::CHAPTER 16::

It happened again tonight, but I hadn’t seen it coming. Perhaps I should have. I wasn’t surprised that it did after all. I’d spent most of the night talking to Caroline at the dinner and according to my psychiatrist she was the biggest memory trigger. She helped me to remember. After leaving her, I had been on my way back to Loki’s house aside from a short detour.

There I had given in to the buzz that had been distracting me for most of the week. It had been easy to push it to the back of my mind for a while. Easier still to take out my restlessness on my soldiers all week. But it had been time tonight. Another heart needed to be taken.

When the dinner was over, I let Loki and his humans leave without me while I stayed with Caroline. We worked the room for maybe an hour after the others had left and then I took her home.

By that point the wait was too much. Strolling around the town, I saw a butcher sweeping his store. The door was locked and the closed sign was up, but I saw an invitation in the red stains of his apron. Twisting the door knob hard enough to break it, I entered and left with my task completed in less than ten minutes.

After butchering the butcher – no pun intended – I had come back to Loki’s place through a series of back routes and self-made entrances. Once inside the house, I put the heart into its jar and placed it into my bag. I could have buried the body, leaving no one any wiser. It was the logical thing to do. But I didn’t. That would be boring. Boring didn’t suit me. I didn’t want to hide the butcher.

I had stood in the room with the man lying on the white sheets of what had once been my bed at Loki’s house. The white was slowly being stained by the gaping hole in his chest, organ missing. Apart from the gash in his head, his shredded chest and the scarlet clothes, he appeared to be asleep. Pushing the lock of hair from his eyes, I smiled and bid him goodbye. I pulled off my gloves and stowed them in my jacket before grabbing my luggage.

Samuel and I were returning home that night so there was no harm done. I knew that I would never be invited into Loki’s house again. Not after he found the body. It didn’t matter. Ana had given me all that I needed and she was now as unnecessary to me as returning to this mansion. Samuel and I met at the entrance where Loki was waiting to bid us goodbye like a decent host.

He was still wearing his clothes from the dinner minus the white jacket that had been paired with his pants. His striped tie had been loosened, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his top button undone, but apart from that nothing much else had been altered.

“It’s been interesting having you around, Alejo.”

“I bet it has,” I replied noting his use of the word interesting as opposed to something pleasant, “I’m sure you’ll miss me when I go.”

“You think so?” Loki raised a brow.

“I can guarantee it. You’ll probably wish I hadn’t left. Most likely will find yourself in my old room, sitting on my bed and wishing you had me in your arms…or hands,” I smirked inwardly at the thought of him going into the room now.

“I doubt it.”

“We’ll see.”

“We will.”

“I would miss waking to your face each day, brother,” I pulled him in for a hug and kissed his cheek before letting out a sigh, “I love you so, dear Loki.”

“And I love you as much as you love me, my most cherished of bothers,” he said, “See you in good time.”

“Definitely,” I laughed because I saw the silver in Loki’s tongue as he saw the silver in mine, “I will miss this.”

“As would I.”

Samuel and Loki shook hands before we left. By evening the next day we were back at my castle. Feeling a tad worn, I opted for going to sleep. Bvendini had scrambled my immortal schedule. I should be now waking. Shutting down my body on the most basic of levels, I fell into a light sleep.

The memory came without warning that night. As I said, I should have seen it coming.

The boy in this memory was older this time but not by much. He was fifteen now but it made all the difference for his appearance. That two year leap had done wonders for him physically.

Though he had lost some of the muscle he’d gained working on his pa’s farm, he was taller. His face was more angular in a way that was both unnatural and yet aesthetically pleasing. The sort of face modeling agencies would pay millions for years in the future. Apart from that dark, brooding trademark kind of handsome, there was some otherness about him.

That otherness drew the other patients at the hospital to him. No matter that they knew he was dangerous and unpredictable with his feigned sanity. The boy had a charm that got to men, women and children alike.

Despite the wrongs he did, he was beloved by all. People thought they understood him and so they pitied him. After all he was in the hospital. He was insane. He couldn’t help doing bad things. So when he appeared sane again, they coddled him to no end.

It was all planned of course. The boy knew that while he was in this place, he would not stand for being spoilt any less than he had been at his own home. He ensured that he befriended the right people and so he could have things going the way it was meant to.

Strolling through the recreational area designed for Batch 1 patients – the most self-controlled and well behaved – he took one of the books from the shelf. “I want my dinner in bed tonight. An extra roll with the chicken and less potatoes than last night. Eight o’ clock,” he said to a patient. He got a nod in reply before the kid dashed off to give the order. He went to move through the crowd but the others cleared a path for him before he would have need to.

“Hey, Alejo!” Lorenzo jogged up to him, “Went an’ smuggled some of those grapes you like. Done washed em and ev’rything.” The boy flashed Lorenzo a smile he was sure looked grateful and took the bundle from him. The boy gave him a petting stroke on his head and in turn received the beaming smile of someone who felt wholly accomplished at something. “Good boy, Lorenzo. You know, I like peaches and apples too. See if you can manage that next time, huh?”

Lorenzo began wringing his hands and rocking back and forth. The boy picked up on it within the second. “But you did really, really good today,” he said patting Lorenzo’s shoulder. Lorenzo shook his head in a show of emphatic denial. He didn’t believe the boy. “No. No, no, no,” he murmured to himself, “Lorenzo let Alejo down. Lorenzo upset Alejo. Bad, bad. Bad.” He dropped his body to the floor and lay entirely still on his back muttering to the ceiling.

The boy rolled his eyes and gave a sigh, but turned away all the same. No matter how traumatized Lorenzo was going to become in the next few minutes, there was going to be peaches and apples in his hands the next day.

He had been told to stay away from Lorenzo so naturally, he let Lorenzo do the approaching. The boy had been told that he wasn’t good for Lorenzo’s mental health but that didn’t concern him. The most mundane things set Lorenzo off; cold water, green paint, oddly shaped cheese slices, the sound of sheep. The boy liked that Lorenzo followed orders without deviating no matter how erratic Lorenzo’s behavior was. It didn’t bother the boy that Lorenzo tended to have episodes after talking to him. The point was that the order would be fulfilled.

 The patient hero-worshiped the boy. He hero-worshiped everyone. But he especially was prone to doing whatever the boy told him. If the boy said to jump off the hospital roof, Lorenzo would. It was a testament to how off in the noggin the rest of patients at the hospital were that people like Lorenzo and the boy were in Batch 1.

 By the time he got to the dining room, he’d polished off all of his grapes and the sound of Lorenzo’s screams were a distant echo. Batch 3 were having lunch. All were wearing straightjackets and were fed by tight-lipped nurses. Only the most brutal of the hospital’s nurses dealt with the Batch 3 patients. Those patients were not for the weak hearted.

After the stabbing incident on the first day, the boy had been placed in Batch 3. He immediately decided that he didn’t like that category. Batch 3 patients were almost always restrained with masks over their mouths to keep them from biting and spitting. He didn’t like that.

That day he began goading the Batch 3 patients. He harassed them and did everything in his limited power to trip them off. After the fifth code blue, the nurses decided that the boy was a danger to the others. In the hospital’s history, there had never been so many mental meltdowns within a half an hour. It didn’t take long to realize that they boy had been provoking the already unstable patients.

He’d finally gotten what he wanted; solitude. They separated him from everyone else with minimal human contact. From there he put on his best behavior which both scared and worried the hell out of the nurses. He was supposed to be insane. There was no such thing as controlling your insanity. At least not to their knowledge.

The boy was all please and thank you, pleasant and grateful with unquestionable manners. He was the perfect gentleman. The doctor had seen this act before and was highly entertained by his new patient. The doctor listened as the boy complimented the nurses and charmed blushes onto their faces. There was nothing lewd about his charm. He was a respectable young man. From there he was moved into Batch 2, but that still was not good enough.

Batch 2 had an unsatisfactory amount of freedom. They weren’t physically restrained like Batch 3, but they never saw the light of day unless it was for meals. The boy wanted his share of freedom. He was a farmer’s son. Being cooped up was a serious punishment for him.

He began helping the nurses tidy up when they came to the room. He struck up conversations with them and told him of his own life whenever they asked. It was not a true account, but he felt the made up version of his life was more acceptable. He had his best behavior on at all times and became the hospital’s darling in the nurses’ eyes. It became quite obvious that such a sweet, darling little boy had no business being with the Batch 2 patients.

That was two years ago. At the moment, he took a seat beside one of the nurses who favored him above all. Resting a head onto her ample bosom, she babied him as he’d expected. He was given a sweet bun and milk although a snack so soon after lunch wasn’t allowed. She made a shhh sound and giggled. He flashed a grin and finished his snack before returning to the bedrooms.

Not ten minutes later a knock came at his door. His door because it was his room now. His old roommates had moved out. Some carefully laid out suggesting and trickery and he’d gotten the little idiots to request another room within two days of living with him. Stretching out his legs, he placed his novel on the bedside table.

“Come in,” he called to the knocker. A heartbeat later and one of the girls came in. She was safe. She was good to him. She’d made his mental roster of people he had control over. “Do you have my pills?” he asked. She handed him the small plastic cup. He thanked her and went over to the window with the bars on them. With his back to her, he threw the tablets into the flower vase and grabbed the glass of water beside it as he pretended to take them.

The pills in this place were all the same for everyone. It numbed the mind, weakened it for a short period of time. It made him compliant and dim. For a boy who prided himself on his mental prowess, having his mind addled was not acceptable. Being the one, fully functional patient among the hundreds of mindlessly obedient ones made it easier for him to influence the others.

The boy took out a flower from the vase. It was of a sub-species of the rose plant that was dominant in his village. It had especially sharp thorns that made it almost impossible to hold without being cut yet it had the most fragrant aroma embedded in the petals. With the thorns hidden in the vase, it was hard for an outsider to see how lethal the flower could potentially be. His neighbor, Mrs. Luis had sent them as a present and so he’d been allowed to keep it.

Clutching the flower tighter, he felt the thorns break into his skin. Pain seared through him but he smiled, then chuckled, then sucked in a breath. Red bled into his palm but warmth spread in his stomach. A wave of pleasure coursed throughout him.

Pain never lasted very long in him. He had heard otherwise with some of the other patients. He didn’t understand why pain morphed into pleasure every time with him. The boy didn’t need to know why, it was just enough that it did.

The wounds stung but it wasn’t a bad feeling. It sent a curious sensation down his body. A sensual tightening in his pants. With every sting in his palm, the more his erection brushed the underside of his zipper.

A shuffling behind him. He turned to the girl still standing there. Her eyes were focused on the crimson running through his fingers. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips parted. “You mustn’t hurt yourself, Alejo,” she muttered, “The doctor said so.” Her voice was soft. Too soft for her. She was the most boisterous person in the hospital most times. It was odd seeing her so somber.

He noticed her decidedly careful breathing. Her deep breathing seemed to be some sort of calming mechanism. The boy looked down at his hand and then at her. Squeezing his hand into a fist, he winced into the pleasure pain but was sure to watch her reaction. She swallowed, eyes smoldering when they met his.

“Would you prefer to hurt me yourself, then?” he asked finally, seeing the connection.

“I can’t,” she shook her head and stepped back, but her hand clutched her stomach as if to ease some phantom ache, “I’m not allowed to hurt patients.”

“Are you allowed to if you have permission from the person you want to see screaming in agony beneath you?” he asked painting a vivid enough picture to make her suck in a breath.

She was seventeen to his fifteen but he was taller, stronger, smarter and above all, manipulative. He had the advantage on almost every angle.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed,” she whispered.

“Alright then,” Alejo took that as her consent.

Tugging his shirt off he bore a torso that had a labyrinth of scars across it. He didn’t need to coax her any more than that. She came to him, the need to touch his old wounds a drug to her. A drug and aphrodisiac judging by the way she kissed each one. Reverence every time her lips touched his skin. Her kisses fell lower and lower onto a stomach that had seen glass and ice and glass again for the mere fun of it.

She got to her knees and looked up at him as if he was a god of sorts. Pulling the cotton pants down for him he smirked when her eyes widened. Impressive erection aside, the network of scars running down his thighs was a work of art. Only a man who’d made it his duty to hone his blade skills could accomplish this. She took his hand and ran her nails over the newly made wounds on his palm. He cringed away from it and she bit her lip. There was no doubt in the boy’s mind that this girl, her sanity in check aside from her depraved need to see and cause pain, would grow addicted to him.

Just as she was about to put her mouth around him, he moved away. “Bed,” he pointed. She gave a nod and followed him there.

In the time it took for him to lay flat on the sheets, she had already stripped naked. The girl was beautiful. Dark hair, equally dark eyes, spectacular body and a quirk that would make most men run. A quirk that complimented the boy’s perfectly. He enjoyed feeling pain. She enjoyed giving it. It was a match well made and he thanked his luck for finding such a girl.

She bent down to the pile of clothes and pulled out a handkerchief from her dress pocket. “Rip this into two,” she tossed it to the boy, “Quickly. The nurses will come to check on you in an hour.” He didn’t do well with being ordered around by females but her logic made him obey.

He stared at her. She was over at the vase near the bed tearing the flower heads off the stems. He ripped the handkerchief in half before realizing what she wanted to do to him.

The boy was laughing when she returned to the bed. Holding out his wrists, he waited excitement contained. She grinned and wrapped a thorny stem around his first wrist and had him hold it in place. He didn’t feel much until she tied the cloth over it. It was tight enough to almost cut off his circulation yet push the thorns into his flesh. He hissed and pulled away once she was done with the knot. Crimson rolled down his arm.

“Damn it,” she murmured, “Are you alright?” Despite her question, her eyes looked at him as if she planned to do the wickedest things. Things no proper lady would even consider. The boy was more than  alright and it showed in the twitch of his erection. He held out the second wrist and closed his eyes at the bite of the thorns.

“I’m fine. This is nothing,” he said, “I had a whip once.” She froze. Every line in her body taut with expectation. With want. Need even. “It was long and leather. Packed one hell of a sting,” he continued. Her eyes fell to his body as if searching for old wounds. “It wasn’t enough though,” he flashed a smile too dazzling for the darkness of his memory. Her fingers rose to one breast. Squeezed and molded it. “I had it altered myself. Couldn’t trust anyone else to do it for me,” he sighed, “They’d never allow it for a boy so young.” Her eyes widened, fingers dipping into the heart of her pleasure.

“What did you do to it?” she whispered.

“I,” the boy said and removed her fingers in favor of something considerably harder, “had it embedded…”

“With what?” her voice was strained but her hips rolled in a sultry little motion that made his toes curl when coupled with the burn in his wrists.

“With stones,” a thrust to knock all the air from her lungs and fill her and touch her in places she never dreamed any guy would reach, “Misshapen, jagged little things. Had it fastened to a rig I made.” Every word was punctured with another thrust. She would have cried out louder if she wasn’t intent on hearing each word that left this boy – no not boy – man’s lips.

The fury with which he took her to orgasm and back over and over was nothing less than inspirational. She could only hope there were others in the world who could do what he was doing. His winces shot her insides with a heat that was a silken glove around him. With each time he entered her, she would tighten around him.

She never kissed him. This was about pain and subsequent pleasure. There was no room for passion. For love. It was a mutual understanding that the other never hoped to have with another being. She rode the waves of his agony-laced pleasure like the most magnificent of waves. It was hard, fast and without mercy or apology. He used her until there was nothing left in him. She’d bitten him and scratched him, leaving him hurting and reddened and he would be forever thankful for it.

When it was over, there was no talk; no praise, no gratitude, no emotional exchange. He pulled out of her to the sounds of deeply pleasured moans, her insides bruised with the aftermath of a virginity taken in the most vicious way.

She undid his ties and disposed of the evidence. In silence, they sponged off side by side. She washed off the blood from the sheets quickly before it got the chance to set in.

“I’ll have these washed for you and let someone send in new ones,” she said eyes on the sheets, “Same color?”

“Yes. Blue is fine,” he poured the now pink water of his own basin into the draining system at the far end of the room.

“Are you in here because of your – um – sexual quirks?” she asked in a low voice as if hoping he wouldn’t hear.

“No. You don’t have to worry about getting locked up in the looney-house for your preferences,” he smiled, “I’m in here because I’m far more depraved than I appear.”

“Are you depraved enough to let me do this a second time?”

“This,” he said taking her chin in his grasp, “is not something I’m going to give up. It’s not a one-time thing or even a two-time thing.”

“Oh.”

“I plan on doing this many many many times in the future in many many many different ways,” he whispered so close to her face that his breath minged with hers, “Alright?”

“Yes. Alright.”

“Good,” he said.

The boy released her at a moment where another lover might have pressed a kiss to her lips. Maybe make her feel as if she hadn’t lost her innocence to a block of ice. But she had never truly been innocent. Not with the fantasies she harbored for her potential bedmates. Things that would make them call the police. This had been tame – child’s play – compared to what she wanted to do. And now there was only one face she could see in those fantasies. A gorgeous boy with the most beautiful scars and blood-drenched stories to tell. He was young but he was no novice to hurt.

“Was this your first time?” she asked considering his age for the first time.

“Naturally,” he responded after putting on his clothes once more, “I was admitted at thirteen and I’m fifteen now. No one else is stable enough to…handle me.”

“I’m an assistant here. The doctor trusts me. I should not consider returning to you.”

“And yet you will,” he buttoned his shirt, “Because I can’t allow you to deny my bed. Or the floor. Or my wall. Whichever you prefer to have me splay you out against next time.”

The imagery brought a blush to her face as he expected it would with any girl after her thighs had been bared by another.

“You are used to having your way,” she commented slipping into her clothes.

“If I was I would not be trapped in an asylum.”

“That aside I mean. People do what you want.”

He gave her a long, hard look, “Some do I suppose.”

“Liar,” she smiled, “I’ve seen you around here. You’re lucid but you pretend not to be. You skip on your pills and—.”

He didn’t actively shut her up, but the sudden ice in his gaze stopped her mid-sentence. It was obvious that this man could share pain as much as he could endure it. The girl could see that in the narrowing of his eyes.

“I’m not supposed to know that, am I?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said with deliberate slowness, “I take my medication like everyone around here.”

“I take the medication too, you know. Even though I work here.”

“I noticed that. Why?”

“I came here to help the doctor. He found out about my problem about three months after I began working here. He walked in on me…admiring a patient hurting herself. I-I should have stopped her. But I didn’t want to.”

“Why didn’t he dismiss you?” he frowned, “Surely that is grounds for dismissal.”

“I’m good at my job. I am efficient and talented and I get things done,” she shrugged, “He thought it would be better to fix me instead. He used a mixture of his available medications to help.”

“So he has drugged employees working here.”

“It isn’t the same dosage,” she assured him, “Just enough to numb the problematic portion of my mind. It prevents me from hurting people.”

“Not very effective, is it?” the boy pushed up his sleeve to bare a reddened wrist and pulled it back down.

“Alright, so not prevent me exactly.”

“No, really?” sarcasm dripping from his every word but he was smiling all the same.

“Funny,” equal sarcasm as she fixed her hair. It was not a common thing in a woman to have her slap you with so much sarcasm in one word that it was evident she’d used it on other men before. A dangerous thing in these times.

“How is it that you got this job?” he asked, “Females do not usually act as assistants to doctors.”

“My mother works here as a nurse. I came to visit her on school break and wound up helping the doctor a bit. He seemed to really need it. Not before long he was offering me a job to help him with a few odd tasks that he thought I could handle.”

“And three months after that he found out that you get off on seeing others hurt?”

“Yes,” no embarrassment in her response, “And by that time we were a cohesive team. He leaned too much on me to simply let me go without trying to fix the problem.”

“He’s a doctor. He probably has never seen anyone with your condition. Far less a woman. Probably couldn’t resist trying to work on you.”

“Probably. Either way the pills keep me from wanting to go around hurting others but as today showed, I’m not averse to some coaxing. I can be seduced into this but I would not go around harming patients on my own.”

“And therein lies the difference between us,” the boy stared at her, fascinated by a creature as depraved and yet not nearly as depraved as himself.

Before she could ask what he meant, the nurse walked into the room. She looked at the two and found nothing out of the ordinary aside from the missing sheets.

The girl fed the nurse a believable enough lie and organized for him to have sheets within the next few minutes. When his bed was back in order, the girl returned to his room to check on him. He was, again, lying on the bed reading his book.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“What do you think? I’m riding the coo-coo train.”

“I’ve seen insane. You’re not it. Abnormal, deviant but not insane.”

“Why thank you.”

“What are you reading?” she asked coming closer.

“A mystery.”

Fiction was difficult to get a hold of. Anonymous writers from all over were publishing few works that were not aimed at the intellectuals who wanted books only to hone the mind. It was a new trend to read books simply for a made up plot and it was quickly becoming a favored option.

“Lies,” she chuckled after peering at the plain, hard cover with the title and the word Anonymous where the author’s name should have been, “I’ve read that book. It’s a crime-drama. Are you allowed to even read those?”

“Shhh,” he put a finger to his lips his baby blue eyes dancing at the thought of thwarting the nurses and doctor.

“Do you read romance books too?” she sat in the chair beside him.

“No. I can’t follow them for long.”

“Why not?”

“The plots depend too much on emotion. I can never understand it all. It gets frustrating.”

“Can never empathize with the characters?”

“Exactly. I think I might never feel the things they do. Not the same way they feel them.”

“You are human. We all feel the same emotions. Maybe not as often as others but we do.”

“Not me,” he replied and turned the page.

It was a very final statement. She knew better than to push him. Patients had a habit of snapping for the simplest things. She had to be especially cautious with this boy who was to be her new lover. He didn’t show signs of agitation before he snapped and she’d seen him snap before. It was quick, without warning and almost always ended with a bang. The man sure had a flair for making scores of nurses rush over within minutes.

It should have worried her that she was in a closed room with him but it didn’t. She felt that they might have an understanding. He wouldn’t hurt her unless she stopped hurting him.  

The boy’s eyes rose from his book and met hers. It had a way of pinning her in place. “It is impolite to stare,” he said and returned his attention to the book. The fact that he was holding a conversation with her and reading showed how little he was truly paying attention to the conversation. It was impossible to give full focus to both.

“I know it is,” she muttered.

“Why are you staring?”

“You are a gorgeous boy.”

“Am I?” he looked up at her, “I have heard handsome and good-looking, but never gorgeous.”

“Well you are. You have an interesting face to look at. Such dark hair and pale eyes and nice lips.”

“Have you ever kissed a boy?”

“Are you asking for a kiss, Alejo?”

“No.”

“Oh,” her teasing smile faltered, “Then yes. I have.”

“I haven’t,” he said with a thoughtful look, “Kissed a girl I mean. Do people feel anything when they do it?”

“Yes. Lots of people do, I’ve heard. All of the emotions in your heart just rush out and into every inch of your body. It’s great.”

“I want to feel this,” said the boy used to feeling nothing, “Kiss me.”

The girl didn’t play coy. She’d wanted to kiss him long before now simply to see what it would be like. She looked back at the closed door before reaching out to him. Threading her fingers into the dark waves that he’d combed to scrupulous neatness, she pulled his face closer. He came without protest. “Close your eyes when our lips touch,” she whispered. Because he seemed like the sort that needed to be told. He nodded after a beat, confirming that guess.

The girl brushed a tender kiss over his lips and found that they could be surprisingly soft when he allowed them to be. Now that they weren’t frowning or scowling and pursed, those lips held a caressing brand of softness. He followed her lead to perfection, never trying to take over. This was his attempt at learning and he planned to take advantage of every move she showed him.

She broke contact and took a breath. Her eyes glittered when she looked at him, but he was not finished. She’d taught him but hadn’t tested him.

Mirroring her, he slid his fingers through her hair with the same gentleness she had done it with. She leaned into his touch and he tucked that reaction into the back of his mind for later. Pulling her to him, he gave her lips the sweetest of touches. She couldn’t have not responded to it. It was only when he pulled away did she realize that he’d done exactly every move she had in that order.

“Did I get it all?” he confirmed her suspicions.

“Yes,” she muttered, “How was it?”

“Interesting lesson. Do all girls like this ‘kissing’ thing?” he asked.

“All the ones I know,” she said but frowned at how impersonal he’d taken the experience.

“Might be something useful. Is it important in sex?”

“Most times I guess.”

“Should I have kissed you when we had sex then?”

“If we were romantically involved, yes. But we weren’t at the time. It was just sex.”

“I understand the distinction,” he said slowly, “I think my heart is dysfunctional.”

“Why?” The statement took her off guard.

“It didn’t…have emotions in it. Nothing rushed out and into the other parts of my body like you said it would. We kissed and I felt nothing. Like always.”

“Maybe you just don’t like me enough for all of that.”

“I think it would be that way with every girl.”

“Or you just need the right girl.”

“I might die in here before that happens.”

“You might,” she said.

“What if I got another heart to replace my own?” he pondered, “Take one from another.”

“Like cut someone’s heart out of them?” she joked.

“No. A transplant.”

“I take it back. You are insane,” she shook her head.

“I had it done once. When I was seven.”

“Had what done? A transplant?”

“Yes. I had heart failure. Mine didn’t work like it should have. My parents took me to this doctor out of town who was willing to try the experimental procedure. Paid hundreds for his help.”

“Hundreds?” the girl put a hand to her mouth, “So much money.”

“Indeed it was,” he touched his chest, “I don’t remember it too well, but it was a hard recovery. No one had successfully taken the heart of another and put it in a living child. They drugged me. Really heavily. Almost died a few times. But I survived it.”

“Why are you telling me this, Alejo?”

“So that you would know something of me. So that you understand that I cannot give you the emotions that another can. You mustn’t expect it of me.”

“Tell me why you are so different.”

“I suppose it is because the heart is not mine and it doesn’t recognize my feelings. It numbs me. Conceivably another heart may reverse the curse. You think that’s possible?”

“It could be. I doubt it though. You can’t replace this heart with another. It’s a miracle that you survived the first time.

“Sometimes I imagine that I could take the hearts of others and see what makes them so special. So different and so important to people. To touch that which gives us the feelings that make us human. The feelings that make even the vampires seem human.”

“Yes. Definitely insane,” she shook her head, “Go back to your novel.”

She made to get up but he tugged on her hand and took her mouth in a fleeting kiss. If he could have read body language better in those days, he would have seen her clenched fist for what it was. She’d felt something in that touch. An emotion she had no business feeling for a patient, far less someone with the boy’s condition.

“Nothing?” she breathed.

“Nothing,” he confirmed, “Will you teach me more?”

“On kissing?”

“No, goat racing.” Sarcasm again.

“Sure,” she smiled and crossed the room.

A nurse came in as she was about to leave. The woman went to Alejo, whose eyes immediately glazed over. He was pretending he was on his pills and doing a great job at it too. “Caroline,” he murmured, “Come teach me to goat race tomorrow.” She smiled at him when the nurse began to laugh.

“Of course she will come teach you to goat race, Alejo dear,” the nurse said and turned to shoot the girl a wink as if to share a secret joke. The boy lied on his bed behind the nurse’s back. He shot the girl an equally cheeky wink and turned his book upside down before the nurse was able to turn to him. “Always reading them the wrong way up,” the nurse glanced down at the book, “No idea what he’s looking at, this one.”

“What’s the number of your favorite color of the alphabet, Nurse Adel?” he mumbled cheerfully.

“No idea at all,” the nurse added for emphasis.

“I’m not so sure,” the girl grinned, “He’s a clever thing.”

“Not while on his medication.”

“No not on his medication. Bye Alejo.”

“Good morning Caroline,” he waved.

********************************* 

Really long chapter. I've held back on the violence so that this can stay PG13 and I've done the same for the sex scenes so hopefull Wattpad won't think this is too bad. They're trolls like that. Even if the scene wasn't too out there they change the rating. Trolls. All of em. lol. 

But yeah we see some Alejo and Carol in this one. They're an odd, non-platonic pair of friends. Maybe if all boyxgirl friendships were this odd guys wouldn't hate the friendzone so much lol. 

Vote, Comment, Fan. The plotting is getting closer and closer. Ahhh. Oh and when you're done with this, you can check out my new story. Be warned it's a BxB so ignore this if that isn't your thing. If you don't mind it, the story is called The Chosen.