Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

She’d possessed the beauty of an untamed flame, destructive and wild.

“What separates monsters from good men is only a matter of perspective. In your eyes, I’m a sick fuck for what I’ve done to you. But I, on the other hand, see you as a parasite.”

Emo Jesus in a black dress, I didn’t have the patience for her right then.

“I knew it was a bad idea inviting an outsider. For fucks sake, she probably reads vampire smut.”

“Stay out of trouble, Curious Moth,” he said, as he strode for the door.

“That is the tragedy of women, isn’t it? We deny ourselves beauty for the sake of misleading men.”

“Just to clarify–we’re friends.” Spencer chuckled, shaking his head. “Who hurt you?”

It was strange, the way he collected from the dead in much the same way I did with trinkets.

“And so the moth befriended the flame.”

“The sea doesn’t fear anything.”

I was going to be sleeping over with Professor Bramwell. Doctor Death. Perhaps that should’ve terrified me, especially since there was an eyeless corpse laid out in the room across the hall. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

I watched him unravel. There was a beauty in it. The vulnerability I longed to see in him.