Prey (Primal #1)

30

A voicemail left by Sergeant George Tindale, wanting to check in with me like Judith always did, to make sure that I was okay and if there was anything I needed. Hearing his voice rather than Judith’s reassuring mannerisms sat uneasily with me. I didn’t know the man, and even though he was filling in for only a few months until Judith returned from maternity leave, I struggled to feel good about it.

Only a handful of people in my life knew who I was and where I came from, and Judith was one of them. She was there at the beginning, my guiding hand, counselor, and protector. It felt like she had cut me loose for a few months, which was a good thing in the long run.

My finger hovered over my screen to call him back, but I was distracted by the date on the screen. How did I not notice earlier? That date. Annika’s birthday. Annika, that blond girl adopted by the Kaiser family, gave her every material thing she could need and all the love and attention she could possibly absorb. Yeah, it’s her birthday—the girl I used to be.

My mood turned dark, and even though Judith would’ve been the perfect person to talk to offload about my grief and frustrations, Sergeant George Tindale wasn’t. I didn’t feel comfortable crying on the phone to him about Annika’s birthday because he’d probably think I was being silly. It’s hard to explain how I forgot my past to create a new future, but those auspicious moments, such as birthdays, Gunner holding my hand when I cried, and Christmas around the tree, still cropped up.

“Happy birthday, Annika,” I whispered, then brushed aside the grief because there was no point dwelling on something that didn’t exist anymore.

Making a mental note to call the sergeant later, I slid my laptop into my bag and scrutinized my face in the mirror to ensure I didn’t have smeared food particles or pen ink. However, I noticed a thin strip of blond emerging under the chocolate brown hair color, but luckily, I booked ahead at a hair salon in town.

Being a fraud took a lot of work, regular hair appointments to cover the blond, never going anywhere without my glasses on, always having my green contact lenses in, etc. It’s tiring but necessary.

I left my lonely little room with my bag and headed to class, about a twenty-minute walk away. As soon as I stepped out into the sunshine, I glanced down the street for that shiny Mustang and smiled when I saw it parked behind a blue sedan. Due to the darkened windows, I couldn’t tell if he was inside, but I expected him to follow me as I wandered down the street in the opposite direction.

This was our game. He followed me while I pretended not to notice. Sometimes, I felt him watching for most of the day and would wonder why he didn’t go to class. Other times, I’d see him for a fleeting moment, then won’t notice his sullen figure again until the following day.

After my fling with Ronan in the natural spring pool, I took a break from Rourke and ignored his messages. It wasn’t due to guilt but because Rourke was so intense that sometimes it was a little suffocating. Ronan went weird on me after he seduced me in the pool, and Rourke was too possessive. I needed a break from both men and was pleased Ronan wasn't there when I turned up for work last night.

I delivered only one meal upstairs to the big boss on the phone in his office; when I knocked, he told me to leave it in the hallway. I breathed a sigh of relief because he radiated a scary vibe that I felt as soon as I stepped out of the elevator. Meeting him in person would turn me into a nervous wreck. Of course, it was amplified by the stories that I didn’t know if they were true or not.

Apparently, he went to town on Freddie and the dance crew and threw half of the girls out. Now, they’re down on dancers and will have to hire more. I’d expect to see the advertisement at the Student Job Search while Cheetos lingered, eager to leap at an opportunity to make some cash.

I wonder if Cheetos will ever tell me her real name. Weirdly, she seemed to like me calling her Cheetos, or maybe she had secrets she wanted kept buried, too.

My head was stuffed with circling thoughts as I walked to class. Now and again, I’d glance about, searching for a masked man, but I didn’t see or feel him nearby.

My classroom was on the third floor of the science building, and I decided to hike up the stairs instead of using the elevator. I arrived early to get a seat by the window so I could gaze outside when my eyes got tired from staring at the professor’s visual presentation on microscopic organisms.

I stepped aside for three students to pass as I climbed the first flight of stairs and paused to gaze out the floor-to-ceiling window at the view of the hills in the distance surrounded by a curious-shaped cloud. Stepping aside for more students coming down the stairs, I ran up to the next floor and paused again at the large window to examine those clouds again.

They were odd blue-grey tufts of cotton rapidly twisting and contorting into interesting shapes: a running dog, a snail, a face.

His face.

Gunner Kaiser.

My heart hammered in my chest as I glanced behind me, expecting to see someone there, hoping to see my nightmare standing behind me. The face in the reflection looked so much like Gunner—the Gunner I knew three years ago, the son of the family that saved me from a dismal life, the son of the family I destroyed.

Footsteps echoed up the stairs to the floor of my classroom, and I followed behind, wondering if I saw a ghost or a man who looked like Gunner. I ran up the stairs, hoping to catch the Gunner lookalike before he vanished behind a door or disintegrated into my imagination.

Judith told me never to search for the Kaiser family online because I had to put them in my past. Part of me was too scared to search for Gunner on social media because I didn’t want to see the mess I left him. I didn’t want to see him walk through life worse off than before I betrayed them. I didn’t want to see the scars of grief ingrained into his handsome face that I caused.

The hallway on the third floor was empty. Not a single student lingered; the only sound was muffled voices from the classes behind closed doors. I found my classroom and leaned against the hall wall outside, watching like a hawk for my ghost to appear.

The linoleum on the floor squeaked under my sneakers, and the wall smelled of fresh paint. No ghost resembling Gunner Kaiser appeared.

Doors squeaked open. Voices murmured beyond. Footsteps pounding the stairs of incoming students heading to class.

The classroom door swung open, students filed out, and none resembled Gunner. I imagined it. That’s it. It wasn’t a face, but a smear on the glass or glare of light that looked like eyes and a face shaped like Gunner’s.

What did Gunner look like now? From a sixteen-year-old boy to a nineteen/twenty-year-old man. Would I recognize him if he walked up to me and said hi?

“It’s my birthday, Gunner,” I whispered as the students floated past me slowly, creating a cool breeze that brushed against my cheek. “Happy birthday to me.”

Blinking back the hot tears burning my eyes, I removed my glasses to clean the fog off the lenses while composing myself. I entered the classroom and found a table beside the window, where I wanted to be.

I took my books and note paper out of my bag as a looming depression weighed down on me, and having no one to talk to only made it worse. Annika was officially twenty years old today, and anyone who knew her didn’t care. No one at Gotland knew who Annika was.

The professor set the visuals up as the seats slowly filled with students, and I gazed out the window, daydreaming of Ronan in the pool and Rourke in my room. Unfortunately, it didn’t cheer me up. Annika was twenty today, so maybe I’ll buy her a cupcake with pink icing and mourn quietly.

The presentation started, and I left Annika’s 20th birthday behind me. I also began taking notes on a fascinating subject. Slowly, the weight of depression lightened, but fatigue set behind my eyes, and I didn’t feel like going to work at Savile later. I hadn’t been working there long enough to call in sick, and I knew I’d feel better once I got there, but I wanted to spend Annika’s birthday drowning in my sorrows, stuffing my face with cupcakes and Cheetos.

Eventually, the presentation ended, and I left with pages of notes and descended the stairs, glancing out the window again, expecting to see Gunner’s face, only to see my reflection. Plain. Glasses. Boring. Lonely.

I skipped my next class and walked back to Hallen Hall to wallow in self-pity by lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. My desire to stuff my face with Cheetos and cupcakes had vanished under nausea-laced despair. If I had more time, I’d take the bus back to the natural spring and spend hours diving through the cold water and exploring the forest—alone.

That’s the problem. My place of solace and therapy had been desecrated by the most handsome man in the world, who used and discarded me, and it will never feel the same again.

As I approached my room, I knew someone had been in my room. And by someone, I meant Rourke, the masked man. I wasn’t in the mood for his theatrics today, not on Annika’s birthday. Even when he trusted me enough to show me his allegedly scarred face, I couldn’t show him who I was in return. It seemed like a bad deal for him.

When I walked in, I expected Rourke to be lounging on my bed, but the room was empty, apart from a single item resting on my pillow. Not a flower this time, but a heart-shaped box.

It’s strange how the melancholy fell away at seeing a single gift on my pillow. Shaped in a love heart. Rourke came through for Annika on her birthday. Not that he knew that. Not that he will ever know that. But still, Annika will take whatever she can get.

But of course, this was Rourke, the silently sullen, mysterious rogue. So, whatever was inside the heart-shaped box was unlikely to be the average romantic gesture.

I dumped my bag down and cast my eye about the room, and it looked as though he hadn’t gone through my stuff again. That was good. Even though I was warming to his weird ways, it was inappropriate to do that, and it gave me the ick.

My hand wrapped around the silver box, and it felt cool to touch. It didn’t seem newly bought, so I assumed the real gift was the oddity that would be inside.

Making myself comfortable on the bed, I took the lid off to find a small item wrapped in blue tissue paper. Jewelry, I assumed. It reminded me of the half-heart pendant silver necklace hidden in my clothes in the third drawer. My mom had the other half, or Annika’s mom had the other half. It was the only thing I kept of her’s before I lit a fire to my perfect life with the Kaisers.

Turning my back on that life also meant never contacting my mom again. She was dead to me anyway before then. My sixteen-year-old brain hated her for choosing her habit over me, but as I matured, I learned to understand her pain. If she hadn’t abandoned me, I wouldn’t have met the Kaisers, particularly Gunner. If she hadn’t abandoned me, then I wouldn’t have suffered at the hands of my abusers in those homes.

I began to unwrap the small item from the heart-shaped box. With each layer of paper gone, another layer was underneath. The item was hard to touch, and as I got closer to unraveling it, I could tell that it was not jewelry.

Finally, I reached the last layer of tissue paper, stained in reddy brown paint or…don’t tell me. Blood? That sickly iron scent radiated off it, and I couldn’t kid myself into thinking it was anything but blood.

“Jeez, Rourke. You weirdo. What have you given me?”

The small white item, stained in blood, rolled from my grasp onto the floor. Definite and solid.

A damn tooth.

The man had gone to all that effort to gift me a tooth. Not just any kind of tooth, but a human tooth.

Me: Whose tooth is this?

While I waited for my crazed stalker to answer me, I picked up the bloody item using the tissue paper and threw it into the trash can. Yuck.

Rourke: Glad u like it.

Me: I didn’t say I liked it. Why would I? I’m not insane.

Me: Whose tooth is it?

Me: And why oh why would u gift me that?

Me: Did I do something to upset u?

Me: Are u punishing me?

Rourke: Slow down. Too many texts.

My legs won’t rest, so I began pacing impatiently for that weirdo to reply. Conflicted. Sometimes, the less you know, the better, so maybe I didn’t want him to answer.

Me: Forget it. I don’t want to know.

I had to separate myself from my phone to clear my head and leave the room to splash cold water on my face. There was nothing like a few minutes of phone separation to conclude this was a joke. Rourke’s dark sense of humor. I bet he’s rolling about laughing right now.

When I returned to my room, a message was waiting.

Rourke: He fucked u.

A shiver ran down my spine as my mouth drew desert dry. Shit, he found out about Ronan. How? I knew he was dangerous. I knew he had a side to him that was revengeful and could easily hurt someone.

But, oh no, in a fit of rage, he beat up Ronan. He smashed Ronan’s beautiful face and sent me his tooth as proof or a warning or something. Jeez, Rourke was nuts. Certified fucking insane.

My finger tapped on the screen, unable to find the words to explain that it was a heated moment, and I didn’t realize he and I were exclusive or in a relationship. He could’ve at least informed me that we were a couple.

Rourke: He abandoned u.

What did he mean? Ronan didn’t abandon me. He seduced me and tossed me aside and probably had several bits on the side, but he didn’t abandon me unless Rourke interpreted it that way.

Rourke: Let u walk home in the dark alone.

Oh. He was talking about Shaun. I’d forgotten all about the devious son of a bitch, Shaun. Huh. Now, I’m not so sad about his face being punched in.

Me: Shaun?

Rourke: Yes. Good men don’t let nice girls walk home in the dark.

Me: True. He was an asshole. Did u hurt him?

Rourke: A little.

I had mixed feelings about this. If I were a good person, I would scold Rourke for being reckless, but maybe I wasn’t a good person. Perhaps I was just as dark and depraved as Rourke. I didn’t care that Shaun got a beating, and one day, when I was in the mood, I might psychoanalyze my absence of feelings, but at that moment, I was pleased, delighted, even.

Apart from Gunner, I’d never had a man fight for me. But he was in the past, and Rourke is in the future.

Rouke was my crushing Winter.

Me: Thank u xx