Switch Blade Romance

Meet me halfway

Andrew sat on the sagging couch in Allen Fredericks’s house, the kind of place that looked lived-in but not loved—pizza boxes stacked like ancient ruins on the coffee table, a single lamp throwing weak yellow light across threadbare cushions that had seen better decades. The air smelled faintly of motor oil, old socks, and the ghost of last night’s microwave popcorn. Allen was in the kitchen, clinking bottles, humming something off-key that might have been Springsteen if you squinted.
Andrew stared at the TV screen—muted, some late-night infomercial selling knives that could cut through a brick—and tried not to think about beer. He hated the stuff. Always had. Tasted like somebody had pissed in a tin can and left it out in the sun. But he’d drink it tonight if it meant not being alone. If it meant pretending, just for an hour or two, that the world hadn’t cracked open and swallowed everything he used to call normal.
Allen came back, two longnecks sweating in his hands, a bag of chips tucked under one arm. “Got us beer and some chips,” he said, flashing that easy, crooked smile. “Hope you don’t mind the mess. Single cop life—job eats the hours, leaves the housekeeping for the cockroaches.”
Andrew managed a half-smile. “It’s cool. My apartment’s usually worse.”
The words landed wrong. His own voice sounded thin, distant.
Deria’s face flashed behind his eyes—eyes wide and empty, blood pooling under her cheek on the kitchen floor between the couch and the fridge. The way her mouth had stayed half-open, like she’d been trying to say his name one last time. Max’s blood on the wall, a ragged handprint he’d left trying to crawl. Because of me. All of it because of me.
Andrew’s stomach twisted. He felt the couch tilt under him, the room narrowing to a tunnel.
“Hey. Andrew? You okay?”
Allen’s voice cut through the fog. He was sitting now, close enough that Andrew could smell soap and aftershave.
Andrew blinked hard. “Uh—yeah. Sorry. I just… blanked out.”
“You went somewhere else for a second. Stared right through the wall.”
Andrew forced a laugh that sounded like rust. “Thinking about my apartment. It’s not home anymore. Can’t ever be.”
Allen nodded slow, like he understood more than he was saying. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
They sat in the quiet for a beat. Then Allen leaned in, casual, like he was reaching for the chips.
Andrew felt the kiss before he saw it coming—soft lips, firm hands on his shoulders, the warm masculine scent of a man who worked with his hands and showered quick. It was good. Too good. For a second the dark receded.
Allen pulled back first. “Sorry. I just… wanted to do that. We don’t have to—”
“No,” Andrew said, too fast. “I want to.”
He leaned in this time. Hands sliding under Allen’s shirt, finding hard muscle under coarse hair. Allen groaned low in his throat, reached down, palmed Andrew through his jeans. Andrew’s breath hitched. He slid his own hand into Allen’s joggers, wrapped fingers around heat and hardness. They moved together, clumsy at first, then sure—clothes peeling away, mouths hungry, the couch creaking under them like it might give up and collapse.
Allen pushed him down gently. Kissed a slow trail: chest, stomach, lower. When his mouth closed around Andrew, Andrew’s back arched. He moaned—loud, raw—and closed his eyes.
The dark rushed in.
Aiden—no, Charles—shoving him against the shower wall, cold tile biting his spine, rough hands forcing his legs apart, forcing inside. The burn. The violation. The cabin in Sneedsville—stomach-down on the sagging couch, splinters in his palms, Grady taking him savagely while the wind howled outside like it approved.
Andrew whimpered. Bit his lip hard enough to taste blood.
Allen pulled off immediately, fingers withdrawing from where they’d been working him open. “Hey—hey, did I hurt you?”
Andrew shook his head fast. “No. I just… I don’t think I can. Not yet.”
Allen sat back on his heels, concern etching deep lines around his eyes. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. I moved too fast. You’re still carrying him around in your head—Grady. I’m sorry.”
Andrew swallowed. “I like you, Allen. I really do. When I’m… better. When the ghosts aren’t so loud. I want to pick this up again.”
Allen’s smile came back, softer this time. “I’d like that. A lot.” He stood, still half-dressed. “I’m gonna shower. Then we can order pizza, watch something stupid. Whatever you want.”
Andrew nodded. “Sounds good.”
Allen disappeared down the hall. Water started running.
Andrew’s phone buzzed on the coffee table—sharp, insistent. Only a handful of people had the new number: Rachel, Lacey, his mom.
He answered. “Hey, Rachel. Everything okay?”
The voice that answered wasn’t Rachel’s.
It was low. Smooth. Familiar in the way cancer is familiar when it comes back after remission.
“Hey there, schoolboy. Did you miss me?”
Andrew’s heart stopped. Then slammed so hard he tasted bile.
“You can’t—you’re dead. I killed you. I saw—”
“Guess again, baby. You didn’t kill me after all.”
Andrew’s free hand clenched the couch cushion until his knuckles popped. “What do you want?”
Charles Grady laughed—soft, intimate, like they were sharing a secret. “Oh, let’s see. Maybe I want to see you again. Maybe I want to open your mom from throat to belly. Your sister. That pretty ex-girlfriend of yours. Your best friend. Then work my way through the rest of the family tree—Dad, the other sister, her kids, that cousin. And then you. Slow. That’d be real nice.”
Andrew’s vision tunneled. “Please—”
“But I’m feeling generous tonight,” Grady went on. “I’ll make a deal. You come back to me. Just you. We’ll go away together—somewhere quiet. Live off each other. And I’ll let the rest of them walk. No one else gets hurt.”
Andrew’s mouth was dry as ash. “If I say no?”
“Then John Henry shows up, or that professor, or anybody with a badge or a prayer—and everybody dies. Slowly. You understand me, Andrew?”
“Yeah,” Andrew whispered. “I understand.”
“Good boy.” Grady’s voice warmed, almost fond. “Come to the cabin where it all started. The old Garrett Cabin in Manitachie Falls. Tomorrow night. Ten sharp. Come alone. Tell no one. Goodbye, Andrew.”
The line went dead.
Water still ran in the bathroom. Allen was singing again—off-key, happy.
Andrew stared at the phone in his hand like it might bite him.
Allen came out a minute later, towel around his waist, hair dripping. “Who was that? You look like you saw—”
Andrew looked up. His voice came out flat, dead.
“It was Charles Grady. He’s alive. And he has my mom. My sister. Rachel. Lacey.”
The room seemed to tilt. The lamp flickered once, as though the bulb had just remembered it was tired.
Allen’s face drained of color.
Outside, somewhere down the quiet street, a dog started barking—low, frantic, the way dogs bark when they smell something wrong on the wind.
And in the silence between them, Andrew heard the cabin calling.
The old Garrett Cabin.
Waiting.