Page 15 of The Beautiful Dead

“I’m here to finish my degree at Devereux University,” I found myself saying, as if filling the silence would make it easier to breathe. “Forensic anthropology. Got a scholarship.”

Something flickered in his expression at that but was gone before I could name it.

He leaned back, settling into the seat like he owned it. Like he owned the room. And maybe he did, because the second he walked in, the diner had shifted. The space around us was different now.

“You know… this is my table. No one sits here.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed his drink, and my eyes followed the movement without thinking. My body reacted before my mind could catch up. Heat coiled low in my stomach, warming the blood in my veins.

Confusion rippled through me at my body’s reaction. I didn’t react like this to people. I could appreciate beauty across any gender—always had—but I’d never felt it like a spark against dry kindling before. Never like this.

He placed his cup on the table with a soft thud, his smirk curling slow and cruel. “You’re different.”

A statement. A realization? A warning or maybe a threat.

He didn’t wait for a response as he slipped out of his seat fluidly. Muscles coiling and bunching under the straining material of his jacket. A ripple passed through the diner, conversations fading in his wake as he sauntered to the door.

At the front, the table of men stood as he approached. Their movements were sharp, practiced. Not just deference but discipline. They flanked him, moving in sync as he stepped outside, and the night swallowed them whole as they melted into the shadows.

With them gone, the silent moment shattered. Air rushed back into the room, but the weight of their absence lingered. Then—I felt it. A subtle but undeniable shift. Every gaze turned in my direction as they studied me like an exhibition. Recognition or fear flickered across their faces. Faces that had smiled at me before now judged me.

I was no longer just the boy in the dark corner. No longer invisible. Something had changed. They might not have understood why, but instinctively, unconsciously—they recoiled.

Marked me as an outsider, someone whom they should keep their distance from. As one, they built their walls up and turned back to their private conversations.

“Top-up?” Doll’s voice cut through the tension, her coffee pot poised.

I nodded. “Sure.”

As she poured, her voice dropped to a whisper, like she was sharing a secret rather than a warning. “Be careful.”

I raised a brow.

“He’s not like everyone else.”

I tilted my head. “Neither am I.” The words left my mouth before I had time to process them.

Doll’s expression flickered—understanding? Concern? She reached out, her fingers barely grazing the air near my shoulder. I flinched.

She hesitated, then pulled back. But her voice hardened. “Maybe not. But you’re not like him.” Something in her tone tickled the back of my mind; it was more than caution. Conviction maybe? A warning.

Before I could press her for more, I exhaled, mentally exhausted. “Mind if I stay and draw?”

She paused, and all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating in my ears. Her features smoothed, the practiced ease returning along with the smile on her lips. “’Course, darlin’.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet for the cash to pay—I didn’t have much— but she waved me off.

“On the house. Something tells me you need it more than I do.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she silenced me before I could.

“You don’t mind loading the dumpsters for me at the end of the night, that is?”

A trade. That was fair. “Of course not.”

Satisfied, she moved through the diner, slipping back into routine—orders taken, drinks refilled. The world around me settled, falling back into rhythm.

I was quickly forgotten by the other patrons as I disappeared back into my own world. I pulled my sketchbook free and let the pencil glide over paper, coaxing the image to life—fractured bone, splintered under pressure. Swirling shadows, curling into the vines, stretching from the page as if they could reach out and pull you in.

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