CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I absent-mindedly glanced at the TV in the corner of the room. The news. I kept an eye fixed on it and an ear open, in case they mention us for some reason, but there was nothing. All the noise that happened around Stanley five days ago, when I called the cops, telling them where we had left him (of course, pretending to be just a guy, a passer-by, who heard alarming noises and panicked shouting, and called because he was “soooo worried”) was now over. I knew I must be thankful that the bastard was that proud – he would never tell what exactly happened, afraid he might embarrass himself in front of the others, or show himself to be a bad person – what he actually was. So for now the official version was that we had broken in his house and tried to kill him, because we were, as he said, “psychopaths”, but then we had heard the police sirens and quickly had gotten out of there, leaving him in the closet. I shook head at the thought how dumb the investigators must be. It was obvious that we spent a lot of time in preparations for this, it didn’t look like an impulsive act of violence by two psychopaths at all. I mean, look at the closet. The water we had left for him. It was damn evident that this wasn’t just a random place we locked him in, in a hurry, and you must be fucking blind not to see it.

I moved my look back down to my food and stabbed a piece of meat with my fork. Hmm, Chinese food, I haven’t eaten that for a long fucking time.

“It’s good.”, Vic spoke up. I looked up at him to see he was glancing at the TV as well. After a month of running and hiding, the paranoia had started to get to us. “Damn, I missed this. I used to eat a lot of Chinese when I was younger, ‘cause back then I couldn’t really cook.”

I tilted head, interested.

“You can cook now, though?”

“Yup.”, he shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve lived all alone for awhile, so I had to learn, I couldn’t live on pizza and fast food forever, y’know.”

“True.”, I grinned, taking another bite. Eh, something with this meat was off, but I couldn’t tell what exactly… It just tasted a little weird. “I don’t agree with one thing, though. The food here is horrible.”

“No, it’s not!”, he furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s the best we’ve had since Vegas!”

“You mean since those “cuisses de grenouilles”, which turned out to be frog’s legs?”, I giggled.

“Shut up, we ordered fish, and it was good.”, he laughed a bit too.

“Yeah, but we could’ve ordered frog’s legs”, I insisted, grinning. “Whatever, this doesn’t taste quite right.”

“If you don’t want it, you can have mine.”, he offered me his plate.

“Nah, I’ll finish my food, I’ve eaten half of it already anyway. Thanks, though.”, I looked at him and smiled. “You’re so nice it’s almost annoying.”

“Well, what can I say.”, he lifted his shoulders, grinning. “I’m just a nice guy, that’s who I am.”

“Don’t ruin my compliment, asshole.”, I chuckled and kicked him lightly under the table.

“Owww. Jerk.”, Vic frowned, pretending I really hurt him. I just stuck my tongue out at him.

Suddenly something drew my attention back to the TV. Now they were talking about some murders and I got interested, because they were in the area. I was slightly alarmed, though, because that meant more cops, and it would be a bad situation for us both.

“…The serial killer, also known as Steve Brit, which most certainly isn’t his real name, has returned with three new victims, a man and two young women…”, the reporter was just saying.

Brit? Well that was kind of hilarious. I chuckled.

“What?”, Vic looked up at the TV. “What is it?”

“Nothing, just some serial killer guy, doesn’t matter.”, I shrugged, going back to eating.

“You find serial killers funny?”, he raised an eyebrow. “You’re scaring me, Kell.”

He theatrically moved his chair back, away from me, pretending to be afraid and concerned at the same time. I shook head, laughing a bit.

“You look an idiot.”

“I am an idiot.”, he corrected me, grinning.

“Ah, right, sorry, I forgot.”, I teased him. He rolled eyes.

“No, I’m not, I was just kidding, you jerk.”

“Asshole.”

“You’re so sweet.”, he said ironically. “And because of your behavior, I’m really starting to consider keeping what I’ve made for you for myself…”

“What?”, I raised my eyebrows, intrigued. “What have you made for me?”

“I’m not gonna teeeell yoooou.”, he giggled. “Not until you apologize, anyway.”

“Oh, come oooon. I wasn’t serious, now tell me!”

“Nope.”, Victor leaned across the table with a small smile on his face. “Apologize first.”

“Okaaay, then.”, I let out a deep sigh, then, smiling, I leaned in as well and gave him a small kiss on the cheek “…Does this count for apology?”

“I think so.”, he winked, then sat back. “You were convincing enough, maybe I’ll give you that thing after all.”

“Awesome, what is it, do you have it with you here?”, I watched him curiously, wondering what it might be.

“I do, actually. Would you want it now, or I should wait until you finish your shitty dinner?”

“Forget about the shitty dinner, I don’t want it anymore.”, I put my plate away, frowning at it. “Eh, I should’ve stayed vegetarian.”

“What made you change your mind?”, Vic asked, taking some sort of a folder out of his bag.

“Doctors.”, I sighed. “Meat is healthy for me and should slow the process down a little, blah, blah, blah, and by ‘the process’, I mean dying, you know, and I most certainly don’t wanna die sooner than I’m supposed to, so yeah. I do what they tell me to. Which makes me remember, I’ve ran out of medications.”

He froze. “Shit, why didn’t you tell me earlier? What are we gonna do now?”

“Calm down, man.”, I sighed, smiling a bit at his concern. “Tomorrow we’ll get some from the closest pharmacy, and if they don’t have it, we’ll find someone, who does. Nothing much serious is gonna happen to me if I don’t take this shit tonight, at least I think so.”

“Dammit, Kellin.”, he shook head. “You silly boy, you should’ve told me, I saw a drug store on our way here. We could’ve gotten it from there.”

“Right, sorry. I just forgot.”, I shrugged, then poked him. “You must’ve distracted me with your adorableness.”

“Aww, stop it, you.”, he giggled, gently slapping my hand so I’d stop poking him, then he handed me the folder. “Here. Open it.”

“Okay…?”, I cautiously lifted the edge and peeked in, as if I was opening a very special present, which was actually somewhat true. “Is it what I think it is?”

“I don’t know…”, Vic grinned mysteriously. “Is it?”

I opened the folder completely, revealing a small, A4 sheet. On it, with black pencils, was drawn a quick, but at the same time really realistic and detailed sketch, and the signature below was clearly saying that the author was Victor. The drawing was damn good and I could recognize the portrayed face right away – it was obviously me, sleeping, the resemblance was truly impressing. Vic had taken his time while drawing it, obviously – he had carefully traced every lock of hair with his pencil, every little eyelash, even the small, playful smirk on my lips. It wasn’t the details what made me smile, though. It was the… feeling, all the effort he had put into this piece to impress me and make me happier… This was surely the sweetest thing anyone had done for me. I stayed like this, staring at it for awhile.

“This morning I woke up really early, so I got some sheets and decided to draw you while you were still sleeping, so you wouldn’t move.”, he explained, kind of nervously. “I, um, I hope you don’t mind… and, um, find it creepy or something, but I had promised you a drawing, and I didn’t know what else to draw…”

“Vic.”, I looked up, interrupting him. “This is the nicest, cutest thing anyone has ever done for me. And your drawing is amazing. I… I really don’t know what to say… I…”

An ‘I love you’ almost slipped out my mouth, but I quickly squeezed it shut. No, I had promised myself, no confessions. That would make things so much harder for both of us. As if it wasn’t tough enough already…

I looked back down at the sheet.

“…It’s beautiful.”, I said instead.

“You’re beautiful.”, he corrected me, smiling.

“No, dude, seriously. It’s awesome, you’re so fucking talented.”

“Nah, not that much…”, he shook head shyly, “I, um, I drew a few more, for myself. Y’know, to keep them after you’re… you know. Gone.”, he looked away. “I want to have something that would forever remind me of you.”

I closed the folder and unconsciously wrapped my arms around it, holding it to my body.

“Well, you can have this one, too, once I… don’t need it anymore.”, I pressed it close to my heart. “But until then, I’ll keep it, because I love it…”, I grinned, “…and late at night, when you can’t see me, I’ll take it, and watch it, thinking how amazingly handsome I am.”

He giggled as I poked him.

“That would make it two of us, you know, who’d watch you at night thinking how handsome you are. We can start a Kellin Quinn fanclub together!”, he laughed, then quickly changed the subject: “And I believe we had a deal, now you need to write a song for me.”

“What? I said nothing about writing a song, I just said I’d sing something.”, I chuckled.

“Oh, right, well. Sing for me, then.”, Vic grinned. “Like, now.”

“Now?”, I laughed a bit. “I don’t know, man…”

“Come ooon! Please, babe.”, he gave me a pleading look.

I rolled eyes with a grin. “Giving me that look and calling me ‘babe’? You manipulative son of a bitch. Not that I can resist it, though…”, I sighed. “Okay.”

“Yaaay, my evil plan worked!”, he giggled. “Alright, I’m all ears. Sing.”

“Don’t urge me! Let me think of a song first. Okay… Oh! I’ve got one. Be prepared for some disapproving looks from the other clients.”, I winked, then coughed, preparing myself to start.

My eyes fell on the TV again, and after realizing what I was seeing, I remained sitting there with my mouth open.

“…Holy shit.”, I murmured.

“What?”, Vic quickly turned to look, instantly worried and completely forgetting about the song. “What is it, what are you looking at? Are you okay?”

“The guy.”, I simply said, focused on the screen. “That guy, the serial killer guy.”

“What about him?”

“The murders. The murders, Vic… Look where they happened.”, I bit my lower lip. “Just a block away from Stanley’s house. That’s why the police was there, they were after the killer, not after us. Problem is, now when Stan has told them we were there and we tried to kill him, you know what would be quite logical to think? That we murdered those other people too.”

“Shit… So what do we do now?”, Vic ran his hand through his hair with an anxious expression on the face.

“I don’t think there’s anything much we can do.”, I shrugged. “We just have to be cautious and stay outta the main roads. I can’t think of anything else.”

Suddenly my boyfriend straightened up on his chair, his eyes widened.

“Kell… Kell, look!”, he said a bit louder than he should’ve, receiving some glares from the other customers around us and the Chinese waitress, who probably wasn’t even really Chinese. “Isn’t that…”

He pointed at the TV and I looked up again to see a picture of a man. The quality was bad – it had obviously been taken from a security camera somewhere, but no matter how blurry it was, the man seemed familiar. I narrowed my eyes at the rough features of his face and his long, ginger-ish hair. I couldn’t see his eyes clearly, they were just two small, blurred spots, but I was sure I could recognize him… Where had I seen that guy…?

”…Steve Brit was last seen in Missouri three weeks ago. We still have no information of who he actually is, or a detailed description, because none of the witnesses, who saw his face clearly, survived for long enough to tell. This photograph was taken back then in a supermarket, so it’s pretty recent, and it’s quite possible that Brit hasn’t changed his appearance much. Everything was quiet until five days ago, when the triple murder happened. Again, we have no motive, and no witnesses. However, it’s obvious that it was him, who did it; the victims have been killed with a knife, the act itself consisting in cutting their eyes out, craving a smile into the skin of their faces and slitting their throats – Brit’s trademark. There are no fingerprints left. Anyway, the police is working hard on this case, intent to find the murderer before he kills more people, and send him to jail, where he belongs. If you see someone that fits the description, please, call in the local police department. No one has seen Steve Brit or heard his voice well, but you might be the first, and if so, you should, for your own safety, contact-”

…But I had stopped listening. I was still staring at the picture, slowly starting to recognize the man. Oh my God…

“…Holy fucking shit, Vic.”, I murmured.

He leaned in and I moved my look to him to notice he was slightly trembling.

“Please, please, please tell me it’s not him…”, he tried to whisper, but he was too frightened to keep his voice quiet. “Please, tell me we didn’t just accidentally run into a serial killer, who saw our faces pretty clearly…”

“No.”, I shook head. “We didn’t run into him. He ran into us, while we were making out, which is worse. One thing is for sure… He’s at least as good of an actor as you.”

Steve Brit. Steve Brit. He was the guy, who caught us in that garden and completely convinced us he’s the owner of the house. Obviously, we had just both chosen the same hiding place, and he found a way to get us out of there. Hell, maybe he had been there the whole time, but I was just too busy with Vic’s lips to notice him. Or maybe he came later and kicked us out when he found us, only to be alone and reload his gun, wipe away his handprints or whatever serial killers do after they murder people. Damn, why, why was I always so stupid?!

Then I realized one more thing… For once, we weren’t criminals. We were witnesses. We were the only people, who have heard his voice and seen his face, and now, when we knew who he was, we were a potential danger to him. I mean, if the police ever got us, we could always tell them what we knew about Brit, and he wouldn’t like that…

It seemed Vic had gotten to the same conclusion.

“He probably already knows who we are, Kell, and he’s gonna find us, and kill us…”, my boyfriend said, his voice shaking a little.

“No, he’s not.”, I objected, trying to keep my tone as serious and steady as possible. “Even if he knows who we are, so what? We don’t know much about him anyway. If we contact the police, we wouldn’t be able to tell them anything much, just a little more detailed description and that’s all. That wouldn’t make much difference, he could always change his looks and we’d never recognize him. What worries me, though…”, I frowned. “…is that he now probably knows who we are, and what we do, and I also don’t like the fact that the police knows we’ve been at the same place at the same time as him. I don’t want them to relate him to us. But that’s all. I don’t think he’d come after us… Who would do that, anyway? Only someone totally crazy…”, I laughed nervously.

“Crazy enough to crave smiles into three people’s faces before he kills them, for example?”, Vic raised eyebrows ironically. “Yeah, that just soooo doesn’t sound like Brit, right.”

I opened my mouth to say something to reassure him, but I couldn’t think of anything. Truth is, I only hoped the murderer didn’t realize who we were, even though they showed our faces pretty often on TV…

Speaking of which…

“…And now, some news around the Bonnie and Clyde of our century, Kellin Quinn and Vic Fuentes. We got an exclusive interview with Stanley Taylor, who revealed some interesting facts around Kellin’s past…”

“…Son of a bitch.”, I groaned. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before they show pictures of us. The last thing we need right now is someone finding out who we are and calling the cops. C’mon.”

Without asking for the bill, because I simply didn’t have time for that shit, I threw a twenty dollar bill on the table, took the folder Vic had given me and got up quickly, still keeping an eye on the screen, where Stan was just saying:

“Quinn has always hated me, I think he tried to kill me only because we’ve always been, like, enemies at school. He used to bully me a lot…”

Hah! I bullied him?! I raised eyebrows at the TV, pausing, while putting my jacket on. This cocky lying bastard…

“Son of a bitch.”, I repeated, my newborn anger making me completely forget about the fear I had felt only a few minutes ago.

”And how about Vic Fuentes, do you know him?”

“No, I have never seen him before, but I suspect he is in somewhat a romantic relationship with Quinn, I mean, yeah, I’ve always suspected Kellin’s into boys…

A picture of me and Victor showed on the screen. Uh-oh…

I felt him grip my arm.

“Come on, Kellin, we must go.”

“Yeah. Right.” I quickly threw a glance around, then pulled my hood over my head, keeping my look down. My boyfriend fixed his hat and we both quickly left the restaurant. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a girl on the next table give us a strange gaze, though I tried not to think about this, instead I concentrated on getting us to the parking lot as fast as possible. No one else even looked at us, no one cared about two seemingly emo gay boys, actually, I don’t think they even noticed we were there…

Once we had successfully gotten to the car, I could finally take a normal breath. Vic just sat quietly on the passenger seat beside me, still a bit tense, his hands were nervously playing with the edge of his hoodie. For a few moments we both stayed silent, until I finally spoke up, my voice rough and bitter:

“Well. I missed being screwed, how about you?”, I said ironically.

“Oh”, Victor shook head, “trust me, baby, we have never been as screwed as we are now.”

I frowned.

“…It sucks.”, I concluded after awhile, then started digging the car keys out of my pocket. “Oh well. I’ve had worse… No, I actually haven’t, but who gives a shit anyway.”

Suddenly I spotted a few figures run out of the restaurant and yell something in our direction. Oops, no… Vic saw them too and his skin went pale.

No one noticed us? Bullshit.

“Crap! Crap, Kellin, hit the gas, fast!”

“Stupid news reporters.”, I murmured, rolling eyes and trying to start the car. “How dare they ruin my dinner like this by basically showing my life story on TV, oh, why thank you, News, that was so nice of you, to show everyone how we look like... Well, but the food wasn’t even good, it was truly horrible, to be honest, so maybe there’s one good thing about leaving that restaurant-”

“FAST!”, Vic yelled, getting me out of the sea of sarcasm and bitterness that had started to overwhelm me. “DRIVE, GODDAMMIT!”

One of the figures pointed at us and screamed something to the others. I noticed a light – someone had turned their phone on. Uh-oh… I didn’t need Vic to ask twice, I drove off, stepping on the accelerator.

“FAST, FAST, FAS-”

His voice turned into a gasp, as a guy suddenly jumped in front of our car. I recognized him – it was the Asian guy I saw behind the counter, the bartender. I don’t know what he was thinking, probably that standing in front of the vehicle would stop us, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hit the breaks on time. I lost a few precious seconds to hesitate what to do, then quickly turned the steering wheel, missing the man by inches. Vic had forgotten to put on his seatbelt again, as usual, so the sharp turn made him hit his head in the window. I didn’t like the sound his forehead made as it met the glass. I turned to him, panicking, but still without stopping.

“Vic! Vic, are you okay?”, I asked worriedly as our car left the parking lot.

“Yeah…”, he rubbed his head – there was some blood, but otherwise he seemed fine. “Yeah, I think we got out…”

He looked up at me and smiled, then moved his look to the road. His eyes suddenly widened.

“KELLIN, WATCH OUT-”

I looked out of the windshield and immediately blinked, blinded by the headlights of the truck, driving right in our direction. It took me a second to realize we had gotten into the oncoming traffic.

“SHIT!”, I screamed over the sound of the truck’s horn, turning the wheel once more. Our car flew out of the road, causing Vic to hit his head again, and ran right into a roadside sign, a big, red “Stop”. Hah. Such irony.

Since I was driving fast, the crash was painful, the sign went straight through the front bumper, breaking it to pieces and damaging the engine. A smell of hot metal and gasoline filled the air, the smoke made me cough.

I needed a minute to fully realize what had just happened. The Asian guy… the turn… the road… the truck… the accident… Thank god, I wasn’t hurt, my arm was just bruised, I think, but I’d get better soon.

“Holy fuck, Vic. That was fucking close, man.”, I let out a short, relieved laughter. “Now let’s get out of here before the people from the restaurant or even the cops come… Vic? Vic…?”

I looked at him to see why I was getting no answer. His window was broken, his head still resting against what was left of it, blood coloring the pieces of glass in crimson. I blinked, hoping the red is just the light of the taillights, that it wasn’t real, but it was. A soft whimper escaped my lips.

“Vic…”, I pulled him away from the window and turned his face to me. He didn’t react. I gently shook him. “Vic… Vic! VIC, WAKE UP, DAMMIT!”

No reaction…

“Please…”, I shook him again. “Please, babe, wake up, open your eyes, we need to get out of here… Vic…”

A warm tear ran down my cheek as I heard the sirens sing somewhere in the distance… Police sirens.

And they were singing for us.

END OF CHAPTER 17.

Notes

"Yeah Boy and Doll Face". That pretty much sums it up. [link]

None of this was supposed to happen, they were supposed to just peacefully leave the restaurant, but things went out of control. I have no idea how I got to the car crash at all.

Also, does anyone have any guesses who Steve Brit might be? Hint: he's someone from either SWS or PTV... ;D

By the way, sorry, long time no chapters. I've been busy with my band, but I shall try to update more often from now on.