Page 23 of Hunting Gianna
Instead, he walks to the kitchen and mumbles something about me not having had breakfast. The movements are normal. Like a man returning from work, or a run, or amurder. I watch him, transfixed. He pulls eggs from the fridge, slaps bacon onto a pan, and sets the heat to medium. The sound of sizzling fat is loud,too loud, louder than the way the hiker’s throat sounded when it opened up under his blade.
He hums as he works. I don’t recognize the tune, and while my curiosity peaks for a moment, I shove it down.This man is a murderer and he’s probably going to kill me too. He cracks eggs one-handed, shell fragments dropping into the sink. He slides the bread in the toaster, times the lever to the second, popping it and immediately buttering so it’s melted. Every motion is so precise, so practiced, that it’s almost beautiful.
He wipes the knife on a dish towel. The towel was white. Now it isn’t.
Fuck, he didn’t even wash his hands! What if the hiker had a disease!I’m half delirious as I burst out laughing before it turns into a strangled cry.
What the actual fuck is happening right now.
I’m still on the couch, hands locked between my knees, trying to decide if I should wipe away the blood or let it sink in. My body is electric with adrenaline and shame and the raw animal urge to run, but the stronger urge—the sick, heavy one—is to see what he’ll do next. I watch him. He knows I’m watching.
He doesn’t look at me until the toast pops up.
Then he turns, crossing the floor in three easy steps, and sets a plate in front of me on the coffee table. Two eggs, sunny-sideup, flecked with black pepper. Four strips of bacon, crisp and glistening. Toast, evenly buttered, cut diagonally.
He crouches so we’re eye level. His hand is still smeared with blood. He taps the plate with a single finger. “Eat,” he says. “Or don’t. But if you try to run again, I will fuck you so hard you’ll have to crawl to the bathroom for the next three days.”
The word is delivered in a tone that leaves no question: This is not a come-on. This is a promise. A warning and an inevitability.
He rises, pours two mugs of coffee, and sits in the armchair across from me, watching. Always watching.
My stomach growls, even as nausea hits me.How can I be hungry when someone just died in front of me?And yet… I grab the plate. The fork is cold against my skin. I try to grip it, but my hand shakes so hard that the tines clatter against the plate. He doesn’t comment. Just sips his coffee, eyes never leaving my face.
I replay the murder. The flash of the blade. The spray of blood, the hot, arterial pulse. The hiker’s face, gurgling, eyes bulging, hands clamped to his throat. The way it made me want to throw up and want to watch and want to run all at once. I had tried, I really did, to grab him, to help him, but the sound of his body thudding against the forest floor replays over and over.
I replay my own body. The way my legs folded under me, the way I couldn’t look away, the way my mouth was open and I didn’t even realize I was screaming until he smirked. Those fulllips pulling at the edges as he watched me through that fucking mask.
I replay him. Knox. The way he moved. The way the mask seemed to become his real face, the way he looked at me afterward—smeared in gore, chest heaving, and more aroused than angry. The way he wiped the blood from my cheek with his thumb, smearing it instead of cleaning it, as if he wanted me to know it was mine now, too.
I look at the eggs. I look at him. He raises his eyebrows, almost polite.
“If you’re trying to poison me, I’d rather just cut my wrists and save you the time,” I say, voice trembling.
He laughs. It’s a good laugh. Warm, deep, human. He seems almost flattered. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” he says. “Eat. You’ll feel better.”
I eat. Because he tells me to, but also because I’m starving. The bacon is perfect. The eggs are perfect. The toast is golden and melts on my tongue. I hate that it tastes good, hate that it’s the best breakfast I’ve ever had, hate that I’m eating it in a room with a man who could slit my throat without blinking.
I hate that I keep glancing up at him. At his arms, still streaked with blood. At his throat, corded and bare. At his eyes, cool and flat and beautiful.
With a long gulp, I down the coffee, hoping it will still my nerves. All it does is ramp up my heart rate until I feel like I’m in a sprint.
He finishes his coffee, gets up, and comes back with a second cup for me. I flinch when he sets it down, expecting him to grab me, shake me, hurt me. But he doesn’t. He just returns to the armchair, sits, and stares.
We sit like this for a long time. Me, eating. Him, watching. The sound of the woods outside is muted by the triple-paned glass. The only noises are the clink of my fork and the wet sound of my own swallowing.
When I finally finish, he stands. He takes my plate, my mug, and carries them to the sink. Washes them, even. He wipes his hands on the bloodstained towel, then turns to face me.
“You’re going to take a shower,” he says. “Then you’re going to come back here, and we’re going to talk. If you try to run again, I will tie you to the bed, splayed open and fuck you until you’re begging for release. But know this, little bird, only good girls get to come.”
He says it like it’s a normal thing, like it’s an agenda item.
I don’t move and despite the fear, a small ache starts between my thighs. He may be a brute of a man, but he fucks like a god.
He walks over, grabs me by the arm, and hauls me to my feet. He’s not gentle, but he’s not brutal either. He guides me to thebathroom, pushes me inside, and closes the door behind me. There is no lock on the inside. Of course there isn’t.
There’s soap and shampoo, and a fresh towel draped over the bar. The mirror is fogged, so I don’t have to see myself. Thank fucking god.
I peel off my shirt. The blood is dry and flaky, stuck to my collarbone. My skin is a mess—bruises, scratches, a dark fingerprint blooming above my elbow.God my feet hurt.
