Page 19 of Hunt Me

Anyone with any training at all could rob this place blind with a few cut wires and a big enough truck. Not that there’s much to steal, but robbing people is so much more than just someone taking what isn’t theirs. It’s also about control. About power. About showing people that they are vulnerable and unsafe.

It’s a motto our family has lived by for generations. And it’s one we’re now attempting to escape. I don’t want Denver to feel like I have power over him. Not like that. I want him to see the gift and know I was here and that I am sorry for leaving him the way I did.

I want him to understand that I will be back, and I will make it right.

I wind my way through the chairs in the dim light of the fogged windows and find the door that leads backstage. It’s set up like one big dressing room with feather boas, wigs, fishnet tights, and dresses strewn about.

It brings me back to the first night I saw my little rabbit. Only he wasn’t Denver onstage. He was someone else in his blonde wig and tight dress and corset that gave him a figure anyone would die for.

I remember watching him, wondering if I could fit my hands around his waist and touch my fingers.

It was a gorgeous little fantasy I kept in my head as he danced and signed and showed off his gorgeous calves. He was so…expressive. He spoke volumes with his body in ways that I could never be capable of.

His language is rooted deep into his veins in ways I can never experience. Ways that made my past ASL teachers hate mebecause, thanks to my autism, my face does not move through vivid expressions the way the language commands.

I find a single vanity with a stool and a mirror, so I place the bouquet on top with the stones in a neat pile beside it. One of them has part of the date inscribed, so I wonder if he’ll understand what it is.

Hunting around for a moment, I eventually locate a roll of receipt paper and a pen, so I tear off a small bit and bend over to write.

This, he’ll get. This will tell him exactly who I am, even if I don’t sign my name at the bottom.

I slip the note under the palm leaf, then leave the bar, locking the door behind me and heading to my truck. There’s a second security camera on the side of the building, and I offer a small smile before climbing into the cab and freezing when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I pull it out and try not to sigh at the screen.

Percy: Thursday, ten pm. Shed. Found arsonist. Bring knives.

That’s the day after tomorrow, which is plenty of notice, so I have time to add it to my daily tasks. I send back a thumbs-up, and then I hit the street, back on the hunt. I have a feeling I won’t see my little rabbit again today, but I still feel the thrill of the chase.

And for me, right now, that’s enough.

5

ARCHIE

I don’t always sleepin my bed, but I like having one. I like being able to create a nest of silk sheets and pillows, pressed up against the wall to hold me in when it feels like all my edges have frayed and are coming apart.

I feel like that now.

I wish it were nighttime so I could wander the streets without the annoying glare of the sun and without people staring at me. When I was little, I used to wish the entire world were blind so no one would be able to perceive me.

But I have the comfort of my own space now. Percy allowed me to pick my room first when we bought the house out in the middle of nowhere. It’s sunken, three steps down, with windows near the ceiling. Milo calls it my dungeon, and it’s a very apt name.

It’s cooler than all the rooms in the house, darker, and quieter, though living out here without a lot of road noise is helpful. The worst is the neighbor whose property touches ours. He has chickens and quail, which are deceptively loud, though when they’re quiet, I kind of like them.

His chickens are silkies with little feathered pom-poms on top of their heads, and there’s always one—a black one with a very yellow beak that is always wandering onto our property.

I’m a little scared one of the cats is going to kill it, but so far, they don’t seem interested in doing more than licking their buttholes and sunning themselves. I’ve been keeping an eye on it though. I can’t help but wonder if that chicken is unwanted amongst her flock. Maybe that’s why she keeps trying to find sanctuary on our property.

I’m not really a bird person though. I’m not much of an anything person if I’m being honest with myself. Unless my coffins, books, and research on death rituals count, but Percy says it doesn’t, and he’s usually right about most things.

But I’m starting to wonder if maybe he was wrong, becauseIwas wrong. There is someone who I’ve been more obsessed with than I really have words for lately, which is a new feeling for me. He gets my blood going hotter than anyone ever has before, and I’m not quite sure what to do with that.

I’m not a virgin. I’ve scratched the orgasm itch over the years with random strangers who mean nothing to me. But Denver is not nothing.

No. He’s damn near everything, and I want him more fiercely than I’ve ever wanted anyone before. It’s a hyperfixation—a hunger I can’t sate.

An obsession, and I don’t ever want it to go away.