The Bad Ones

by Stylo Fantome

“My grades are 'perfectly' average – who's gonna pay my tuition, huh? I'm not getting a scholarship, and no school is just gonna let me in based on my GPA. I'm like you, I'm like my family, I'm like everyone else in this town. Stuck here. One more math class won't change that; I know it, and you know it. So how about I get out of here, and you can use the rest of our scheduled hour to look up cat videos on the internet,” Dulcie suggested.

Dulcie usually avoided trouble, she liked to fly below the radar as much as possible. But she couldn't resist getting a picture. Just a couple snaps, then she'd go back to class. No one would even know.

That's when the magic happened. Just before she pressed the shutter, a leaf fell loose from its branch. It spiraled slowly towards her, and she got pictures of it every inch of the way down, all the way up until it landed on her lens.

If you've been out here playing photographer, then explain to me why a car in the back parking lot is on fire!?

“Just a punk, Masters. It may not be me. May not be anyone in this school. But someone, some day, will see you for what you really are, and they'll put you in your place.”

“I'm excited for that day, sir.”

“Front office! Both of you! NOW!”

Can I ask a question?” “Go for it.” “Why did you set someone's car on fire?”

“Because I thought it would be fun.”

She was soft spoken. Soft mannered. Soft in generally everything she did. Unobtrusive to the maximum. She slipped around unnoticed. Had become so good at it that by the time they were all upper classmen, people hadn't realized what a beauty they had in their midst. What an interesting soul.

He was obsessed with her.

Even as he did those things and played his little part in the universe, he watched Dulcie. As she walked down the hall. As she tried to hide in the library. She called to him, and she didn't even know it. Didn't know that he understood why she worked so hard to remain obscure – because she didn't want people to see the real her. A feeling he was very familiar with, since he always kept a large part of himself hidden.

Maybe, just maybe, their hidden pieces matched. Con very much wanted to see the real her.

Con did not want to be in school at that moment. He wanted to grab her by the arm and drag her out of the building. Take her into the woods and tear her apart. Become one with her, consume her. Find out what was wrong with him, and see if maybe she could cure him. Or even better – maybe find out she was the same.

“You know,” she began, her voice low. “Just because everyone around you acts like an asshole, doesn't mean you have to, too.”

“See, that's the problem. With me, it's not an act,” he warned her. She stared at him for a second, then stepped closer.

“There's a difference between being an asshole, and being a monster. One is much better at hiding his character.”

She should've been scared – she was in a dark corner with Chuck Beaty. There were all sorts of rumors about him, about how he treated girls, about how he liked to get drunk all the time. But Dulcie wasn't scared. She was angry, and she was annoyed. As was apparently becoming her new habit, she didn't even think about what she was doing – she just launched her hand at his face, raking her nails down the side of his cheek.

I want to see his blood.

“You wanna know why I lit your car on fire?” Con growled, and Dulcie watched as Chuck's eyes opened wide in shock. “You fucking did that!?” he shouted. “Because,” Con ignored him. “I thought you were in it.”

He looked a little crazy. His face was flushed and his eyes were wild. He moved so they were touching, so she could feel his chest as it rose and fell with his heavy breathing. He was so much taller than her, she'd never really realized. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him and her hood fell away from her hair.

“Are you scared of me?” he demanded, his voice hoarse sounding. “No,” she answered straight away. “I think you should be,” he warned her. She took a deep breath. “I think you should be scared of me.”

As his teeth left bite marks down the side of her neck, she thought maybe she didn't need oxygen anymore. He could just breathe for her.

Dulcie had been kissed before, but not in the way he was kissing her – she was pretty sure no one had ever been kissed like that.

She wanted his darkness to swallow her whole. She wanted to be a part of it. She wanted to give her own darkness back to him.

“This is gonna be worse than detention, isn't it?” Dulcie groaned. “It'll be fine, c'mon.”

“What are you doing?” she asked, a little confused as he shoved her outside. “I'll take care of all this,” was all he said, then he went to shut the door between them. She reached out and grabbed it, stopping his momentum. “What is going on here?”

He wanted to find Dulcie and finish what they'd started. Whatever the hell it had been. It was a human sacrifice, and she was offering herself to your altar.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Constantine!?”

Con was brave enough, though. He was a different kind of beast. Just burn it all.

Con wasn't a pyromaniac, not at all. Fire was just quickest and easiest. He'd set Chuck's car on fire simply because he'd had a lighter on him. If he'd only had a bat, he would've beaten the shit out of the car. If he'd had a gun, he would've shot his parents.

But all he had was a flame and a thought, and without bothering to dwell much on either, he set their dining room table on fire. While he watched the flames grow and spread and drip down onto an expensive Persian rug, his mind was miles away.

I wonder what Dulcie tastes like. I wonder if she'd let me bite har...

Dulcie - I couldn't say goodbye. I won't say I'm sorry, because I'm not, and I think you know why. I should've gotten this for you sooner. You see things other people don't. Take pictures, and then look at them and draw what you really see in the frames. Don't be afraid. And don't disappoint me. Constantine

I'll take those pictures, and I'll draw what I see, and when you come back for me, you'll see that we're the same.

She worried that when he came home, he'd be mad about the picture. Or embarrassed. But Con never came back. Never called, e-mailed, wrote, nothing.

No, all her fantasies featured a man made of shadows. A boy with a golden smile and a dark heart.

week. He'd been in town a week, and had made no attempt to contact her. Nothing. It was all in your head. Just a stupid boy, kissing an even stupider girl.

“It's been a long time, Con. Thank you for the camera, but that's my book, and I would like it back,” she said in the voice she usually reserved for talking to rude customers or belligerent parents.

He raised an eyebrow.

“You think she was pushed?” Dulcie clarified. He shrugged. “I don't really care, either way. She hated her life, she's probably glad she's dead. My father hated her, so he's probably even happier about it.”

“I came back for this,” he said, waving her sketchbook in front of her face. Then he turned around and walked away, taking her book with him.

Was he bad for her? Or was she bad for him?

When he thought of Dulcie, though, all the pretending stopped. He hated that, it was like a bump in the road. It caused him to stumble.

So much darkness. Falling in love with this chick would be easy, but surviving each other … that's an entirely different story.

“Of course, if you're scared, don't go. It's dark up there. Dangerous. Wouldn't want you running off, getting lost.” He'd said it to ruffle her feathers, and it worked. She stared down the length of her nose at him, like he was a bug she wanted to squash. She wasn't scared of anything, least of all some stupid party in the woods. And definitely not Con Masters.

No, I'm not scared of him. I'm terrified.

“I'll go. But it better be pretty fucking epic.” He smiled agai...

I gotta ask, though … this isn't weird, is it?” “What?” Con was confused. “This … y'know. Dulcie and me. Dulcie and you. You two had a thing, right?” Jared asked. Con had to stop himself from replying with “there is no 'Dulcie and you',

“No,” he cleared his throat, stopping the other words from coming out. “Not weird. It was just one kiss, one night. Dulcie and I were never 'a thing'.” No, we were almost everything.