Yesterday

A snack bag popped open between the police officer’s hands, and even from several feet away, Theo could smell the sweet scent of cheddar popcorn. The inside of the detective’s office was much quieter than the whirlwind of activity bustling on the other side of the blind slats and bulletproof glass.

Even though it was the middle of the night, several phones rang faintly somewhere. Beat cops in uniform gathered around a coffee machine, cradling mugs with blue line flags or their favorite sports team on the side. A few people who had been pulled off the streets for driving drunk or whatever other nefarious things they had been up to sat at the desks across from officers who were filling out paperwork. But inside the detective’s office, there was only the sound of the clock ticking, the snack bag crinkling, and the chewing of cheddar popcorn.

“You sure you don’t want something to eat?” the police officer asked. Theo ignored him. He was curled up on the couch against the window overlooking the rest of the police station, knees hugged to his chest, pressed as close to the arm of the couch as he could squeeze himself.

When he was released from the hospital, they brought him a pair of worn sweatpants and a sweatshirt emblazed with the department’s emblem. The fabric was scratchy against his skin, and he hated it. But they were better than either the hospital gown or the bloodstained clothes he’d had on before it.

They were now somewhere in an evidence bag, just like the samples a lovely male nurse with a steady stare and firm hands had taken from beneath his fingernails and other places. A rape kit, he had called it. When he said that, Theo had laughed, making one of the other nurses uncomfortable. He was used to the side-eyes by now. It came with the territory of being crazy.

But the firm nurse had looked him dead in the eyes and said, “That’s what happened to you, you know. You were raped.”

“Sure,” Theo had said easily. They could call it what they wanted.

There was still blood caked around his fingernails. He picked at it and watched the flakes fall onto the detective’s couch cushion. The police officer wiped cedar cheese from his snack onto his pants so he could check his phone.

Theo gazed back through the blind slats and saw a familiar face entering the precinct. He wanted to leap up and run out of the office to greet him. He wanted to crawl under the couch and never be seen or heard from again. The detective led the man closer to the office. Then the door opened.

“Theo?”

It was too late for Theo to hide, so he just watched with wide eyes as Abel crouched in front of the sofa and looked up at him. The detective murmured something to the cheddar cheese cop, who was still looking at his phone.

“Hey, man.” Abel picked up Theo’s hands from where they fidgeted atop his knees. He looked at them, saw the black stains around his nails, and folded his fingers so they were out of sight. Then nodded to the bandage on Theo’s forehead. “That looks like it hurts.”

“It’s okay,” Theo murmured, throat aching too much from screaming and the ring of bruises on his trachea to speak much louder.

“The detective told me what they think happened, but he said you haven’t really talked to them enough for anyone to be sure.”

“I don’t trust cops.” Theo stared at Abel, resolutely ignoring the two police officers in the room with them. “They won’t believe me.”

“Why don’t you try them?” Abel asked, “The detective seemed pretty nice to me on the way here.”

“No,” Theo turned his hands over and threaded his fingers through Abel’s, the tips pressing between Abel’s knuckles, blood on display again. “Nobody is listening to me. I already told them. There is a demon hiding in the shadows, always behind my back, but never there when I turned around.”

Abel squeezed his hands. “Are you talking about Ken?”

“Yes,” Theo nodded slowly, “But he wasn’t always. Sometimes, the demon was not there. It was always with me, and that’s how it found Ken. They said it was gone once before, but then it came back…and, oh god,” he gasped wetly into his knees, throat aching, eyes burning, “Ken, Ken, Ken.”

“That’s about the gist of what he’s been saying to us the whole time.” The detective wove a dismissive hand. “Not exactly the best material for a statement.”

Abel searched Theo’s eyes, looking for tears he had already cried out, then squeezed his hands again and let them go. “I’m going to step out and speak with the detective for a moment, alright, darling?”

“I’m okay,” Theo told him. Abel pressed his lips together and stood. He and the detective went outside, where Theo could see their hands moving and catch snippets of their conversation.

“The tox screen won’t come back…”

Abel shook his head, arms crossed with one hand on his forehead. “…says stuff like that sometimes. It’s not…”

They said a bunch that Theo could not hear. He picked at his nails and eyed the cheddar cheese cop, who quickly looked back down at this phone like he hoped Theo had not caught him staring.

“…family…”

Abel shook his head.

“We found…” The cop held out a file to show Abel, who took it and frowned at the contents, flipping back a page to look at the one beneath. “…should be in a facility, but they need identification.”

“No parents?” Abel asked, which Theo could hear clearly because he looked in the direction of the window, and they made eye contact through the slats. The cop looked, too, so Theo could hear when he said, “Both dead.”

Theo dropped his eyes. So, his parents were both dead. The cops wanted to throw him in the loony bin. Abel probably should want that, too, if he knew what was good for him. After all, the demon would find him eventually, just like it found every bright spot in Theo’s life and stained it rotten. Blackened blood caked beneath his fingernails.

“It should have been me,” he whispered to himself.

“What?” cheddar cop asked.

“It should have been me!” Theo screamed at him, unfurling from the couch.

The cop shot up from his seat and blocked the door, one hand on his belt and the other bouncing in the air, palm down. “Just calm down, now.”

Abel appeared, pushing past the cop and reaching for him. Theo stumbled back onto the couch and shook his head back and forth. “No, don’t. It’ll find you, too.”

“It won’t,” Abel assured him.

“No, it already did!” Theo babbled. “Ken knew! That’s why and…oh my god,” he choked out, “I never should have told them to find you.”

“Ken knew?” Abel frowned.

Theo nodded, “It made him mad. I tried…to,” he paused to take a shuddering breath, “I didn’t want…I pushed him away. And he said…he said he’d find you and…”

“Oh, Jesus.” Abel palmed his face. “So, he threatened me and attacked you?”

“He…he…” Theo hiccupped, unable to get any more words out past his aching throat and stinging nose. He had thought there were no more tears to cry, but they trembled along his lash line, blurring his vision and scalding down his cheeks.

“Okay, darling. I need you to listen to me because this is very important.” He shuffled closer, crouching again and putting his hands on either side of Theo on the couch cushions. Theo wiped his face and sniffed, listening intently. “It was not a demon. It was just Ken. You know that, right? And he’s dead now, so he can’t come after you or me anymore. He deserved to die. You did not.”

“But –”

“Have I ever lied to you, Theo?”

Theo drew his knees up and hugged them against his chest. He shook his head.

“It was just Ken,” Abel said firmly, “And now he’s gone.”

When he was little, they told him that the demon did not exist, either. His mom would look in the closet and show him that there was nothing except shadows, begging him to stop scaring himself when he insisted it was only because she was looking. And for a long time, Theo kept vigil until he finally forgot, which was when it came back again—because he was not looking.

The detective had just said his mom was dead.

“My parents are dead?” he asked.

Abel’s brow furrowed like it always did when Theo lost the conversation thread or jumped topics. He searched Theo’s eyes and then said, “Yes.”

Theo nodded, “Do…do you know when?”

“I don’t. How about you let me speak with the officers so I can find out some information, and then we can get out of here? How’s that?”

“Okay.” Theo pursed his lips and sniffed back his tears. Abel patted him on the knee where Theo could see the touch before it came, then straightened to his full height. Before he could turn away, Theo grabbed the hem of his shirt and peered around the edge of his hip at the detective and cheddar cop. They both were looking at Abel instead of him, which was comforting.

“What is it?” Abel asked.

“Could you…I had a, um, stuffed shark,” he looked away from the officers when their eyes landed on him and instead peered up at Abel, trying not to feel very stupid, “with me when they took me to the hospital. I don’t know…they took my clothes as evidence. Could you find the shark for me? And maybe,” his eyes darted to the officers, “I could have it back?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Abel squeezed his hand, then waited for Theo to release his shirt before turning to the detective. Theo pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to soothe his hot, aching eyeballs but that made the room too dark, so he snatched them away and stared around. Abel did not leave this time, staying in the room to speak with the detective. 

“If she has his birth certificate and social security card, then we can just drive up and get them from her, right?”