2. Chapter One #2
I take comfort in routines, even when they feel like cages.
The gym bag waits by the door, black nylon and trimmed in gunmetal gray, embroidered with the logo of an old, expensive brand no longer in style.
I unzip it, confirm the checklist by touch: spare socks, water bottle, hair ties, access card clipped to the inner pocket.
Everything is in it’s place. As it should be.
Tonight, the ritual feels more significant, a buffer between myself and the invasive clarity of Creed’s eyes on me.
He’d been such a small moment in my life, and yet the feeling he gave me wasn’t to be understated.
It’s odd. No one else in my life had captured my energetic senses the way he did, and yet he was so miniscule in the grand scheme of my life.
Shaking my head, I head to the bathroom to check myself out one last time. In the bathroom mirror, I scan for weaknesses, stray hair, streaks of mascara, the shine of sweat already beginning at my temples. The lighting is unforgiving, and I prefer it that way. It tells the truth.
I fill the water bottle to the lip with filtered water, never from the tap, always cold.
I check my phone: three new emails, none worth opening.
The only text is from the gym’s automated service, reminding me of tonight’s closing hour.
I smirk at the implication of laziness; I have never left before the lights flicked off, and I don’t intend to tonight.
At the front door, I pause before the new main unit.
The blue indicator pulses, waiting. I open the app on my phone and arm the system, watching as the graphic display renders a wireframe of my entire condo.
Each room glows blue as the sensors activate.
A full lockdown, in under three seconds.
Creed’s voice echoes in my memory: “Forty-eight hours of autonomous operation.” I imagine him in his own home, somewhere in this city, checking on the feed at his leisure, sipping something neat and watching my every move.
If it bothers me, I can’t feel it. Instead, I feel a perverse thrill. I leave the condo with the sense that I am both prisoner and warden, both subject and object.
The elevator is empty, the mirrors showing a woman composed, surgical, a little too tight in the jaw.
The city is bracing in March, wind bouncing off the glass towers and swirling grit into the air.
The walk to my gym is five blocks, exactly six and a half minutes if I cross at the lights, four if I jaywalk.
Tonight I take the longer route, letting the cold numb my ears and wash my brain of static.
The gym is called Forge. It occupies the ground floor of a converted parking structure, steel beams and polished concrete.
The lights are set to hospital levels, the air sharp with disinfectant and rubber.
Reception is a blonde with tragic lip filler and zero interest in small talk.
I badge in, nod, and pass to the bathrooms to set my bag in a locker.
Inside, the clatter of weights and the exhale of machines fill the space. There are at least twenty people here, but none exist to me except as moving obstacles, benches, bodies, lines at the water fountain. I check myself one more time, stow my bag, and hit the circuit.
First: treadmill. I run a mile at a pace calibrated to burn, lungs sucking in the cold, filtered air until my face flushes and the day’s tension dissipates into sweat.
Next: the rower, legs pumping, arms drawing, the digital readout counting down from two thousand meters like an executioner’s clock.
I monitor my form in the mirrored wall, searching for deviations, imbalances, anything that might expose a flaw.
I am halfway through the squat rack when I notice it: a prickling, electric sense at the base of my skull. It isn’t physical, there is no one behind me, not even a cleaning crew, but it radiates through my body with the certainty of a fire alarm.
I catch my own eye in the mirror, scan the reflection for anomalies. At first, nothing. The same old, same old. But then, there, beyond the cable machines and kettlebell rows, a shadow among the regulars, unmoving, the face just outside my field of view.
I rack the barbell, strip the plates, and turn, stretching my lower back with deliberate slowness. I let my gaze wander the gym, pretending boredom, but in reality I am triangulating the source of the static.
And then I see him.
He’s stationed at the free weight section, arms crossed over his chest, half-shadowed by a column.
The gym lighting carves harsh planes across his face, exaggerating the darkness of his eyes and the cut of his jaw.
He wears a sleeveless black tee, the kind you only buy after you’ve decided shirts are for the weak, and his arms are a map of ink, snakes coiling up his forearms, a constellation of tiny symbols dotting his biceps.
Creed. Of course.
He’s not working out. He’s not even pretending to.
He stands, perfectly still, and watches me with the same predator’s calm as before.
Our eyes meet, and for an instant I feel the bottom drop out of my chest, a pulse of adrenaline, chemical and pure, more powerful than any stimulant I’ve ever tried.
I look away, immediately. The sensation lingers, worming its way into my limbs. My grip on the water bottle is suddenly slick, my hands trembling with micro-movements I can’t suppress.
Moving to the next station; lat pull-downs, then triceps, then deadlift, each time stealing a glance to see if he’s still there. He always is. His gaze is unbroken, a constant pressure, as if by force of will he could peel away the layers of my self-control and see what lies beneath.
Forcing myself to finish my routine, refusing to be chased from my own refuge.
But the weight of his attention makes every motion heavier, every breath shorter.
I feel exposed, transparent. For the first time in years, the mirrors show me not as I wish to be seen, but as I truly am, nervous, alive, vibrating with the sick thrill of recognition.
Did he follow me here?
I finish with the ab circuit, lie flat on the mat, and stare at the ceiling, counting each fluorescent fixture. My heart refuses to slow, and my brain won’t let go of the fact that Creed is still out there, still watching.
I sit up, towel off, and decide I am done. No cool-down stretch tonight, no shower. I head straight for the locker room, hands shaking as I key in my code and retrieve my bag. I change quickly, breath coming in small, controlled sips, as if anything more would shatter the illusion of calm.
When I leave, he is gone. The gym is empty, no sign that he was ever there.
But I know better. He must be watching me. He was never a regular before. Or was he and I just didn’t notice? I can be pretty self absorbed sometimes…
On the walk home, I think about the way his eyes followed me, not with hunger but with calculation. I think about the impossible discipline it takes to stand so still for so long, and what it means to become the object of such focused attention.
When I get to my building, the doorman is still reading his paperback, unmoved by the passage of time. I badge in, ride the elevator, and open the condo to the now-familiar pulse of the blue light on the security panel. I lock the door, set my bag down, and walk to the window.
The city is alive below, but I have my mind on one thing. Somewhere, out there, Creed is watching. Maybe from his own home, maybe from a camera, maybe from memory. But definitely watching.
I stare back, unblinking.
The sense of being prey is new. But it is not unpleasant.
That thought makes me pause. It has to be coincidence. Maybe he switched to evenings from morning work-outs. No way a man like that doesn’t have some kind of attachment or at the very least a situationship going on.
With a sigh, I head to the shower, stripping my clothes along the way. I’ll pick them up tomorrow.
The next day, I arrive at Forge half an hour early, before the evening crowd floods the floor with sweat and bravado. I’m testing a theory. I set my bag down, stretch, and begin my routine once again. Treadmill, rower, squat rack.
But I can’t focus. The skin at the back of my neck buzzes, but it’s different this time.
I double-check the wall mirrors, searching for a familiar face, but there’s no sign of him.
Just a few college kids fighting over bench space, a pair of women in Lululemon talking in clipped tones, and one old man doing deliberate, impossible pull-ups.
Relief, then disappointment, then anger at the disappointment. I punish myself on the treadmill, jacking the incline to ten, then twelve, until my quads burn and my breath comes ragged and shallow.
It’s only when I move to the free weights that he appears.
He’s at the far end, loading plates onto a barbell.
Today he’s wearing a black sleeveless hoodie, the hem cropped so his abs flash when he lifts.
His arms are… obscene. Veins snake across them, thick and ropy, and from wrist to bicep his skin is a map of ink.
The snakes are incredibly well done, one in blue-black coils around his right forearm, the head frozen in a perpetual strike on the ball of his shoulder.
The left arm is a scroll of runes, geometric and sharp, punctuated by a series of tally marks that disappear under the edge of his shirt.
His head is shaved close, the scalp shadowed with new growth.
Across his knuckles, the words FUCK and KILL are tattooed, one on each hand, the letters blocky and fresh, like it was a dare.
There’s a stripe of stubble along his jaw, so dark it looks drawn on, and when he glances up, just for a fraction of a second, I see that his eyes are a shock of emerald. Green so vivid it almost glows.
He doesn’t acknowledge me. Not with a nod, not with a glance, nothing.
He just racks the bar, chalks his hands, and deadlifts three plates like they’re made of foam.
I watch, transfixed, as the cords in his neck strain, as the veins stand up under his skin, as the muscles bunch and ripple in a way that is both monstrous and mesmerizing.
I feel a flush start under my sports bra, hot and shameful. My breath hitches. My hands shake a little as I line up for my own set, a pathetically lighter weight. I try not to look at him. I fail.
He’s magnetic, in the way of things you know are dangerous but can’t resist. There is nothing soft about him, nothing yielding or safe. Every inch of him is built for function, not display. He is the antithesis of my world: no decoration, no affectation, just pure, unapologetic force.
He’s exactly as deadly as the snake that lines his arm.
I steal glances as I work through my reps.
At one point, I catch him looking at me, but not the way men usually do, with their eyes quick to breasts or ass, but with a total, freezing focus.
It’s not sexual, at least not in the usual way.
It’s… predatory. Assessing. A chess master calculating my next twenty moves before I’ve made my first.
My body betrays me. There’s a flutter in my stomach, a tightening low in my abdomen. I try to ignore it, double down on form and tempo, but my concentration is shot. Even the clatter of weights seems to fade, replaced by the dull roar of blood in my ears.
At the water fountain, he passes by me, close enough that I can smell him. Smoke, sweat, a trace of cologne. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t smile. But the hairs on my arms stand up anyway, and I have to suppress the urge to follow him as he strides toward the punching bag at the far wall.
He wraps his hands, then starts in on the bag.
It’s a savage, methodical assault. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut, the pattern never changing.
Every hit lands with the same remorseless force, the bag rocking on its chain like it wants to escape the ceiling.
Sweat pours off him, soaking through the black of his shirt, but he never slows, never even looks tired.
I should leave. I want to leave. But I can’t.
Instead, I watch. When he finishes, he rips off the gloves, grabs his towel, and stalks toward the exit. He passes me again at the water station. This time, he pauses. Just a beat.
“Evening, Julianna,” he says. Voice low, quiet, an afterthought. I look up, and for a moment those green eyes pin me in place.
I want to say something witty, or icy, or just human. But all I can do is nod, mute, and hope my face isn’t as red as it feels.
He leaves, and the echo of his presence lingers, more real than the sweat cooling on my own skin.
I wipe down my bench, pack up my bag, and walk the long way home.
The wind is sharp, but it does nothing to clear my head.
The city seems smaller, more navigable, now that I know Creed walks its streets.
I let myself wonder what he does with his nights, if he watches the security feeds, if he tracks the pattern of my daily rituals the way he tracked me at the gym.
I shower, long and slow, deciding to do something risky.
If he is watching, I want him to experience me. All of me. I don’t bother getting dressed and head back to my kitchen. I make tea. I turn off every light in the condo except the one in the kitchen, and I stand at the window, looking out at the city.
My reflection stares back: a woman alone, a woman who cannot pretend to herself that she isn’t drawn to danger, to power, to the idea of being seen so completely that there is nothing left to hide.
I imagine Creed, somewhere in the dark, looking back. Waiting.
The anticipation is electric.
And this time, I let myself enjoy it.