Page 27 of Hunting Gianna
She runs herself ragged, like I knew she would. It’s not hard to watch her struggle. She’s pretty quick, but not when she’s already tried this once. I could do this all fucking day. Stepping behind a tree, I smirk at the way her chest heaves, her shirt ripped off her body, exposing that golden skin I crave running my tongue over. Her legs buckle once, twice, then she finds a second wind and stumbles into the stream bed, water up to hershins. She tries to make distance, but the rocks are slick, and she falls hard. Her hands are raw when she claws herself upright. The pain is sharp enough to make her yelp, but she keeps going.
She’s thinking about the main lodge, I’m sure. Maybe the idea of rescue. Maybe the fantasy that someone will see her, that someone will care. She doesn’t know there’s nobody here but us. That the woods don’t give a single fuck about her, except as a vessel to carry my intentions from one edge of the property to the other.
Noah wouldn’t interfere, even if he saw her, and Kairo would probably clap me on the back for finally finding someone to stick my cock in.
I let her get half a mile ahead of me before I bother to run. It’s not hard—she leaves a story in every patch of crushed grass and smeared mud. At a fallen cedar she almost loses me, doubling back on herself, smart little bird. I slow, drink it in. The panic-smell of her, the blood left in smears on bark, injuries from falling, I’m sure, the near-sobbing breaths she can’t stifle.
She’s losing it. And I love baring witness to her unraveling.
On the east slope, the trees get denser, old-growth pine crowding out the light, the ground soft and spongy and perfect for padding a stalk. She’s all turned around and heading the complete opposite direction to the lodge.Works for me. She’s slowing, looking over her shoulder, tripping more than running. I can see the muscles in her calves trembling, the flex of her jaw as she bites down on another scream.
There’s a map in my head, and I overlay her movements across it. She doesn’t know it, but she’s headed straight for the old ranger outpost. I would have bet money on it. She’s desperate for shelter, for any illusion of safety, no matter how flimsy.
It’s a fucking tomb out there. Nobody’s kept it up in years, and the last time I visited, the ladder was rotted out, but hey if she can make it up there.
I let her get there, watching from the shadows as she hauls herself up the ladder, missing the steps that have fallen apart.
She’s silhouetted in the open door, face half-shadowed, hair tangled and matted with sweat and debris. She scans the woods behind her, eyes wild. I flatten into the darkness, let her feel watched, even when I’m not moving.
She slams the door and throws the deadbolt. Funny, given that wood is older than I am and one well placed kick will tear the damn thing down. I know she’s not stupid, she’ll barricade herself as best she can. I circle the outpost once, silent, picking up the minor tremors of her movement inside—the scrape of furniture, the crash of what sounds like an old filing cabinet, maybe a chair dragged across the floor. She’s improvising, working every angle of fear and hope.
I slip to the window and watch.
Inside, the air is thick with dust. My shirt clings to me, and I can feel the sweat down my spine, a cold band where the wetness meets the chilly Pacific air. She’s frantically movingaround, shoving an ancient cot against the door, then scanning for something—anything—to use as a weapon. She rifles through a pile of debris and comes up with a rusted hunting knife. She tests the blade on her thumb, flinches when it slices, but the look of satisfaction on her face makes me want to tear the door off its hinges and fuck her right there on the linoleum.
She puts it down and keeps looking around.
But I wait. I always wait.
She checks the window across from me, locks it tight, tries to board them up. Good girl. She’s methodical, even in terror. She finds an old radio, but it’s busted. She curses, low and vicious, then starts to pace, hands knotted in her hair.
She’s beautiful like this. All that civility stripped away, all the social pretense and politeness burned off by sheer animal panic. There’s only the raw, untethered urge to live, and the knowledge that she’s not the one in control.
I circle the perimeter twice more, letting the time work on her, letting the stillness press in. She starts to panic for real around the two hour mark. The noises she makes are incredible—a whimper that bubbles up from the core, a rhythm of ragged breaths, the slap of her shoes on the plywood. She scratches at the dirt-streaked window, just once, like a trapped animal testing the cage.
I know the layout of that spot like the back of my hand. It’s where Slade and I would come to get drunk and shoot shit.There are old maps on the walls, corners curling, smeared with decades of dead insects. A single, battered desk sits in the far corner, covered in the detritus of a decade’s worth of bored park rangers: faded Playboys, a coffee mug with a cracked lip, pens snapped in half by restless hands.
One last look at my girl through the window and I can’t help the wistful sigh that escapes me. She hunkers behind the desk, knees pulled to her chest, the knife gripped white-knuckle in her fist. Her head is bowed, eyes closed, lips moving in a silent prayer. I could watch her for hours, but the thrill of it starts to crest in me, the need to be seen, to be known.
I go to the door. Knock, soft, just once.
The sound rips through her, and she jolts upright, scattering a pile of papers in her scramble to stand. She backs against the wall, knife at the ready, breath coming in shallow, high-pitched stabs.
“Gianna,” I call. My voice is even, gentle, the voice of a man offering directions or a ride home from a bar. “Are you going to let me in?”
Nothing. Just the whine of the wind through the eaves and the increase in her breathing.
“I told you I’d give you a head start,” I say. “But now it’s my turn.”
She shouts, wordless, raw, the sound so beautiful it hurts. I hear her hurl something heavy at the door—it lands with a thud, maybe a drawer or the old cot. I laugh, loud and clear, and her silence is my applause.
“Go away, Knox! Leave me alone!” Her scream is loud, breathy. “FUCK!”
I wait. I let the time stretch, let it wind her tighter and tighter until she’s vibrating with it.
When dusk falls, I light a cigarette and flick the butt at the door, the ember a brief, dying star on the stoop. I want her to see the glow, to know I’m out here. I want her to imagine me, crouched in the dark, watching, waiting, building a cathedral of patience for the moment I take her apart.
I don’t break the door. Not yet. I want her to last through the night, to sleep with one eye open, to wake to every creak and sigh of the old outpost and wonder which noise is me.
