Psychopathic (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 61

When Constantine's day started, it was already nighttime and Ari was nowhere nearby.

It was evident to him, he could sense how faint the traces of him were, and he made an accurate estimation of when he had left. It wasn't a source of worry, just mild disappointment, and he thought nothing of it. The city was big, and it was easy to lose track of time. It wasn't so late to cause him to think that anything could have happened as he wondered where his fun would start.

He didn't kill every day – as surprising as that statement may seem – but that particular day was so dull. There was nothing to do, Lenora was gone, and he returned a bit late in the morning with an itch for blood. A constant annoying itch that brought him gratification whenever he satisfied it. The scent of blood often followed him.

But then he stopped when that was all what greeted him, its faint scent.

It was a remnant of his past kills, probably some of the knives he didn't clean up well. His overly sharp sense of smell could be a curse sometimes as it picked up the faintest of scents, but it also alarmed him because those scents weren't being drowned by Ari's.

In fact, Ari's scent had grown even fainter.

Constantine sighed.

Back to square one it seems.

That's how he found himself making a visit to the one place he never thought of going back to, and it was mostly out of curiosity than anything else. It was the dullest place on earth, and he scouted it a bit to figure out what he was dealing with.

Seems like the Hawthornes made a few friends.

The perimeter of the town was filled with wolves surrounding the place, searching the area for anyone suspicious. It was highly unlikely that all of them were from the Hawthorne pack, and Constantine actually recognized some of the wolves belonging to another pack. They were people he dealt with once, amicably.

And some of them not so amicably since he left them with a few broken bones. A lot of his ventures ended in violence, but he did frequent places that were prone to violence.

He could tell that at least two packs were siding with the Hawthornes, and it made Constantine realize that he might have developed a nefarious reputation if he grabbed this much attention – which made him regret not being a bit more discreet.

Not that it mattered anyway as he casually walked towards his usual entrance to that stupid town.

It was done purely to see how far he could get away with it. He didn't mind getting caught, he just wanted to see how attentive those roaming wolves were. As he neared the area close to the last house he visited there, he realized that they were seriously lacking.

Boring and uninteresting.

There was absolutely no effort spent to guess where Ari had been kept. The men guarding the general area and the ones surrounding his mother's house gave it away. They appeared to not know about one of the panels of the fences being missing, conveniently obscured by a tree. They were guarding the gate to the yard, but nobody was near the other hidden unintentional entrance. How could they have missed that? It made him snort in amusement.

It was how he sneaked in last time.

The rest was laughably easy and he simply walked in using the back door. Exactly like last time.

He was greeted by an empty dark house when he walked in, soundlessly closing the door behind him with practiced ease. This time, the traces of Ari were more prominent and clearer. He had been here just moments ago.

The scent went into the kitchen where his mother died, and a steaming coffee mug was placed there next to the sink making him tilt his head in confusion. He did know Ari wasn't much of a coffee drinker, but he didn't know that it was Ari's little joke to himself.