The Secret I Feed

At first, Gavin was uncomfortable with the attention he was receiving. He’d run from the cameras, hide from the growing crowd of fans waiting outside, and refused all requests for interviews.

Now he thrived under the spotlight.

He stopped for photos, signed autographs, and spoke at schools. Encouraging the young minds, consoling the desolate and grieving, and winning his way into the hearts of everyone who saw him solve another case that no one else could.

He was a new type of celebrity. A new type of Hero.

One that was sorely needed in modern times.

“This next one is pretty grisly.” He said as he took a sip of his coffee, sliding over the folder with information on the case. I watched his hand as he slid it across the table; it twitched involuntarily. I looked at the clock on the wall over the folder as I picked it up to read. It was 8 pm.

The tremors shouldn’t have started for another 24 hours. Would this be enough?

The family had been found in their home. A blunt strike shattered the father’s jaw, tongue hanging out, blood spilling down his shirt. The wife’s throat was slit with the edge of a broken plate, and the daughter was strangled with the cord of the electrical mixer. They were all staged at the dinner table, waiting to be served. No forced entry, no signs of robbery, no other room was touched.

It was gruesome, but it wasn’t enough.

“How’d you come across this?” I asked him calmly.

“Don’t get too upset,” he quipped with a chuckle in between sips, “I saw it in one of the newspapers back in Tucson. It stuck with me, so I did some research and reached out to lend my services to the grieving family. Or to those who are left. They replied immediately.”

My eyes never lifted from the material in front of me, but I could feel his gaze on me, waiting for approval.

“You’re not mad, are ya, sis?” The confidence he displayed in front of the cameras wavered. I continued to stay silent, flipping through the photos and pages, my face as neutral as I could keep it. “I know it’s your job to assign us cases, but I just couldn’t get this one out of my head. You know how it can be with me…” his voice cracked.

I didn’t have to look up; I couldn’t, because I knew the expression he would be wearing.

Drops of coffee fell to the table as the trembling in his hands intensified. His eyes darted quickly, unable to focus on anything, his jaw tense as he clenched his teeth hard.

It had been too long between cases.

“I’ll start looking at flights.” I finally said as I looked up at him. His face softened, eyes steady and focused, the tremors subsiding.

“So you’re not upset?” he asked, his voice low, hesitant as a slow smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

“No, I am not,” I reassured him with a small smile of my own. It was the truth, I wasn’t mad, I was afraid, afraid that this wouldn’t be enough and that we’d run out of time.

Gavin’s smile finally broke free and spread across his face. It should have set me at ease, but it further tore at my heart.

“Good,” he sighed, “There’s something about this one. I can feel it.”

“I’ll book the tickets for tomorrow. Tucson is just a 2-hour flight; we can catch an early afternoon one and be there with enough daylight left to go over the crime scene.”

“It’s not in Tucson.”

“Where is it?” I waited. The silence stretched between us. The room grew cold, and the lights flickered.

Shit.

I turned around, but he was gone. He moved quickly and quietly when the wait between cases became too long.

I found him standing by the window in the darkened living room.

“Gavin?” I called out to him loudly. He didn’t turn or move.

“They’re out there,” he finally said in a low, gruff voice, devoid of all his usual charm.

I walked past him, pulling aside the curtain a sliver to look out. Parked outside, across the street, were the news vans and journalists, as well as fans. They were always there whenever we returned from a case.

On our side of the street were two patrol cars, but they didn't do much. We had made enemies of them ever since Gavin quit the force and began to outshine them.

“It’s the usual bunch,” I said to him as the curtain fell back into place.

“No, it’s not,” he whispered.

“Did you see someone new out there?”

He strolled up next to me, and I heard him take in a big inhale and let out a chuckle that sent a chill down my spine.

“She is new. She smells of lavender and honey.”

I clapped my hands three times.

“Ouch. Why do you always do that?” He asked, rather annoyed, rubbing his ears as the lights turned back on in the living room.

“Where do we need to fly out to tomorrow?”

“Pahrump,” he answered as he let out a long yawn. “You get those tickets. I’m heading to bed. I’m feeling so sleepy suddenly. Did you switch out the coffee for decaf?”

“No, it’s the same one.”

“Hmm, I must be building up a tolerance.” He headed up to his room and was asleep before I finalized the flight information.

I didn’t sleep at all. I couldn’t. It would have been reckless to sleep when it was awakening.

I moved on muscle memory alone the following morning. Rushing out of the front door toward the car, not long after he had come out of his room.

Gavin covered his face as he walked to the passenger door, then paused, removed his glasses, and waved to those who had been camping outside. They cheered for him, while others begged him to look at their case. Meanwhile, others pressed down on their shutter, hoping to capture the photo that would make them rich that week.

Gavin didn’t enjoy flying. I slipped him two white pills as soon as we parked. He swallowed them immediately. He never asked me what they were; he just took them blindly.

“I’m going to need another one.” He said as we grabbed our bags from the backseat.

Two was usually all that was needed.

“You didn’t sleep well last night?” I probed. I hadn’t heard him tossing or turning; he hadn’t even gotten up to use the bathroom. “Did you have a nightmare?” I held my breath as I watched his face closely.

“I slept fine, I just feel…” he paused as he searched for the right word, “I feel extra anxious. My skin feels all crawly. I don’t know how to explain it, but I don’t like it. I’ll need more than two for the flight.” He extended his hand to me, palm open, waiting for a third pill.

I hesitated.

“It’s a 45-minute flight. Two will be enough.”

I walked ahead of him, but his firm grip on my wrist stopped me. His face was drawn into a painful grimace, his pupils dilated completely.

“I said I need another one.” He growled.

My heart thundered in my chest as I stared at the unrecognizable face in front of me.

“Gavin. Let go.” His grip tightened, “We’re going to miss the flight if we don’t keep moving.” I felt his hold loosen, and I tore my arm away, but his eyes were hungry, starved.

I clapped three times.

His pupils shrank, and his face softened. He walked past me as if nothing had happened.

We landed in Las Vegas just after noon. The Strip glittered in the bright summer sun, but we didn’t stay long enough to admire it.

We picked up the rental and drove west with the windows rolled down, letting the hot, dry Mojave air blow dirt into the car. The dashboard read 110 degrees, but Gavin wasn’t bothered by it.

The deputies were waiting inside their cars, scrolling through their phones, as we pulled in. They only got down once we had.

“So you’re the bigshot the family hired.” The deputy, who had been in the driver’s seat, stated as he adjusted his pants.

Gavin laughed, short and guttural. “And you’re the guys put on babysitting duty.”

Shit.

The two men approached Gavin menacingly, hands resting on their gun holsters.

“Watch your mouth,” the Deputy’s tone was sharp, but his face betrayed a flicker of unease.

I stepped between them, folder clutched against my chest.

“Deputies, we’re here to help, not make enemies. The family called us because they want answers. You don’t want to be the ones on record for standing in their way.”

Gavin laughed again, nothing like the sound he made when cameras were rolling.

The deputies flinched.

“Gavin,” I said softly, my hand brushing his arm. His jaw ticked, his eyes gone wide and strange, fixed on the deputy like he could smell something on him.

I clapped three times, sharp and fast.

Gavin blinked, shoulders loosening, his lips pulling into the smile everyone else knew.

“My sister’s right, she always is, we’re just here to work.” His voice was velvet again, almost charming. The deputies exchanged a look, then backed off.

My pulse slowed, though I knew it wouldn’t last. It had been too long since the last case.

Since I fed him one.

We moved inside. The house was still sealed, crime tape flapping in the dry wind. Gavin stepped over it without hesitation. He moved quickly and smoothly across the room, gliding along the surface. The officers followed us.

“Gavin works best if he is given space.” I placed my body between them and the kitchen.

“You think we’re going to leave you in here alone? You two -” I cut him off. My voice dropped an octave, just where it needed to be for them to obey.

“The two of you look like you had some important information to review on your phones. Why don’t you do that for the next 20 minutes?”

Their eyes went out of focus, their shoulders slumped as they turned around and headed back out toward their car.

No one could see Gavin right now, not as he began to feed, not in his current condition.

“The bodies have been taken already.” He said, sounding disappointed, as he crouched by the blood pooled near the kitchen tiles, darkened and sticky now. His fingers hovered just above the stain, and he inhaled.

“In this heat, even with the AC turned on high, the bodies would have started to rot.”

He was no longer listening to me, his eyes wide, taking in every last minute detail.

“The angle of the father’s jaw,” he muttered to himself. "Means the attacker was left-handed.” His eyes flicked to the window. “The mother’s throat cut low to high. Hesitation in the first slice. He knew her. He couldn’t look her in the eye.”

Gavin moved across the room, his hands twitching as he traced invisible lines across the floor.

“The daughter,” he whispered. “She scratched him. See?” He pointed to faint streaks of blood smeared across the countertop, overlooked by everyone else.

I knew then it was already over.

He had identified him solely from the photos of suspects the deputies handed over to him. Within the hour, the neighbor, the quiet one, hands buried deep in his pockets. The one who had stumbled across the scene and called the police was in handcuffs back at the precinct.

“You’re left-handed,” Gavin said simply, his voice velvet and sharp.

The man’s head jerked up. “So?”

Gavin stepped closer, his smile pulling wider than it should.

“She scratched you. Your arms. Show them.”

The neighbor hesitated, then pulled his sleeves up. Red welts marked his forearms, crescent-shaped.

Gavin wasn’t satisfied yet.

He leaned in across the table, too close, his voice dropping low, to that octave that only the man and I could hear.

“Tell me how it felt when her breath stopped under your hands. Tell me how many times you had to hit her father before he stopped gurgling. Tell me how much you hated her mother when she looked at you like you were nothing.”

The man broke. Right there. He spilled every last detail of how he had done it and why. All in a single torrent. He laughed, maniacally as he finished. He was proud to have shared, to have fed.

The deputies rushed to take him away, stunned at how fast it had happened.

To them, it was brilliance. To the grieving extended family waiting outside, it was justice. To the cameras that would arrive within the hour, it was heroism.

But I knew better.

Gavin had taken the jagged edges of their deaths and swallowed them whole, pulling every dark detail into himself until there was nothing left to hide.

He had devoured them faster than normal.

Too fast.

He smiled for the room, for me, but I saw the strain in it.

And I knew: this case had not been enough.

Back in Las Vegas, we checked into a hotel with mirrored glass and carpets so thick they muffled your steps. Gavin sprawled across the bed, watching the lights outside our window strobe against the ceiling.

His voice was soft, the way it had been when we were younger.

“Do you know why I can do this?” His hand twitched at his side, fingers curling into the sheets. “Why I can walk into the worst rooms anyone’s ever seen, and not look away? Why I can see the things that others miss?”

I stayed quiet.

“None of it leaves me. Every crime, every face, every scream, every little awful detail sticks. Like I’m carrying them with me, all the time. That’s not hero shit.” His laugh cracked. “And I drag you with me. Everywhere. You could’ve had your own life, but instead you’re stuck dealing with mine.”

I wanted to tell him the truth then, but I just reached out and took his hand instead. He let me. For a moment, he was my little brother again, lost and confused, seeking guidance from his older sister.

I slipped out into the city once he fell asleep. I couldn’t sit idly anymore.

The Strip had a way of disguising monsters.

Out here, under the neon, everyone was dressed in the same glittering skin. The drunks. The gamblers. The dreamers. The desperate. They all blurred together until you learned how to look past the masks.

I walked slowly, letting the current of people carry me, waiting for the pull. It always came.

It wasn’t the loud ones I wanted, the ones already on the edge, screaming at dealers, stumbling into the streets. No, those were too obvious. Too easy for the police to sweep up and toss in a cell.

Gavin needed more than that. He needed a puzzle, a knot that no one else could untangle.

That was my role, just as it had been for the women before me.

To set the table. That is what we called it.

A secret passed down through generations, from grandmother to mother to daughter. We are the keepers, the feeders, the ones who make sure the hunger never breaks free.

In the past, it was whispers slipped into soldiers’ ears, nudges that stoked wars, little pushes that made brothers turn on one another. These days, I preferred cleaner methods. My words as stories published under a name no one could trace, threaded into the dark corners of the internet. The right person would read, and something inside them would stir. My words set fires in brittle minds.

I always knew when a crime was mine, because Gavin devoured those cases differently. They calmed him, filled him, steadied him.

But stories took time to find their way to the right hands. Tonight, time was the one thing I didn’t have.

So I hunted.

I found him outside the brightest casino. Mid-forties, khaki slacks, polo shirt with a company logo, hair thinning at the crown. He could have been anyone, an accountant, a teacher, a man on a forgettable business trip.

But I saw the cracks.

The way he ground his shoe against the pavement when a young man in a tailored suit brushed by without noticing him. The way he stared at his phone, and then shoved it angrily back into his pocket.

Overlooked. Passed by. Forgotten. And furious for it.

I stepped closer, brushing against him as if by accident. He stiffened, ready to protest, but I tilted my head and smiled as if I knew him. That always disarmed them.

“You don’t deserve this,” I whispered, soft enough to be swallowed by the noise of the Strip. I leaned in, letting the words slip in that octave that slithered in his ear like poison. “The way they walk past like you don’t exist. Like you’re nothing.”

His lips parted. His breath quickened. The hook was in.

“They’ll remember you,” I said. “All you have to do is make them see.”

He nodded before he even realized he had, eyes glassy, the spark catching in him like dry brush meeting flame.

I walked away without looking back.

Tomorrow there would be a new case. Gavin would have a puzzle to solve, and the hunger would quiet.

Gavin would never have to see what he really was. He would go on believing he was a hero, and that was enough.

Better my soul than the look on his face if he ever learned the truth.