Page 67 of The Butterfly Killer

His eyes flickered to Roman’s form, but the man was focused on whatever he was working on.

Marcus pushed himself up. Slowly and as quietly as possible, he tip-toed to the curtain. His hand hovered over the opening for a moment as he ran through all the scenarios that could happen. What was supposed to help his anxiety only made it worse.

Fuck it.

He grabbed the curtain and pulled it back.

19

Roman didn’t so muchas flinch when Marcus yanked the curtain open. He was bent over his desk with tweezers in his hand while the other held a thin stick. A dragonfly was impaled on the stick, its delicate wings glistening in the light coming from the low lamp just above Roman’s head.

He used the tweezers to adjust the dragonfly’s wings. He moved them so they were equally spaced to his satisfaction. When he seemed happy with how they were, he lowered the tweezers and moved the magnifying glass away from his face. Only then did he acknowledge Marcus.

“Close the curtain if you’re going to watch. I don’t want dust or a draft to get in.”

Marcus quickly stepped in and closed the curtain. His face flushed as he felt chastised like a student.

With the curtain closed, the small space felt even smaller. Inescapable even though he could have stayed on the other side. It didn’t feel like an option though.

Roman stabbed the stick with the dragonfly on the end into a green block that looked like styrofoam. It was the type of stuffthey used in flower arrangements but he didn’t know what it was called.

There were other bugs impaled on similar sticks. Beetles, wasps, and even a caterpillar. The bizarre scene seemed unreal and more like a snapshot from a horror movie. Only a little grossed out, he was more fascinated by what Roman was going to do with them.

He must have been staring for longer than he realized because Roman cleared his throat as if he’d been trying to get Marcus’s attention for awhile.

“Sorry,” Marcus mumbled before he could stop himself. He cursed himself for acting like such a pushover. He shouldn’t be apologizing for anything.

Roman didn’t say anything. Instead, he nodded toward a stool under the desk.

Marcus thought about leaving. Did he really care about what Roman was doing with all these insects and the other dead animals along the walls? Truthfully, his curiosity was winning out against any logic he still had.

He grabbed the stool and pulled it out. It scratched on the wood. He winced at the horrible sound. As if things couldn’t have been more awkward…

He sat in the stool and avoided Roman’s eyes. That wasn’t hard at all because Roman wasn’t even looking at him. He seemed to become invisible as the man went back to focusing on his work.

He wore skin-tight latex gloves and his hair was clipped back with two metal clips. He left the bugs and moved to a glass box. He pulled it down from the shelf to his right and sat it on the table in front of him.

It seemed he was preparing to put the bugs in the case.

The job was pretty straightforward. He cleaned the wooden shadow box, lint rolling it to make sure there were no dustparticles. Marcus understood now why Roman didn’t want the curtain open. He’d want to keep the place clean if this was what he had to do to prevent even the little amount of fibers.

He already knew he had no interest of doingthison his own. He was very much happy to be glued to his job. His social life was in the gutter and the only type of hobby he had was watching reruns, but even watching TV took too much energy these days.

It was nice though to imagine a life where he had the free time and the peace of mind to spend long hours on something “pointless”. However, the way Roman took his time, paying achingly close attention to every detail, it didn’t seem at all pointless. Roman made it feel like this was the most important thing in the world.

Roman pulled out a drawer from the wooden organizer to the left of the desk.

The one thing Marcus had known about Roman from the start was his penchant for being organized. Nothing could be out of place or dirty—whether that was the murder scenes or the small cabin. It was embedded in his DNA.

That was why Marcus was puzzled by the absolute mess of the drawer Roman was rifling through like pack rat.

There were old receipts, twigs, rhinestones, broken silver chains, and more scraps of junk Marcus couldn’t begin to name because Roman was going through it too fast. While the mess of a drawer didn’t seem to be in any kind of order, Roman searched like he knew what he was looking for.

He didn’t stop until he almost reached the bottom. He pulled out broken pieces of mirror which he sat to the side, straightening them into a neat line just the way Marcus would expect for him to do.

Roman put the draw back to its original spot. He grabbed a glue bottle and set to work glueing the mirror pieces into the shadow box. He placed them in different spots. They couldn’thave been at random because he was taking his time getting the position just right. That was further proven right when he grabbed the first bug, the beetle, and glued it in a spot that made the pieces of glass look purposeful.

He continued to work, glueing the insects in places and in positions Marcus was curious to know why. He noticed he was so engaged with Roman’s work that his brows were scrunched painfully hard. He relaxed them and fidgeted on the stool as he tried to brush off the awkwardness he felt.

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