Stake You

Chapter Fifteen

After school, we followed Sully again. This time with a determined single-minded focus. We were going to get him before he got us, before he messed with anyone else we knew. We were going to watch out for weaknesses, to see what he got up to, and we were going to deal with him, one way or another.

I prayed we could do it. At least before we killed each other.

Base and I were very different in some ways, too alike in others. It made for a feisty kind of friendship at the best of times. Throw in some fear and pent-up lust on my part, and things unbalanced themselves very easily. But I hadn’t figured for how awkward I would feel around Base, even after the closeness of sleeping next to each other, but especially after the things I had told him about myself. It was as though it had never happened, as though we had had a dozen different conversations that never happened. It made me mad. He made it feel as though the more I grew closer to him, the more he pulled away.

“Do you like Shauna?” I blurted as we drove behind Sully’s moving car, unable to stop myself.

“What?” He sounded genuinely stunned.

“Shauna. Do. You. Like. Her?”

“I hate her. Why?”

“You don’t act like you hate her,” I accused, but I was relieved to focus on something other than Sully. Following him around scared me so much that I pretty much had to think of something else. Even acting petty and childish was better than stressing over Sully.

“What on earth are you…” Brian glanced at me, a smile threatening his lips. “Unbelievable! Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Devlin.”

I made a weird sound through my nose as I choked on my own contempt at his audacity. “As if. As if I would ever be jealous of you or her. Don’t make me laugh.”

“This is getting too bizarre for words,” he muttered. “Look, Sully’s slowing down, so I’m just going to pull in here. I’m pretty sure he knows we’re following him.”

“Why?”

“Because he just looked right at us. And we’re seriously bad at this. I think he wants us to see this.”

“Why would he want us to see whatever he gets up to?”

“Maybe because it’s so bad,” he said after a minute. “Maybe he wants us to be scared, and scarred, for life.”

“Why do you always have to say such creepy shit?”

“Somebody has to make the guesses around here. You ready?”

Sully had gone into a pub, so we decided to wait around until he came back out.

“What if he does something in the pub?” I began.

“We can’t go in. Not when he’s there. Besides, he won’t do anything with so many witnesses. If he could, he would have murdered the entire school already. He has to have some limitations,” he said, pretty sensibly. “We’ll wait and see what happens. It’s all we can do. This was probably never the greatest idea, you know?”

“But we’ve no others, so we still run with it? Fine, but I feel like he’s going to just pick us off as we sit in the car.”

“He won’t. It’s too busy.”

And it was busy. A high profile football match pretty much guaranteed lots of folks in pubs and clubs that night.

“Besides, with your trusty bat, nobody in their right mind would go near us.”

I had to laugh at that. I had taken the bat with us, much to Base’s amusement, but I felt safer armed with something more than holy water. Although I had splashed some on my wrists that morning when Base wasn’t looking.