The Tenth Night

Nathan Chance

Nathan was running scared.

He had never been one for paranoia without drugs being the stimulus, but now he was finding himself jumping at every little noise, or craning his neck every time that his sister opened the door to a stranger. At any second, they could be caught and he could be thrown into prison for the rest of his natural life. Nathan wasn’t cut out for prison life. He was a self-professed ‘pretty boy’, an attractive young thing in his own eyes. He’d be the first to be fenced into the showers. The mere thought of being sent to any prison made his blood run cold and brought him out in a cold sweat. He couldn’t go to jail. He wouldn’t even last a week in a prison cell.

Robyn knew something was up. As much as she had been ignoring her younger brother as of late, she could tell when he wasn’t acting right and she had sussed it from the very second that Nathan had made his way home the other evening. She had grilled her for a good few minutes, attempting to get the truth out of her but after enough whines of “I’m tired”, she had left him alone. As a result, Nathan had confined himself to the cool sanctuary of his bedroom, only leaving when he had to do his daily canvassing of his victim and to eat.

However, this evening was a rare evening. Robyn and her man (Nathan refused to use his name unless absolutely necessary) had decided to go out on a date, leaving Nathan with full control over the television and a promise that they wouldn’t be home until at least midnight. As such, Nathan had sprawled himself out on the sofa and thrown on some trash television in the hopes that it would soothe his nerves a little.

It had been working, right up until someone decided to knock on the front door.

Nathan nearly jumped out of his skin, using his hand to stop himself from falling onto the solid laminate flooring. he cursed loudly, wincing as he slowly sat up and clutched at the wrist that had taken the full impact of his weight. It wasn’t broken, not even nearly, but it hurt like a motherfucker. Walking across the living room, he made a silent pact to give whoever was on the other side of the door a bloody nose unless it was a complete emergency.

“What?” he asked angrily, pulling the door open before doing a double-take at the body behind the door. “Wait, Edwin?

Framed by the doorway, Edwin looked tiny. His eyes were wide and for a split-second, Nathan could have sworn that he saw panic flash in them. He recovered quickly though, bouncing on the balls of his feet and nodding, forcing a smile onto his face.

“How are you?” he blurted out, blinking rapidly.

“I’m… I’m fine. Edwin, what are you doing here? Has something happened?” Nathan asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in the young man’s presence. Outwith the group, Nathan had barely talked to Edwin — he was usually too far under Veronica’s wing for Nathan to even consider reaching out and making friends. Seeing him here, on his own, almost made Nathan worry that Veronica had him wired and was waiting for any excuse to stick a knife in his gut, or whatever way Veronica chose to axe her victims.

“What? Oh, no, uh, nothing happened. I just… I wanted to come and… see if you were okay. Just making sure. Yeah. Making sure everybody is safe.”

Edwin almost seemed to be trying to convince himself of his own mission. It was obvious that he was uncomfortable — he kept shuffling his weight from one foot to the other and his eyes were now darting around nervously, trying to find anywhere to look but Nathan’s face of disbelief.

“Well, I’m fine,” Nathan said after a few seconds, spreading his arms out in a universal sign for peace. “I’m good, not dead and not insane. Happy? Anything else you need?”

Edwin couldn’t have looked more like a rabbit in the headlights if he had tried. Nathan almost laughed in spite of himself as he stammered, struggling to come up with a response. Whatever he had come over for, it certainly wasn’t a general sign-of-life check that he had intended to do. Something was up, and Nathan had no idea what.

“No, no, I… Uh, that was it,” Edwin replied, mashing the last few words together into one long string-on-syllable. “Glad you’re okay. Good to see. Stay safe.”

And with that, Edwin turned on his heel and walked away. Nathan stared after him for a few seconds, before scoffing and retreating back into his apartment. Any thoughts of settling back down on the sofa and watching television were now gone: Nathan’s nerves were far too on-edge to do anything of the like. He had a million questions running through his head and he could think of only one way to confirm his fears.

Picking up his cellphone, he dialled the number almost from memory, holding it up to his ear and listening to the metallic rings. After a few seconds, the ringings stopped, replaced by an equally-tinny voice.

“Dr. Edison,” Rae rattled off, sounding weary and stressed.

“Rae,” Nathan said, pacing the kitchen. He couldn’t keep still, not when Edwin could be sending Veronica his way any second now. “Has Edwin been to see you tonight?”

A few agonisingly long seconds passed, with his rhythmic breathing the only thing keeping Nathan sane. Rae sighed elaborately on the other side of the line, and he could almost imagine her standing right in front of him, one hand on her hip, the other being used to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“No, why would Edwin be visiting me, Nate?” she asked, sounding even more weary than before. “There’s no way he’d need to do anything.”

Nathan almost smiled in triumph. He was pretty sure that if Edwin were going around checking on the safety of the other members of the group, he’d check in on Rae before he came anywhere near Nathan. Silently punching the air with a wide grin on his face, he walked back through to the living room, throwing himself on the sofa.

“Well, he’s up to something then. He just turned up at my door and he was acting super-suspiciously. There ain’t no way he isn’t doing something to sabotage this, Rae. He’s been acting up all week.”

“Are you sure you aren’t just being paranoid, Nathan?” Rae asked, “because you’ve been really paranoid lately.”

Nathan groaned loudly, shaking his head furiously even though he knew Rae couldn’t see him.

“Rae, hear me out on this one. The little loser is up to something and I’d bet my entire life savings on it being an attempted sabotage. Hell, maybe he made Eriko disappear. Maybe he’s got ulterior motives.”

“And maybe you’ve been watching too many crime procedural shows. I’ll be round in ten minutes; I’m due to finish so I can come over after work and we can sit and talk this through. Are you alone?”

“Yeah. I’m telling you, something is wrong. Be careful.”

And with that, Nathan hung up, trotting over to the nearest window and peering out into the street below the apartment. Not a soul was stirring, but that didn’t give Nathan any form of comfort.

After all, he was pretty damn sure that Veronica could turn into a fucking bat if she wanted to.