Page 25 of Vicious King

8

Elias

With a flick of my hand,my golden mask sailed onto the floor with my dark red second-level robe. I was supposed to be wearing all that shit tonight, but I really couldn’t be bothered. I had a ton of work to do on my thesis, and I’d rather do that right now than attend yet another first-level party at the Tomb.

Crown and Dagger held one every few months to show off to all the newer first-levels, keeping them entertained and on the hook. Guys who’d been first-level for longer (and also second-levels like me) were expected to make an appearance at a few of the Tomb parties to make everything look good, but they’d become stale and boring as fuck. It was the same shit every time: strippers with lithe bodies putting on shows, beautiful escorts offering anything a man could desire, head-pounding music, flowing booze, endless amounts of coke.

While I didn’t mind drinking, I didn’t want to touch random women, and I certainly didn’t want to spend an evening snorting lines. I’d already been through that stage when I was younger. The shit was toxic, and I didn’t feel the need to get high anymore. Especially not when I had Tatum.

She was all the high I needed. The only woman I wanted to touch. I was a man obsessed, my thoughts always fixated on the curves of her body, the lilt of her voice, the way her eyes darkened when she was afraid, and the way they lit up when she smiled.

I’d spent the last couple of weeks with her at the Lodge, helping her get settled into the place. Things between us seemed… better. She still didn’t talk a hell of a lot, but she no longer seemed like a blank slate. She even smiled at me on occasion when I brought her things she liked.

On top of that, fucking her was pure heaven again. She was always there in the moment, never drifting off into some dark place in her mind like she used to.

I didn’t want to leave her at the Lodge when I was forced to return to New Marwick for all my grad school shit, but her contract stated she must be kept either there or at the island throughout her service, and I didn’t really have an option while I was so busy anyway. Besides, it was the safest place for her right now. There were doctors to take care of her physical and mental wellbeing if necessary, and security guards were everywhere to ensure no one would ever touch her against her will. More to the point, they could all ensure she never tried to hurt herself again.

Her room also contained surveillance cameras, so anytime I wanted to look at her, I could get on my laptop or phone and do so with a few keyboard strokes. I’d done exactly that a few minutes ago, and the security feed from her bedroom was up on my laptop screen, a welcome distraction from the boring business journal I’d been studying for my thesis earlier. Welcome to the Tatum Marris Show.

Right now, she was stretched across her couch, watching an old episode of Dexter. The show’s serial killer had just jabbed a needle in someone’s neck and was preparing to slice them up.

Tatum bit at her bottom lip as the action happened onscreen. I frowned, wondering if it reminded her of the incident with my father back in late November.

I still wasn’t sure what made her snap and stab him. In all the weeks back at the island, when she was in her blank robotic phase, the only reason she gave me was ‘because I’m bad’. My father also seemed reluctant to discuss the subject. Every time I’d tried to ask him to elaborate, he said she just snapped out of the blue when he went down to her cell to ask her how she was doing with me.

Something about that didn’t ring true. Why the hell would he be visiting her and asking how she was? He had no reason to care beyond the fact she belonged to me. He hated her just as much as I used to. After all, he was related to Ben too.

When I pressed him, he said he assumed she stabbed him to get at me, because she hated being there with me and she wanted to draw attention to that by causing a huge scene. Made sense at first, in a shallow way. But not anymore, now that I’d actually thought about it. If she hated me so much and wanted to get at me, why not just stab me? It wasn’t like she didn’t have the opportunity. I was in her cell a lot back then, and she’d obviously had the improvised weapon stashed in there for weeks.

I knew I wasn’t going to get any straight answers from either of them, though. Tatum had closed up on the subject—she didn’t seem ready to talk about what she’d been through all those weeks ago yet—and getting straight answers from my father was like extracting teeth. And that was on a good day.

The front doorbell pealed downstairs, yanking me out of my thoughts. I ignored it, assuming the housekeeper would get it. When the bell rang again, I glanced at the time on my screen. After nine. Maricela was probably asleep.

I didn’t particularly want to go and answer the door, as I wasn’t expecting anyone, but if someone had managed to get past the front gate security, it was most likely friends or family.

I trudged downstairs as the doorbell rang again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” I called out.

I threw the door open to see Dr. Paulson standing on the steps. “Sorry to bother you so late, Elias,” he said. “Can we talk?”

For a few seconds, I couldn’t imagine what he might want to discuss with me. Then I remembered my DNA test. After all the chaos and confusion of the island flooding, I’d forgotten all about it.

“Sure, man. Come in,” I said, stepping aside.

He didn’t budge. “Could we speak outside? Away from the house.”

“Why?”

He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “It’s quite common knowledge that your father records or films everything he can,” he said in a hushed voice. “And I’d rather this conversation stay between us.”

I snorted. “This house isn’t bugged, and you didn’t seem to have any issue discussing all that shit with me when you were taking my blood the other week. If there were any cameras or recording devices in my room, my father would’ve been on your ass immediately for going behind his back.”

“Fair point, but still… I’d feel far more comfortable discussing this elsewhere.”

I rubbed my jawline. “You’re starting to worry me. Do I have some sort of fucked up genetic disease?”

“No.”

When he didn’t say anything beyond that, I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Let me grab a coat. We’ll walk down to the park across the street.”

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