I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes
I want a girl with a short skirt and a long jacket...

Cake ~ Short Skirt, Long Jacket

♥♥♥

After Chuckie and I leave the safety of the tank behind us, we walk across the wet winter grass towards the girl on the bench. I keep track of the monster out of the side of my eye and watch as the next personality transformation takes place. Chuckie slows down from his normal stomping march towards madness, into more relaxed rolling gait. While he plasters on his second-best fake plastic smile on his face.

"Oh heyo, Sio? How ya doing today, kiddo?" Chuckie inquires almost pleasantly of the girl on the bench. Almost as if he was just out taking a casual stroll out to see the sky and is surprised to suddenly run into her.

"Ah hello ...Mr. Killian?" She startles up from her sketchpad, in the process rolling a couple of the pencils off her leg onto the bench and ground.

"Sio please drop the Mr. Killian thing, its just Chuckie here. I've practically known you since you were born, so we're like old friends you and me." Chuckie forces another one of his weird wide shark smiles.

"So Sio, this is my nephew, Jackie Boy." Chuck starts making the introductions.  "Jackie this is Siobhan Devlin, she goes by Sio."

"Ah hey, nice to meet you?" She nods over, while in the process of snatching up the escaped sketching utensils before they get away.

"Yeah, you too." I but don't offer her my hand. Rather I just take a knee and hand her back one of the pencils that rolled up to my foot.

"Thanks for that." Sio blinks back wearily up at me clearly distressed, not that I blame her in the least. Any "accidental" event involving my insane uncle has got to be distressing to anyone with half an IQ.

"No worries." I smile back as pleasantly as possible.

When I meet her eyes I am shocked at how electric emerald green they are. I mean I grew up in a predominately Irish neighborhood, so I've seen enough Irish green eyes and red-headed demon children to last a lifetime. But Sio Devlin's eerie ethereal emerald eyes are something altogether different. They are like emerald elf lighting or will-o-wisp green? And honestly, her eerie emerald eyes are haunting as all hell. The kind of eyes you can get lost in and not come back intact. Maybe it's the superstitious Irish in me...but banshee eyes comes to mind?

"See Jackie, what I tell you? She's artsy, right?" Chuckie nods down at her open sketch pad.

Down on her sketch pad is a drawing of what looks like a creepy-cute little girl standing in a strange seashore of seagull skulls. I am thinking this is probably a strange self-portrait on some level? But even before I can agree, Chuckie is already moving ahead into the next phase his evil master plan.

"Anyways Sio, Jackie here gonna go to your school pretty soon. Like right after New Years is over? So I was thinking that maybe you could do me a solid, and show him around school a little? You know, if that's okay with you?"

"Ummm, okay Mr. Killian, that should not be a problem at all?" She nods slowly, but I get the sense this chick thinks this so-called solid is gonna be anything but "not a problem". More like she is still trying to figure out what the hell she did wrong in her last life, to deserve this hellishly horrible honor?

"Okay, so you two kids do the talking thing for a minute, while I check on your mom and make sure she is copacetic in the current." Chuckie turns his back on us and starts stomping away towards his next victim.

"Oh yeah?" He suddenly snaps his fingers, like he's had a sudden revelation, instead of a completely calculated moment. "So I meant to ask you about that painting of yours. The one that won that art contest thing last summer ...The Fall of Winter whatever? So you gonna hang on to that painting or what?"

"I don't know?" She is clearly caught off balance by the sudden challenge.

"Yeah, I liked that one a lot. It made me feel bleak and shit for a second." He actually smiles sincerely at the memory of this bleak moment. Which if you knew Chuckie is even creepier than all hell. "So I want to buy that off you, so I can feel depressed sometimes when I want to. So think of a price to sell it for and let your mom know, so she can add her cut. Okay?"

"Okay, but..."

"Okay, good talk." Chuckie is already drifting away from the conversation. "And don't forget to trade the digits and shit, so you two can do that text-talking thing all the kids do these days? Communication is key to any successful relationship."

With those last words of wisdom, Chuckie stomps off towards what I assume is this poor girls mother standing over by the duck pond. A slightly taller, older version of the same dark hair and pale skin. Wearing a heavy winter Navy P-coat and some sort of hat that looks like some sort of a fluffy French black beret.

Rule #11 ~ Psychopaths operate under the belief system, that it's better to ask for forgiveness after the fact, than to ask for permission prior to doing what they want.

[The way that psychopaths work is not by asking for something they need, but by taking decisive action to get what they want. If this action turns out to offend the acted upon party, then that is really the other party's problem. Because obviously they should have known better than to deprive the psychopath of the required item, action, or whatever they have that the psychopath wanted for themselves.]

"Okay, what the actual fracking hell...was that all about?" She intones slowly, blinking her eerie emerald eyes up to me. As if I have all the answers for what just went wrong in her life?

Her eerie elfy emerald eyes are haunting the shit out of me, as she stares me down waiting for an answer to this insanity to come out of my mouth. I know what haunted eyes look like, I had them for a couple of months when times were tight. Before Chuckie got wind of our troubles and made me a deal I couldn't refuse, so here I am. The look of someone who has a problem too big to solve on their own. The kind of problem that only someone like Chuckie and his special brand of crazy can solve.

"Sorry, I have no idea what just happened." I try to shake off her haunting eyes boring intently into my skull.

"But your Mr. Killian's nephew right?" She confirms my bad blood.

"Oh yeah." I nod in affirmation of that affliction.

"And?" She presses me for more information.

"And ...sorry I got nothing good for that?" I shrug.

"So then what the shit was that communication is key crap about? And what the hell are they over there talking about?" She scowls out at Chuckie, who is now in a semi-animated conversation with the normalish looking lady in the stylish fluffy French beret thing.

"Sorry, Sio is it?" I start trying to explain the inexplicable insanity that is Chuckie. "Truth be told, I just showed up about maybe five minutes ago? And Chuckie was a little vague on the ride over here about what's what? So I don't really know anything about what's going on right now, okay?"

But I can clearly see this is anything but "okay", with the girl with the eerie emerald eyes. So I go with the one out that Chuckie did leave me with for shitfit mode. Which based on her unhappy face we are clearly now heading towards.

"So whatever this is that's happening here? My guess is that it starts with your mom over there." I nod over to the beret lady who is now seriously side-eyeing me suspiciously. "So now you know a whole lot more than I do, about whatever this is or isn't? So whatever you need to work out needs to start over there. Before your mother and Chuckie seal the deal on whatever the hell this thing is gonna be."

"Gawddammit! What the hell is she up to now?" Sio snaps, starting to get clearly agitated about being left out of the life-changing conversation. Oh yeah, this chick is defiantly on the feisty side of the angry Irish female spectrum.

But before she can say boo, Chuckie is already wandering back, looking ten times satisfied in his wacked out win/win mood. Which unfortunately for this girl, means that Chuckie and the beret lady must have already come to some sort of understanding about all things Sio. Without so much as a by your leave, let alone this girl putting her two cents into the mix.

"Jackie this is the lady I was telling you about, Sio's mom, Moira Devlin." Chuckie makes the unnecessary introduction to the beret lady in his wake.

Yeah okay Chuckie, I must have missed that part of the pep talk. Or maybe the dark voices in your head just forgot to remind you to tell me about her? So you want to take five and check that out with your other personalities, or just keep rolling with your new truth?

"Ma'am?" I nod over politely.

"So Chuckie tells me that you're Kathy and Dickie's oldest?" She stares at me oddly as if she is waiting for all my other personalities to suddenly emerge.

"Yes, ma'am." I nod slowly.

I am already weirding out with this little lady. Probably because the only people that ever called my dad "Dickie" were his o2n family? And he hated all of them to hell for it. Most likely because the family nickname probably hit a little to close to home for his deadbeat tastes?

Which means if she knows both Chuckie and my father that ...oh shit? Maybe Dead Mickey and Moira were both Old Neighborhood people? Which would explain a lot in terms of why Chuckie was actually almost acting like himself in front of other people? 

"Well, you do have more of your mothers look about you. Good thing too, because the Killian kids were all pretty ugly mutts back in the day." She insults us easily, pretty much confirming my suspicion about her origin. "So how's your mother getting along these days, anyway?"

"Good," I reply evenly. 

"And your father?" She inquires almost innocently, but I catch that she didn't ask about my parents together. So I'm guessing that means she must know enough about us, to know they aren't married anymore?

"Same as far as I know." I lie evenly. Especially seeing he hasn't been around since the divorce.

Now Chuckie's left eye drops slightly at me, and he gives me a small shake off. I recognize this as his "shut up now please or I'll have to hurt you" tell. Old Irish family code of silence, never talk to outsiders about your own family fights. Apparently so does Sio's mother, which tells me something else important about her. If she knows some of Chuckies tells, that means this lady has obviously known him a lot longer than just a minute?

"I don't know, Chuckie?" She looks me up and down hard, like she is sizing me up for a fight or a coffin. "You sure about this? Cause this one seems a little too polite for a Killian kid?"

"Trust me Mo, that shit just for show." Chuckie snorts in retort. "Jackie might have his mother's manners, but he got my father's temperament in spades. Just test him out and you'll see what I'm saying."

"Okay Chuckie, let's see about that then." The lady in the fluffy black beret gives me a sinister smile, that doesn't quite reach her eyes. Not unlike a she-wolf baring its feral fangs, right before it rips out your throat.

"So Chuckie says you're all good to go to St. Andrews after Christmas break? That true?" She inquires almost innocently.

"Yeah, that's what I was told." I agree with the obvious insanity.

"Okay Jackie, just so you know what you're getting into over there. St. Andrews might as well be called St. Assholes. It's an elitist school full of entitled pricks, that think they can walk on people without a million bucks in the bank. You following me, so far?"

"Yeah, St. Andrews for the entitled, got it." I reply back in kind.

"Upside, most of them will cry like little babies at the sight of someone else blood, let alone their own." She snorts. "But there are a few seriously wolves lurking about mixed in with the rest of the sheep. Sio can point them out to you when you walk on to campus. So you got any issues with that going into the mix?"

"Nope, other than I don't have a trust fund?" I state the obvious.

"Sure you do, Jackie boy." Chuckie slowly starts to chortle. "Trust me, you're fully fucking funded."

Oddly enough instead of getting offended, like she should. Siobhan's mother just starts laughing along with the killer clown, like this is the funniest thing in the world.

"Oh holy hell, Chuckles. You're killing me with that shit ...you always have." She wipes away a faux tear.

"Yeah well, what can I say? Mom always wanted a comedian in the family to make her laugh." Chuckie mugs. "So they tried to made me be fucking funny and shit."

"Jesus your mother, what a fucking saint she was?" Moira rolls her eyes over.

Sio mothers cursing up a storm like a drunken sailor is another sure mark she's Old Neighborhood people. To date, I think I've heard my mother use only one curse word in her entire life. When we got surprise served with my deadbeat dad's divorce papers she said: "What the hell is this?" After which she immediately apologized for that hellish slip of the tongue ...to the poor process server?

"My hand to hell, Mo." Chuckie snorts. "Just don't tell the devil she's dead, and I won't tell her what you said about her."

"No shit, she's burning like a witch." She snorts in retort.

"Yeah, but it's the thought that counts anyway." Chuckie shrugs off the irrelevant and changes the subject back to what he clearly cares about. "So Mo, we good to go on this thing now or what?"

"Yeah Chuckie, we are good to go on this thing." She smirks rather sinisterly. "It's a done deal."

"Then my hand to hell, consider it dead and done." Chuckie nods nonce to seal the deal.

So that's that, and I am now officially starting my very own asshole repentant business at St. Andrews Academy. This whole thing just went from bad to worse, and I haven't even shown up on my first day on the job yet. But it's already a done deal with the devil, thanks a shit-ton to Chuckie and his fucking favors.

Yeah, Rule #1 is never wrong ...you can never trust a psychopath no matter what!

♥♥♥

~Authors Note ~

This chapter is dedicated to Solesister71 who is a wonderful writer and a very cool chick, in my humble opine. Her wicked comments and insights on my stories are some of my all-time favorites. #PurpleUmbrellas4Life