The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady Read Free Page A

I saw the smile.
    How you doing, Alice?
    My next look went to the door, which was
still locked. And it wasn’t one of those shitty locks you could pop
with a hairpin, but a nice deadbolt I’d stolen from Home Depot.
Yeah, I stole a lock, bite me and go find your own irony.
    The music still beat from my earbuds as they
dropped away. I screeched a little from the shock. “ Who the fuck
are you, lady?!? ”
    “Ceinwyn Dale, a recruiter for a special
school for special people.” I checked my window, still shut. She
noticed, but commentated on something else, “You like comics?”
    “Yeah.” The ‘ bitches ’ and
‘ fucks ’ were largely killed dead in the face of the
impossible.
    “And music? Metal? That’s fitting . . .”
    I sat up on the bed and put out what was
left of my cig.
    “You can check the door if you’d like,” she
told me, matter-of-fact about my astonishment. I checked again. The
nasty-ass clothes I’d kicked in front of the door hadn’t
even moved.
    “I ain’t going to your school, lady.”
    “Why not?” She was genuinely curious.
Ceinwyn Dale, always the interested observer.
    “I’m not a freak. I get by. I got a life. So
I fight, who gives a rat’s ass?”
    She picked up my iPod and browsed through
the playlist. She had beautiful hands. Not a body part most guys
notice, and Ceinwyn Dale had some others that were pretty
noticeable, but her delicate fingers and sapphire fingernails drew
the eye when she used them in front of you. Nimble manipulation,
just like the rest of her, turning those fleshy stubs into the
finest tool, skinny and elegant. “Is this the entirety of your
reasons?”
    “I got a girl.”
    “And you love her?” The smile quirked
extra.
    “Sure. I guess.” Love wasn’t a big emotion
in the Price household. We had trouble managing giving a
shit .
    “Or do you just like what you get to do with
her?”
    “That too.”
    One part about Ceinwyn Dale I started
figuring out during that first conversation is she mocks everyone but she treats her kids the same as she does
adults. Which I wasn’t seeing much of back then. It was inclusive
and part of the reason she’s such a good Recruiter.
    “You’ll have to give her up.”
    “One more reason to not go to your stupid
school.”
    She tapped the iPod screen with a sapphire
nail. “Did you steal this?”
    I calculated an answer in my head. My usual
answer was to deny, deny, deny. But . . . who wants a thief at her
school? So . . . logic train . . . “Yup, I steal all the time.”
    “An iPod, comic books, and your girlfriend’s
virginity, what a thief!” Ceinwyn Dale mocked me.
    “Again, fuck you .” The whole
door-being-locked thing had to wear off, though I still couldn’t
figure it out. But another very teenage skill is to never let the
facts get in the way of some hating.
    “Say your favorite word again, King Henry. I
dare you.”
    And just as I moved my mouth to oblige the
lady, a ball of compressed air lodged itself between my jaws. Yup,
shit got real. I started choking. Panic came right on its heels.
Eyes went wide, pulse went high, arms grasped, trying to grab onto
Ceinwyn Dale to either make her stop or get her help.
    She watched it all with her smile. “How long
will it take? I do wonder . . .”
    “Please!” I tried to say but it came out as
a ragged hiss. Another round of grabbing followed, which she batted
away. All my fighting and I felt like a baby as I drifted down to
the floor, eyes going foggy.
    [CLICK]
     
    When I came to, my jaw was still locked
open. I was on the floor with my dirty clothes, stained with blood,
spit, smoke, and teenage lovemaking. That day is almost eight years
ago and I want to take a shower just thinking about the
floor. Ceinwyn Dale reclined on my bed, looking down at me from her
side, a comic book draped over one hand.
    “I do wonder . . .” she repeated. “How long
will it take you to realize you have a nose, King Henry?”
    “Guu Ou, Baa!” I told her.
    “Yes,