
Vicky was getting some texts so she was looking at her phone while she spoke to me.
“Have you been donating blood recently?” She asked.
It was a bit of an odd question to ask out of the blue. I stood looking at her wondering why she would ask. I did in fact donate some in the past few days. After the incident where I lost my arm and the mailing company replaced it, I was outed as still being a virgin. My flesh and blood are highly coveted by creatures of the night. By eating it, or drinking it they can become stronger. Or so I’ve heard. And I heard it could be used to heal some of my co-workers if they get harmed in the field. I really didn’t mind donating to help out so I started to do it as much as I was able.
“Yes, how did you know?” I asked her wondering if Max told her and I wasn’t paying attention.
“A friend of mine was attacked by Hunters and nearly died. She’s never harmed a human before. But you know Hunters, they’ll kill anything not human. Anyway, your blood saved her. She might even be able to grow her horns back. I think she isn’t the only one you’ve saved and I wasn’t sure if anyone thanked you yet.”
She was sounding so kind and honest I didn’t know how to deal with it. I felt my face flush and I looked away from her embarrassed. I didn’t feel as if I’ve done anything worthy of being praised for. Anyone in my position should have done the same. I knew donating my blood was going to help but never thought of just how much before. Without warning Vicky put her phone back into her pocket and leaned over to kiss my cheek. I froze, face red. I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Before the whole trying to eat me thing, Vicky and I got along just fine. She was a nice person. I still wouldn’t date her though.
“God, you’re’ such a-” Vicky didn’t finish whatever she was going to say to tease me.
A man around our age I didn’t recognize got out of his car and was walking towards us in a rage. Vicky knew him and her face twisted in a snarl. He stopped a few steps in front of us, so angry he was out of breath. I knew Vicky could handle it, but I still stood between her and the new comer.
“You bitch! After everything you go behind my back and sleep around with this guy! He’s not even that good looking!” The man spat.
I wasn’t hurt by his comment. I knew I wasn’t a catch and the monsters I worked alongside were kind enough not to say so.
“Just because you buy me shit I never asked for doesn’t mean you’re entitled to me or my time! And I’m not sleeping around with Toby! He’s a friend you extreme dumbass!” She shot back, getting out in front of me ready to throw down it needed.
At first, I thought I would need to save this guy from her. Until he angrily brought out a gun and pointed it at the both of us. Even after months of being around monsters, the sight of a gun still made me cold. Because my job was dangerous, we received magic uniforms that could stop claws and bullets. I was wearing mine, still sort of being on the job. But the uniforms only protected what they covered. If he shot me in the face, it was all over. Vicky stopped talking and looked over at me, fear in her eyes.
“Drop your phones and get into the car, now.”
His tone gave no room for arguments. I took my phone covered in the pink case I received for work and dropped it to the ground. I winced as if bounced away. Vicky did the same. She could have ripped this guy apart, but I knew creatures of the night were bound by certain rules when it came to killing humans. She either didn’t want to attack him in a public place, or for some reason, couldn’t fight back at all. Max would be useful to have around. It already was way past five minutes. If I lived, I might have to be angry with him.
We both listened to the man and was led to his car. He made Vicky get into the front, and I sat in the back. My mind was racing trying to think of something to do. I needed to wait until he stopped the car to fight back. I didn’t want to endanger Vicky by risking an accident by attacking the man while he drove. I flexed and gripped my left hand, feeling pain shoot through my entire arm if I gripped my hand too tightly. The replacement arm was pretty weak and with the new pain I couldn’t do much with it. I had no confidence in myself and only prayed Vicky had a plan. Or that Max noticed us missing soon and came to our rescue. I doubted the second option.
We drove in silence for a while. He pulled into a normal looking suburb and forced us inside a house. The entire time he kept the gun on Vicky and had one of her arms in his hand. I walked in front, opening the door as he told me fearing he would hurt her if I didn’t do something. He clearly only planned on taking Vicky and was stressed trying to deal with a second person.
When we got inside the front door, I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed a glass bowl off a table by the front door ready to use it as a weapon as the keys and spare change inside it went flying. I swung around aiming for his face, and got foreseeable results. He was much faster and slammed the handgun into my nose. I dropped the bowl, it breaking into thousands of pieces on the ground. He gave my stomach a kick that didn’t hurt but still knocked me over.
I was about to get up to keep fighting when I saw Vicky’s expression. She was silently pleading for me to stay down. I did for her. My face a mass of throbbing pain and nose bleeding. Our kidnapper wasted no time and nearly dragged us both down into his basement.
I let him shove me into a chair and didn’t struggle when he tied my hands behind my back, and my ankles together. I felt sick looking around his basement. It was any creep’s dream. A mattress was on the floor with blankets scattered around. He had stacks of blank DVD cases piled around the room and a computer on the floor next to the mattress. It smelled and looked like he lived down here. He only had zip ties left to keep Vicky in check. Securing her wrists, he gave us a few threats before heading up the stairs for whatever reason.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered over to her and tried to struggle free. “Are you going to eat him or something?”
She gave me a disgusted look. I didn’t blame her. Who would ever want to be in the same room as that guy, let alone eat him?
“I can’t kill or eat men who haven’t done anything wrong. This piece of human waste is a virgin. Unlike you, he’s very bitter about it. It was only a matter of time before he snapped like this. I have no idea why he dragged you along.” She replied not bothering to whisper.
“Wait, so what are we going to do? I can’t win against him with a bad arm. Can’t you defend yourself?”
“Bad arm? They didn’t replace it with something good? What a rip off. And no. I can’t. I’m not human and my self-defense is killing. I guess we just let him do something to me so I can bite his head off.”
I was nearly sick at the thought. It wasn’t just the idea of Vicky having that guy put his hands on her in any way, but the casual way she said it. I suddenly wondered how many times she’s been in this situation. Where she lured in dangerous men who hadn’t done anything yet so she let herself become the scapegoat so she can punish them based on her rules. I shook my head, trying to keep my dinner to stay down. No matter what happened, that was not an option.
“No. We’re not letting him touch you. I’ll bite out his throat if I need too.” I tried to sound as tough as a guy tied down could.
“Toby, he’ll kill you. Why bother risking your life when we can go with the easier option?”
“The easier option isn’t the right one. Risking my life is well worth you not having to go through something like that.”
I stared at her, her expression turning into a confused one. She looked at me as if I was crazy. In her eyes, I was. This is how she lived her life, regardless of how she felt about it.
“Are you white knighting me?” She asked, eyebrows still raised.
“What? No! I… maybe. But I don’t mean it like that. You’re my friend. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Her expression changed as we heard our kidnapper make noise above us. He was going to come back any minute and I still didn’t officially have a plan. I was talking a big game but didn’t have any kind of power to back it up. I really wished I didn’t let Max go fool around with the hand dryer. We could really use his help right now. I felt pretty pathetic that I couldn’t even defend myself against a human. It was a miracle that I survived so many months being around creatures of the night if some rope and a chair was enough to get me into a pickle.
The basement door opened and we both looked over at each other not deciding on what to do yet. The man came down the stairs a bag over his shoulder. It looked like he packed in a hurry. He clearly was going to grab Vicky and make a quick getaway leaving what he was going to do with me a mystery for a few seconds. Dropping his bag in front of her, he turned towards me, gun at his side.
“You need to cut your losses and just turn yourself in. You took two people in front of a diner. With all the drunks around I’m sure they have cameras. Save yourself a lot of trouble and just quit while you’re ahead.” I said hoping we were not past the talking stage. We were way beyond the talking stage.
“Oh, you’re trying to order me around huh? You think because you’re a hot Japanese guy you can take my girl and tell me what to do?” He snarled down at me.
“My mother was Korean.” I corrected and it just made his face flush red in rage.
He was beyond any kind of rational thought and have been for a long time. I started to try and pull at the ropes keeping my wrists together but they were far too tight. I felt as if that if I had two working arms, I might have had a chance at over powering this guy. He looked pale and weak from being a basement dweller.
“Since you’re calling the shots, I’m going to let you pick what you want to happen. I can do whatever I want with her while you watch, or I can just shoot you in the face and leave with Vicky. What is it going to be?” He threatened, eyes narrowing in hate towards me.
Vicky started to speak at the same time as I did. She was putting on an act pleading for him to not hurt me and how sorry she was that she was out with another guy. I was pulled at the ropes, calling him any kind of vile name I could think of to get him to keep his attention on me. I would much rather get shot in the face than watching a friend getting assaulted without being able to do a damn thing about it. A few minutes passed and the man screamed in frustration. Hands over his ears trying to drown us out. Finally, he fired one shot into the ceiling to shut us up.
We sat, tense waiting for him to act. My stomach twisted in stress. I’d been in a few scary situations before and seen some terrible monsters but I’d never felt so stressed and afraid before. Death was easy. Living through the regret that I couldn’t save a friend was worst.
The gun was pointed at my face and I felt relived and scared at the same time. I didn’t know the extent of Vicky’s rules and thought maybe she could kill murderers as well and not just human trash that forced themselves on girls. The gun was trembling in his hand and he looked like he was going to be sick. The gravity of what he done, and what he was going to do finally hit him. He could either crumple under the pressure or go all in.
My throat tightened and I suddenly couldn’t get air to my lungs. I thought about Max, and how upset he would be to have to get a new partner again. For a brief moment I wondered if it was worth putting him through that to help Vicky.
The gun went off and I thought I was dead. My mind worked slowly. The events of what just happened taking a while to catch up. My ear was burning because the gun was fired so close to my head. At the last second the shot went aside, saving my brains from splattering. My ear rang and I stared in shock at how I was saved. Vicky easily pulled her wrists free. She jumped up from behind the man, her face transformed and twisted. She clamped her jaws on his neck, blood spraying into my face and she moved the gun aside just enough to save me.
With one final crushing twist of her jaws, she let the man fall limp and bloody to the floor. Her face returned to it’s normal pretty version. She noticed my expression of shock and horror and looked as if it was not a normal reaction.
“What?” She asked slightly put out I wasn’t keeping track of what was going on.
“You just… you can’t… You’ll get in trouble again.” I stuttered.
She made short work of my bonds and lifted me out of the chair with one hand. Because I was unable to really do much due to shock, she started to clean the blood from my face.
“Creatures of the night can kill a human if it’s to save a different human. But no one does it because, gross. Who would want to save a human? None of us wants to take advantage of the rule to eat whenever we want because of just… wrong it is for use to meddle in human affairs. If you want to kill each other go for it. So, Toby this is VERY important. You can’t tell anyone I saved you.”
Her tone was low and serious. I looked over at her face that still looked human but it gave me the chills just to look over at her.
“Or else…” I started to ask.
“Or else.” She said not needing to finish the threat.
Nodding, we left the basement and the man behind. She would come back later to dispose of the evidence but right now we needed to find Max and fill him in. Turns out, he found us.
When we came out of the house, Max was walking up the street his hair a mess. He waved at us and caught up. Vicky gave him a very brief explanation of what happened. He didn’t look surprised at all.
“How did you find us?” I asked him finally.
“Your cellphone has a tracking thing.”
I looked at him wondering how that answered the question. I dropped my phone back at the diner. I know I did. Reaching inside my pocket just to double check, I found my phone inside. I pulled it out, very confused on how it got back in there.
“Because you can’t use spells to get in contact with me in case you get lost, they made it so your phone is always in your pocket. It’s pretty immune to damage too.” Max explained. He handed Vicky back her phone that he picked up and she looked at the scratch on the corner of her case then looked at my pink case, jealous. “I tried texting you but I guess with your hands tied up, you couldn’t answer.”
Max was just giving me a lot of new information. Since when did he have a phone? When we first met, he didn’t even know what one was.
“You have a cellphone?”
He pulled one from his pocket to show me. It also had a pink case to match mine.
“I send you messages all the time. But I don’t know how long they take to get through cause you never answer me.”
Vicky was snickering at the both of us. Turns out I’d blocked Max’s number months ago thinking it was a spam number. I didn’t have that many friends that kept in contact with me. Having a random number send me gibberish was an easy thing to mistake for spam. We figured out how to unblock Max from sending me messages. This would be very useful in the future.
“Tonight, was fun. Kinda lame that guy knew where Vicky was going to be and caused all this fuss. I wanted to go to the space money place for that whip cream cup.” Max said when we finally got the phones sorted.
“He mean’s Starbucks for one of those little cups of whip cream they give to dogs.” I explained.
“Puppuccino.” He further corrected.
“You had like five pounds of whip cream on your waffles already.” Vicky said not following along.
“It tastes different in a cup.” We said at the same time.
Max brought up a good point. Aside from the Starbucks thing. How did that man know where Vicky was? If he was stalking her, she surely would know. Suddenly, everything came together in my head with a click I thought those two could hear.
“You used me!” I cried looking at Vicky.
Looking round, Vicky found an empty plastic water bottle on the side of the road. Picking it up she handed it to Max telling him to go play for a bit. He nodded and tossed the bottle. It flew down the street and he went chasing after it. He was fast enough to catch it before it landed and to play fetch with himself. He often did when we got too bored on jobs.
“What are you talking about?” She hissed after Max left.
“You knew this guy was dangerous but couldn’t do anything about it. You must have heard the rumors of a new human working as a mailman and requested us to be the ones delivering the mail today. You knew Max would suggest going out and must have told the guy where we were going. The diner had big windows so he just saw us together the entire time making him more and more pissed off. What I don’t understand is why he never mention seeing Max with us.”
“Max is invisible to humans. It’s because he has those dog ears. Why do you think he makes you order things for him all the time?”
If that was the case then no wonder why our waitress gave us such a strange look after ordering so much food. And finishing it all.
“Why would I bother doing all of that? I could just wait until he gave me a reason to eat him.” She scoffed at my idea.
“Because you were worried that he might not go for you first. You’re a nice person after all and wanted to not risk another girl’s safety.”
Vicky stared down at me her face dark and she seemed a bit taller than before. I took a small step back not knowing what I just got myself into.
“Those are all theories without any proof. I suggest you never tell anyone of your silly little thoughts. If you do.”
She grabbed my face with a large clawed hand. Her face remained somewhat normal but her eyes glowed and mouth looked far too large. In a deep growling voice, she leaned in closer crushing my jaw with her hand.
“I’ll figure out a way to rip you apart if you start spreading that nonsense.”
Out of all the things I’ve seen so far, Vicky was near the top of the list of things I did not want to mess with. The water bottle came flying towards us. She reached out and snatched if from the air, not even looking over. The plastic cracking and crumpling in her grip. I knew that would be the sound my bones would make if I didn’t listen to her. I nodded and she let go, my jaw feeling bruised.
Max joined us, unaware of any threats to my life. Vicky left soon after to take care of the mess she left behind in the house. Her face just then and watching her kill a man in front of me would haunt my thoughts for a very long time.
Another haunting image from that night was Max’s disappointed face when we finally found a Starbucks and it was closed.