Page 35 of Deviant

He leans in and pecks me on the cheek before strolling down the auditorium, his eyes scanning the facility as he goes about it.

If I had to guess… he’s probably looking for Mackenzie to make her a similar proposition.

I really should be angrier or even jealous that my boyfriend can quickly come up with a plan B when I turn him down.

But I’m not.

I feel nothing.

No. Not nothing.

I feel relief.

The more ways he finds to entertain himself, the better it is for me.

This way, he’ll be too distracted to realize what I’ve been up to until it’s too late.

Or maybe that’s my naivete talking.

Perhaps, like me, Aidan has checked out of this relationship and couldn’t care less about what I get up to.

Unwilling to let Aidan realize that my father has no intention of going home with me, I loiter a little longer in the auditorium, making myself useful by folding and packing chairs.

“Always ready to lend a helping hand, aren’t you, girlie?” Joe says with a cheerful greeting before joining me in clearing the room.

“Someone needs to do it. Why not me?”

“Idle hands being the devil’s playground and all, huh?” he teases.

“I guess you can say that.” I grin, following him into a storage room to dispose of the chairs.

Once everything is neatly packed, my tension eases when I see that almost everyone has left already. We walk in tandem out of the auditorium and find a few townsfolk still outside the town square talking amongst themselves.

I’m surprised to see that one of those loiterers is none other than my father, chatting with Elias next to his bike. However, the conversation doesn’t seem very amicable, considering that Elias looks as if he’d love nothing more than to swallow my father whole.

“Poor fucker,” Joe says as he pulls a flask from his coat pocket and takes a swig. “People in this town will never let him live it down thatThe Scourgewants nothing to do with him. Envious bastards.”

“Do you think that’s what they are talking about?” I ask, wishing I could overhear what they are saying.

“Who the fuck knows, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Larsen should know better than to show his face to these town meetings. He knows how people feel about him. It’s like he wants to gauge a reaction when he should leave shit well enough alone.”

“He has the same right to attend as anyone else,” I defend, my gaze never leaving the unlikely pair.

“True. But if everyone hated me the same way this town hates him, I would have passed on the meeting. Not that much fun anyway,” Joe jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s not Elias’s fault he’s never been chosen. Shouldn’t we be happy for him instead of blaming him for not being selected?”

Joe spits out his liquor at how hard he laughs.

“I dare you to find one soul in all of Blackwater Falls happy that our best contender at winning the games doesn’t even get the chance to go. It’s its own form of torture for everyone. For the town to watch innocent lives go off to their deaths while the strongest of us get to stay at home is all sorts of fucked up. It breeds resentment on both sides.”

I frown at that.

Joe isn’t wrong.

I doubt there is one person who doesn’t look at Elias and curses the ground he walks on.

Why should he get to stay while their children are ordered to go?

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