Page 26 of Rot

Maybe I wanted him to care more than he did. Maybe he really did just find me annoying, a poison.

Our first stop was the mall two towns over. As it turned out, when you lived in a tiny ass town, most of the fun stuff to do involved leaving that town and going somewhere else. This mall was unlike the ones I was used to; no name-brand storefronts. A lot of the stores were ones I’d never heard of, and quite a few of them had closed down.

“This place used to betheplace to be on the weekends,” Jordan was busy saying as we strolled through the mall. He made no moves to grab my hand, which was fine; I didn’t think I wanted to hold his hand, anyway. “But ever since they built that movie theater at Crocker—” Giving me a small history lesson of the area, but I didn’t really care.

I didn’t care about any of it. This was a date only in that I was using him to get what I wanted, and what I wanted wasn’t Jordan. He was just a means to an end.

We went into various stores. An old music store that also sold movies and weird candy from Japan. Jordan bought me a pack of small cookies I was looking at, along with a few things for himself, and we munched on them as we continued our tour of the mall.

“You know, you don’t really talk about yourself a lot,” Jordan said. He sat across from me. We’d gotten a hot pretzel from one of the places in the mall and taken a seat nearby at the few tables they had set up. “Why is that? Most girls I know can’t shut up about themselves—” He seemed to realize how what he’d said might be misconstrued. “Not that that’s a bad thing, but… I don’t know. You just seem different. I can’t get a read on you. You don’t really talk at lunch, and I think you’ve said maybe a total of thirty words tonight so far.”

I shrugged. “I guess I just don’t like to talk.” True enough. You could learn so much more by listening and watching. Although, if he was, say, Elias, I supposed I’d be more chatty.

“Is it me? Did I do something to offend you?”

I shook my head. I guess I had to talk a little more than I wanted to. “No. It’s me. I’m used to no one talking to me. Back home, I was always on the outside looking in. No one wanted to talk to me. I was the black sheep.”

“Is it because of your dad?” Jordan’s question caught me off-guard, and all I could do was stare at him. He hurriedly explained himself, “I tried to look you up, but you weren’t anywhere. Not Facebook, not Instagram, not TikTok. When I was looking for you, I stumbled across some things about the Bedlam Butcher. The victim that got out alive was… Penelope Karnagy?” He didn’t sound too sure of my mother’s name as he repeated it. “Is that your mom?”

I ripped off a piece of the pretzel and shoved it in my mouth, chewing on it slowly to give myself some time to think.

So, he’d tried to do some research on me, couldn’t find me, but in the process found stuff about my mother based on my last name, I assumed. My mother wasn’t a minor anymore, so her name wasn’t hidden. Everyone knew she was the only one who survived the Bedlam Butcher’s bloody trail, the one who managed to incapacitate him until the police could arrive and arrest him.

Was Jordan interested in me because I was the new girl at his school, new meat, as Elias might put it, or because I was the possible daughter of a serial killer? A lot of people were addicted to true crime podcasts and stuff these days; you never knew what someone’s fascination might be.

Ugh. I’d rather him want to fuck me and dump me than be obsessed with my father.

Finally finished with the pretzel piece, I was slow in saying, “Yes. She’s my mom.” I hated calling her mom and not mother, but I’d learned that people thought you hated your parents if you called themmotherorfatherout loud.

Jordan couldn’t take his brown eyes off me. “So it’s true, then? The Bedlam Butcher’s your dad?”

I pursed my lips somewhat. “He is, but it’s not something I like to go around advertising, so—”

“I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “But if I figured it out, other people will, too. My sister’s actually the one who put it together first.”

That got me to blink. “Your sister?”

“Yeah, you know her. Dana. We’re twins, actually.” When I could only stare at him, he went on, “What? Don’t say you didn’t know—my last name is Vito, just like hers.”

Shit. No, I didn’t know that. No, I didn’t pay attention to everybody’s last names. I was still new around here; I didn’t know everything yet. Last names were so big back where I came from, I didn’t give a shit to learn every single person’s here, because no one around here really mattered to me.

Well, except for Elias.

“I already told her to keep it to herself,” Jordan was saying. “So you don’t have to worry about that.” He studied me, choosing to view my silence as me being worried about the whole school knowing the truth about my parentage. “I know it’s probably not something you want everyone to know.”

No, I didn’t care if people knew me as the Bedlam Butcher’s daughter. That’s who I was. It’s why I existed to begin with. If my father had never killed those people, if he hadn’t raped my mother when she was sixteen, I wouldn’t be here.

This wasn’t about that. This was about the fact that Dana was related to Jordan and I had no idea. I wondered if it was something I could use to my advantage, at least to get information.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “I really appreciate that. Dana’s your sister, huh? I had no idea. She likes Elias, doesn’t she?”

Jordan chuckled. “Yeah, she’s had a thing for him for years. I think it’s because he plays at being that quiet, mysterious type. My sister would never admit it, but she goes crazy for it.”

Hmm. Elias wasn’t very quiet with me. More like angry. “Yeah, I remember seeing her with him at that party.”

“My sister always gets what she wants. Elias is the only one who’s ever given her trouble. I think that’s what keeps her on the hook.” Jordan shrugged. “Don’t know why. Elias is, no offense, a jerk when you try to talk to him. I used to be friends with him before the accident, but honestly, he’s always been a little… off.”

“Off?” I echoed.

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