Chaos and Corruption (Jeff the Killer Fanfic)

4. Frenemies

Jeff

A loud banging on my door woke me from the grips of a nightmare, lurching upward while I gripped my knife tightly. The knock came again and I got up, throwing the door open to find Toby on the other side waiting for me.

"Oh, l-look at that, you really are a b-bitch for her," he flicked my chest where Snow's name was tattooed and I grabbed his hand tightly, catching him by surprise.

"Touch me again and I will pull your tongue through your throat after I slice it open," I growled and he ripped his hand back, "what the fuck do you want?"

"It's t-time to go. Operator wants us out."

"I'll be down in five."

I slammed the door in his face and took a deep breath, letting the shaky sigh leave my lips while I reached for my hoodie. Ann had been kind enough to patch up all the holes for me and while it was a lot less 'white' and a lot more dingy now, it was still the only thing I had jacket wise. My backpack had been kicked protectively into the bottom of the small closet to assure no one touched it and after shoving my knife back in my pocket I closed the door tightly behind me.

Toby waited downstairs by the front door and I huffed as I joined, waiting for the big man himself to appear and teleport us to wherever it was we were going. He showed up not even a moment later and gave us a basic run through, ground rules, blah blah, I was only half listening before he finally took us to a strip of forest and left us there. Toby seemed to relax and I did the same, cracking my neck and getting a good look around us to try and identify where we might've been dropped.

"What do we normally do from here?"

"Wait," he explained, "this is an ambush. They're t-too smart for us to follow so we've been t-tracking them. They pass through here every few days so here's hoping we get our chance."

"Works for me," I sighed, dropping down to sit at the trunk of a tree. He joined me after a moment but kept himself out of stabbing distance.

Toby wasn't necessarily a bad guy. He treated Ann with a lot of respect and he was never directly nasty to anyone else in the house aside from me, but I could at least understand why. There were some things I was curious about but attempting to talk to him had been off the table in the past. Now though? Might be a good way to pass the time.

"Can I ask you something?"

"N-No."

"Did it ever bother you that Operator offered the bounty on Snow and I knowing full well we might choose to take it ourselves?" I continued anyway, his twitching paused for a moment as he considered it. "It never seemed entirely fair to me."

"Y-Yeah. I realized the moment you showed up with him what happened," he admitted as he kept his eyes on the ground, "rubbed R-Rouge and I the wrong way for a while. She more or less wanted to cash in o-on yours."

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw it. I'm sorry, if it's worth anything. I know bringing Lyra back would've helped you feel better about what happened."

"How do you know what h-happened to me?"

"Nina, Snow's little cousin who went ham down in Tempe, she was really big into serial killers and shit. She'd talked about the accident and how close you were to your sister, how it was probably what triggered your spiral. Saw the fire on the news myself back when it happened."

"I heard about her. Operator w-wanted to recruit her but she walked right up to him with a knife," he whistled, "the guts of that k-kid. Not a care in the world."

"That's my mini-monster," I chuckled to myself, "either way, I understand. You all know my story. I did exactly what you would've done except for someone else."