Page 24 of Hunting Gianna
The water is hot and sharp. It stings, and I let it. I scrub until the blood runs pink at my feet. I shampoo twice, three times. I scrub my nails until they hurt. I want to be clean, but I know that’s not possible anymore.
I cry for a while, head against the cold tile. The water drowns the sound, but I know he hears it anyway.
When I’m done, I dry off, wrap myself in the towel, and open the door. He’s there, in the hallway, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
He looks me up and down, slow, deliberate. Not like a man undressing a woman with his eyes, but like a scientist cataloging a specimen.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “Even more so now.”
I want to hit him, but I don’t. I just walk past, back to the couch, sit, and wait.
He follows, brings me fresh clothes—a t-shirt, flannel pajama pants. I put them on, watching him the entire time.
He sits across from me, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. His hands are clean now. The blood is gone. But I can still smell it. I think I’ll always smell it.
He doesn’t speak for a long time. Just lets the silence build, the way you’d let a dam fill before deciding whether to open the sluice.
“You’re safe here,” he says. “No one is going to hurt you.”
I almost laugh. Instead, I just stare, waiting for the punchline.
He tilts his head. “You think I’m a monster?”
I nod, slow.
He smiles. “Good. Monsters are real. You can stop pretending that they’re just under your bed now.”
He leans back, stretching his arms above his head, joints popping in the quiet. “Eat, shower, nap. Tomorrow we’ll see about your car.”
He stands, walks to the kitchen, and begins to clean his knife. The sound of the blade against the sharpening stick is loud.
I watch, numb and alive at once, the air in the room thick with violence and eggs and the weird, relentless certainty that none of this is over.
Not by a long shot.
The rest of the day passes in a kind of trance, the hours pooling and spreading like old blood on linoleum. I don’t move from the couch for a long time. Every time I close my eyes, I see the hiker’s mouth opening, closing, trying to beg for air. I hear the wet rattle, the knife catching on bone.
At some point, Knox disappears into the back room. I hear him moving things, the thud and scrape of wood, the hum of low music. For a while, I think he’s forgotten about me. I wonder if he’s going to sleep, if he dreams, if his dreams are as loud and bright as mine.
I pull a throw around my body, try to remember what it feels like to be clean, to be untouched. There’s a bloodstain on my ankle, a thin line where it dried in the hair. I scratch at it until the skin turns raw.
I don’t realize I’ve dozed off until I wake to the smell of food again. This time it’s chili, tomato-sweet and full of cumin andspice, the kind that sticks to your ribs and won’t let go. My mouth waters and my stomach flips, but I’m not sure if it’s hunger or dread.
Knox appears with a tray, sets it in my lap, and sits next to me. Not across, but right next. His thigh is pressed against mine, a hot, deliberate line. He picks up his own bowl and starts eating. I stare at my food. The spoon shakes in my hand. The beans look like tiny, petrified organs. They’re red. Like the hikers blood.
I eat anyway, because that’s what he wants. Because I want it, too, and because it’s easier to let him decide what happens than to fight the undertow. I try to eat slowly, but my body betrays me, and I finish half the bowl before I even taste it.
He watches, just watches, never blinking.
He wipes his mouth, then licks the spoon clean, tongue curling over the metal in a way that makes my skin go tight and hot. I hate that I notice it. I hate that I feel my pulse in places I shouldn’t.
“Um… thanks. For the food. Not for keeping me kidnapped here.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. “You’ll come around.”
He stands and collects both bowls in one hand. I think he’s going to leave, but instead he leans down, so close I can see the individual stubble on his jaw.
“I need to shower, there’s something so… beautiful about the way you watch me, watching you and I have an issue to take care of. You can join me and take care of the mess, if you’d like. I’d love to see how beautiful that mouth is around my cock.”
