Page 85 of Serial Killer Games

“Shoo, Princess!” my aunt says, but Princess becomes more committed.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Andrew says. “You’re always like this. You always think you have something wrong with you.”

“He cut his hand—”

“I don’t see a cut.”

“His palm—”

“Open your hand, Jake,” Andrew says.

Everyone’s talking at once, and Princess keeps at it, sticking his fucking damp face—

“Open your damned hand, Jake!”

I open my hand, releasing the pressure on the cut, and pain suddenly blooms through my hand, up my arm—

Theblood. Oh, the blood.

Laura squawks and bundles my hand in a dishcloth with vegetable trimmings still clinging to it. “Stitches!” she cries.

“He doesn’t need stitches,” Andrew says. He yanks me to my feet by my wrist and sticks my hand under the sink, then runs the cold water. The bottom of the basin swirls pink and red. I close my eyes and gag. I’m not good with blood.

“Unbelievable,” Andrew says, dropping my wrist. I clench my hand back into a fist and the bleeding stops, and I lean heavily against the counter. Andrew plucks up a clean holly-patterned napkin from a stack folded neatly for dinner tomorrow and wipes his hands. I’ve been sorted. He’s ready to move on to more important things.

“They’re not coming,” he announces.

“What?” Laura says blankly. She’s still wearing her apron, but she’s slipped on a coat and has her car keys clutched in one hand.

“Judith is doing her own Christmas,” he says with the air of injured royalty, as if he didn’t intentionally pick a fight with his sister and then hold Christmas hostage. I’ve seen him use this move a dozen times over the years. Good old Judith finally called his bluff.

Laura’s face falls. The food. The decorations. The Barbie mansion—

“But I spoke to her this morning—”

Andrew says the most Andrew thing possible. “You know what she’s like.” Then he turns and walks out.

Laura stares after him, stunned, as the kitchen door rocks on its hinges behind him, the scuffling noise of Princess licking his balls the only sound in the room.

When I see Laura’s face, I know I Spy can’t touch this. I sometimes wonder if there’s an evolutionary advantage to being an asshole. Maybe it’s calorically more efficient.

“I don’t need stitches. I’ll bandage this up.” I wrap my hand in a clean dish towel and flick the radio on to Christmas tunes on my way out.

In the bathroom I find a roll of gauze, which I wind tightly around my hand across the sliced webbing between my thumb and index finger. Princess follows and watches the proceedings. When I finish, he and I stare at each other.

Princess’s villain origin story is that he is the replacement dog my uncle brought home after he put down the senior golden retriever I arrived with. I named him Princess to piss off my uncle and never forgave him. Uncle, that is. Maybe this ismyvillain origin story.

“Who’s a good boy,” I grunt in the flattest, deadest voice I can summon, and he wags his tail, delighted. I trim his bangs with the bandage scissors while he licks my knuckles in ecstatic supplication. Maybe he’ll spend the night with me in the car.

—

While Laura gets lunch onthe table, I inspect the picture-perfect Christmas tree, resplendent in winking fairy lights and old-fashioned, kitschy ornaments. With my good hand, I try to adjust a Santa perched too close to the end of a branch, but hisbody detaches from his head and falls to the floor. The severed head bounces on the springy branch, and it makes me think of Cat. She would like that ornament. Laura is still busy in the dining room, so I snap the body off a snowman hanging nearby. An angel next. A reindeer. And finally a drummer boy, before Laura calls me to lunch.

Andrew sits at the head of the table, as usual, with Laura to his right and a space for me at his left. He allows Laura to serve him, and then he rubs his hands slowly, like he’s wiping something nasty off his skin. He finally looks at me.

“I wasn’t sure if we’d ever hear from you again, Jacob,” he says lightly.

Laura keeps her head down and slices through her quiche slowly and deliberately. If he’s been hounding me for three weeks about that dinner, I wonder what it’s been like for Laura.

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