Chapter 4
FIONA
Iflinch as antiseptic is pressed to my head wound, but I don’t fuss.
“I’m going to cut away hair from the wound so I can apply liquid sutures. I promise I won’t take much.”
I nod, enduring his pokes and prods as he works, thankful I’m alive and not being tortured like Madam Levy.
“I’m going to treat the cut below your ear lobe now. It might sting a little.”
I tense in anticipation, but the discomfort is mild.
“I need you to remove the blanket,” Hunter says, his tone deadpan.
“So you can fuck me?” I scoff.
“So I can treat your wounds.”
He’s not like the other men I’ve dealt with. Maybe the world of the dead broke him, but I have a feeling he’s been like this for a long time.
Perhaps the apocalypse freed him from the restraints of polite society.
At least someone is living their best life.
Annoyed, he says, “If I’d wanted to fuck you, you’d be good and fucked.”
I arc a brow. “So you don’t want to fuck me?”
“I want to tend to your wounds, and you’re being difficult.”
I notice that he didn’t answer my question, but I decide not to push the matter, because I don’t know if I can handle his response.
“You are a piece of work.” I pull down the blanket, feeling unashamed of my nudity.
He searches my body, applying ointment to my many wounds, and while his gaze roves everywhere, it never lingers too long in one specific place. He barely registers my nipples, which are standing at attention, or what’s between my legs. Which is…curious.
“I’ll bandage the injuries after your bath.”
My stomach rumbles. “Do you have something I could eat?”
“Jerky, canned fruit. I can make roasted pigeon later, but it’ll take a while to cook.”
“I’d love some fruit.”
He grabs me a can of peaches, which I eat so fast, I nearly choke. When I’m done, he hands me an energy bar.
I may not know what to make of Hunter, but I appreciate that he’s a good host. Hopefully, it’s not because he wants to sell me later.
“I have a garden on the roof, so I can fix up a good dinner. I just figured you needed something quick.”
I force a smile. “Thank you.”
“Follow me and I’ll draw you a bath.”
I brighten at the prospect of a tub full of warm water, which I haven’t had since before the apocalypse. When I was on Salem Street, my baths were ice cold because they said I had to earn warmth.
He grabs some bottles from a cabinet. “You’ll have to live with Old Spice.”
I shrug. “It’s better than Axe.”
If I’m not mistaken, the ghost of a smile graces his lips.
He turns on the water and sits on the lidded toilet.
Annoyed, I ask, “Are you going to sit there the entire time?”
“Yes.”
“Pervert.”
“I’m a lot of bad things, but I wouldn’t call myself that.”
“Monster?”
“That’s closer to the truth.”
I shed the blanket again, figuring it doesn’t offer any real protection. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. I’d be foolish if I thought I could stop him.
And maybe I wouldn’t care to. It’s not that I want him, but bartering flesh for food isn’t the worst possible thing I’ve been made to do. And Hunter isn’t exactly atrocious. Well, he is, but not in the physical sense.
Not that I want him, or any man, for that matter. But he doesn’t make me want to vomit.
Getting into the tub makes me wince. My muscles ache from my many bruises, and when I squat, I nearly fall back.
Hunter reaches forward, steadying me. I cut him a glare, yanking my arm away and taking greater care in lowering myself into the tub.
Okay, so maybe I’m being a jerk. He hasn’t raped me, and I believe that he never intended for Caspian to take me.
Sure, his character is undeniably immoral, but he seems to have some type of code. Murder: hell to the yes! Rape: best to ask for permission.
As much as I’d love to lie back and relax, I’m filthy. Absolutely disgusting. No wonder he hasn’t raped me.
Reaching around to rub soap into my back brings tears to my eyes, but I try to hold them in lest Hunter judge me.
Everything hurts. I feel aches I didn’t think were possible.
After removing the the top layer of grime, Hunter asks, “Would you like me to refresh your water?”
I look down to see a pool of murky brown, wondering how much bacteria is floating in the water. “If you could.”
He pulls the plug, allowing the water to vacate before turning on the faucet again.
Chivalry is not dead. Or if it is, it’s in corpse form, just like the walking dead.
The analogy is almost poetic.
Not that refreshing my water makes Hunter good. I still think about what he’d done to Madam Levy. How he peeled the flesh away from her muscles and revealed her bones. How he didn’t let her die.
Then, as she sat in anguish, unable to even scream, he took me, hardly acknowledging my presence while doing so.
Even now, as he sits next to me cleaning myself, refilling the water, he doesn’t look at me the way most men would. There’s no hunger in his eyes. He’s devoid of emotion entirely.
A chill draws up my spine as cold comprehension washes over me. This isn’t a man that needs to fuck. He needs something else. Something far darker.
Which begs the question: why am I here?
I swallow hard, trying not to look concerned, which is damn near impossible with how terrified I am.
Perhaps I’m being silly. After all, he did just treat my wounds. Why would he do so if he intended to torture and kill me?
But who’s to say how psychopaths work? And I’m pretty sure I have that diagnosis correct. Something is off with Hunter, and it’s very likely he has the whole dark triad thing going for him, or at least two of the three personality types, because he doesn’t strike me as a narcissist.
Maybe if I can get him talking, I can figure out what he’s about.
“How do you know Caspian?”
His jaw clenches ever so subtly. “He was a work acquaintance.”
“Like…you have a job during the apocalypse? Does your employer at least offer good benefits?”
“I’ve recently found myself unemployed.”
“He brought men called Vultures to the place he held me. He told them the Keep was out for them, whatever that means. He offered them an alliance and used me to sweeten the pot.”
“How’d you get away from him?”
“He’d leave for days at a time. During one of those stretches, a man he’d spoken with came back. I said if he freed me, I’d go with him. He let me go, and the first chance I got, I ran.”
“And you’ve been alone ever since?”
“Yeah. It’s not too bad. I have a warm place to stay. It doesn’t have electricity, but it’s comfortable and there aren’t a lot of bugs and rodents. I’ve been trying to insulate it for the coming winter.”
He says nothing, which is weird, but I guess some people aren’t good at small talk.
Which is honestly refreshing. I didn’t end up on Salem Street because an awkward psychopath introvert put me there. It was because of a smooth talker who knew exactly what to say to get me to drop my guard.
Still, Hunter is the very definition of unnerving.
“Why did you rescue me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to murder me?”
“I hadn’t intended to.”
“But death isn’t off the table.”
He cracks a smile. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Are you going to screw me?”
His mouth returns to a straight line. “I’ve considered it.”
“You don’t seem very interested.”
When he says nothing, I return to bathing, scrubbing the filth from my nails. Hunter sets a razor down on the lip of the tub.
“What? Do you expect me to shave my pussy for you like it had been before?”
“It was offered as a polite gesture. I hadn’t expected anything, but if that’s your ambition, go ahead.”
And for the first time since the apocalypse broke, I laugh. Really laugh.
Hunter is clearly depraved, which should be terrifying, but when I’m with him, I don’t feel as though I’m in danger.
I wish I’d paid more attention to psychology when the world was right. Maybe then I’d understand the natures of the beast before me.
“Why did you kill Madam Levy that night?” I ask, trying to learn more about him.
“Because I had the urge to kill.”
“Do you have that urge now?”
His eyes scan to me. “You’re in no danger.”
“Then tell me why I’m here. You could have just let the zombies kill me, but instead, you rescued me. That took effort, which means on some level, you found me worth it.”
“Ever since you’d fled the safe house, I’d been looking for you.”
“Why?”
“You have me curious.”
“In what way?”
“The women I’ve been with were horrified by what I did but relieved that I did it. None of them have ever asked me to take them with me before. Having you at the safe house with me was different, and it had me thinking things.”
“Thinking what?”
“About what it would be like to have sex without having just tortured somebody.”
“Oh…” My heart starts racing in my chest because what he just said is absolutely bonkers.
And yet, there’s a small part of me that’s enthralled by him. Like he’s some kind of puzzle.
More like the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser, because I’m pretty sure the depth of his soul resides in hell.
Hunter doesn’t just kill his victims. He tortures them. And judging by the boner he gets from the act, he greatly enjoys it.
And no, I’ve never been the type of woman that wants to fix broken men. I know I can’t change him. Very few women are capable of changing a man’s nature, and when they do, half of the time, the man never really changes at all. They just get better at hiding their true selves.
I wonder if Hunter has ever had a girlfriend, and if he has, did he kill her? Something tells me he’s never been interested in forming and nurturing a relationship.
Which makes him infinitely safer than my ex, who was all sugary-sweet promises wrapped in a bow.
Before the apocalypse, I had a Disney outlook on the subject. Men rescued women and made them their queens, putting them on pedestals no other woman could topple.
The Mouse sells lies. Pretty lies that cost girls their happily ever afters.