22
Without a doubt, it was him. I may have imagined some aspects of what took place before my eyes, such as how quickly he fell and whether or not he was pushed or let go, but I definitely did not imagine who was there in the white shirt. None other than Detective just call me Gabe.
I’m at home in the pool, where the world is a muffled symphony of splashing water and distant whistles. Yet, the thoughts persist, circling like a vulture over a carcass, fixated on one question, refusing to let go.
Why?
I didn’t sleep at all last night, partly due to the alcohol and green that kept me wired while my heart palpitated, where, at one point, I thought I was dying. Until I told myself that it was Z’s lethal shit and if I breathe calmly and drink lots of water, I should be okay. But mostly, it was thoughts of the man crashing onto the car roof and falling still, lifeless, yet definite.
That was the first time I’d seen a human die before me, although I’ve imagined death many times in my head, and the gun in my hand was the cause of their deaths. But I had a visceral reaction to the cracking sound of the car roof and the gasps from the crowds who watched on helplessly. There is nothing you can do to save a man while he’s falling, but there’s plenty you can do to stop it from happening in the first place, which brings me back to the original question.
Why?
Why did Gabe release his grip and let the perpetrator fall to his death? It was a deliberate move, a deliberate releasing of his hold on the man. What did the man do or say to provoke it?
The pool”s edge is near as I unconsciously freestyle, my favorite stroke, taking a breath when my body tells me to; otherwise, keeping my head underwater in this quiet serenity. I’m in a zone, yet death is never far from my mind. Not my death, but the death of others. Yet my growing fascination with death is increasing my propensity to want to live and thrive so I can take the life of another. They didn’t deserve breath and beating heart in the first place.
As I reach the end of the lane, I dip down under the water, turn and push hard against the side of the pool, and glide through the turquoise water, thinking of death and life and murder. I’m both disappointed and pleased that seeing that man didn’t affect me as it once would. This is both good and bad. Good, because it means I’m hardening to my task where I will face death head-on. But it’s also bad that I’m becoming indifferent and numb, lacking empathy. I think one of the most significant failures of human nature is to either feel too much or nothing at all. A well-adjusted human being would be somewhere in the middle, whereas me…I don’t know where I am.
Did Gabe see me? Did Gabe see me watching him? He gazed directly at me, or at least it seemed he was looking up at me. Maybe I imagined that, too. Perhaps he was looking at me to see if I was looking at him or just happened to lift his eyes in my direction by coincidence.
Be still, brain. You are overthinking.
I come to the end of the pool and decide to stop. I have the energy in my reserves to swim another couple of laps, but I’m running out of time because I have an early class in the horticulture glasshouse and am required to work in the University Gardens for two hours.
As I rest my feet on the bottom of the pool and take my goggles off, I sense someone standing over me and glance up to find narrowed eyes that run over my wet face and land on my squished breasts in this lapis bathing suit.
“Your stroke is still good,” he speaks first because I’m tongue-tied and unprepared to deal with my greatest enemy. I become self-conscious of my body and sink into the water to hide my bare skin, but the water is so clear that he’s likely to still be able to see.
After a few seconds of me not responding, he adds, “Ever thought about rejoining the team?”
It crosses my mind that The Pig may have contacted him, if they’re still buddies, and updated him with my volatile reaction to him being in my family home. This was a dreadful mistake on my behalf because I needed to stay under the radar, but at that moment, I was bamboozled and needed to think quickly.
“I don’t have the enthusiasm for long hours in the pool anymore,” I answer, biting my tongue when I have the urge to blurt, ‘because you raped me. You ruined my life.’ I’m glad I stopped myself because I need him to relax and rest assured in the false belief that he’s invincible and has power and control over me and, I suspect, other women.
The unfortunate image of him fucking Lucy from behind enters my mind, and my stomach turns. I need to talk to her.
“That’s a shame,” Lyons says, stepping away and winking as if he and I share a little secret. Damn, where’s my gun? If only bathing suits were designed with gun halters. “I’ll see you around, Rae.”
“No, thank you,” I murmur and wait until he’s several feet away before climbing out of the pool. His brazenness irritates the living fuck out of me as if what he did to me was nothing. Nothing.
As I walk towards my sports bag resting on a bench, I spot an impressive figure sitting with legs spread next to my bag, wearing a towel wrapped around his waist.
“I’ll never get tired of looking at that,” he states without smiling as water dribbles down his bare, muscular chest as if he had just climbed out of the pool moments ago.
“I hadn’t noticed you were here,” I tell him as those sky blues run over my bare, toned legs as he hands my towel to me.
“Sure,” he answers in a doubtful tone as I wrap my towel above my breasts. “What did he want?” nodding towards Lyons on the other side of the pool, standing directly opposite us with arms folded across his chest. Shudder.
“He was suggesting I should join the swim team,” I tell him, noticing his narrowed blue eyes are still fixed on Lyons, reminding me of the lion watching his prey from afar. But I’ve noticed that Cormac tends to stare intensely at people. I wonder if it has something to do with his father being a detective, making him naturally suspicious of human behavior.
“I got the impression you didn’t want to rejoin the team,” he says, frowning and dragging his stare away from Lyons.
“I don’t,” I chuckle, trying to rise above the intense weight of Lyons” stare, which is making me uncomfortable. “I’ve left competitive swimming and the awful long hours in the past, I’m afraid.”
“Good. Anyway, have you had breakfast?” Cormac asks.
“No, I was going to pick up a coffee and bagel at the Kiosk on the way to the Horticulture School,” I explain, grabbing my bag.
“Let me take you out for a cooked breakfast at a good café. Bacon and eggs, pancakes, maple syrup, decent coffee,” he licks his bottom lip and stands up, hovering dangerously close to me, naked skin almost touching naked skin, and immediately fear kicks in.
There’s going to be a point where I’ll have to resign to my sexual desire and let one of those two men take me into their bed. It might hurt physically the first time or not, but at least the first time back on the horse will make the second time more pleasurable. Besides, living life as a nun was never on my Bingo card.
I exhale and inadvertently meet Lyon”s gaze, watching us closely, and my stomach turns. Cormac snatches my bag from my grasp and holds it behind him. “I won’t give this back until you say yes,” he threatens.
“Huh? And if I decline your request?” I ask, reaching behind him for my bag and pressing my chin against his smooth, bare shoulder, electricity infiltrating through his touch.
He lowers his head so our lips are only an inch apart. “You’ll say yes.”
“Will I?” I test him, reaching for my bag again, only for him to snatch away from my grasp.
“Say yes,” he whispers in that sexy voice riveting down my spine.
“Okay,” I resign, and how can I say no? “But I need to change into my clothes.”
His nostrils flare. “Looks fine where I’m standing.”
I shoot him my best raven scowl - a woman’s warning should never be ignored, and he immediately hands me back my bag. “Lucky for you, I’m in a good mood.”
“Yeah, I know what women like you do when you’re in a bad mood,” he says, rubbing his throat with his hand as if imagining a giant mantis biting it off.
I smirk, and my eyelashes flutter inadvertently in a flirtatious fashion. “I’ll meet you out front in the car park,” I tell him and walk towards the locker room, feeling those eyes rake over my legs as I go. As soon as I reach the locker room door, I whisk around to see if he’s still watching and catch him in the act. He cocks his dark eyebrow at me as I shoot him my middle finger, and when I turn back around, I come face to face with Lucy, wrapped in a towel and heading into the locker rooms to change.
“How are you?” she asks, smiling, and all I can think about is her bent over the desk getting rammed from behind by the man I’m planning to kill. I thought she was on the same side as me. I got the impression she found Lyons to be a creepy old prick that she and her friends nicknamed the Octopus.
“I’m good. How are you?” I ask politely, struggling to look at her in the eyes. But I need to know if she was doing that by choice or if Lyons has a hold over her. I want to convince myself it’s the latter because I can’t bear the thought that anyone would voluntarily let that man touch them, let alone get off on it. Yuck. Vomit-inducing.
“Tired,” she confesses. “We’re being pushed hard for the Nationals coming up.”
We walk into the locker room together, and I’m dangerously close to asking her about Lyons, but now is not a good time. “Oh, well, you look after yourself,” I say as I step onto a shower cubicle and shut the door behind me, “or else you might let ol’ Lyons down.”
“Yeah,” is her faint reply. I can’t see her reaction to my dig at Lyons, but the tone of her voice is enough to send the prickers down my spine. Something is off. Perhaps I’m sensing her guilt, and I don’t know Lucy well enough to ask such a personal question. How do I even compose the sentence? ‘Oh, by the way, did you get railed by Lyons?’ Nah, that won’t do.
I switch the faucet on and let the water run over my hand until warm before stripping my sodden bathing suit off, keen to rid myself of the scent of chlorine. There are moments when I stand under the shower that memories return of those days after The Four ruined my life when I’d shower several times a day and never feel clean and scratch my skin raw. There are faded scars on the anterior of my forearm that are only visible in bright light, but mostly, the skin on my stomach and thighs bore the brunt of my self-hate episodes.
Naturally, my clawed hand travels to my bare thigh to dig fingernails into my skin, hungry to leave a mark. There is a lot of power in one’s thoughts but even more power in one’s actions. However, the thought precedes the action and is easier to change than the consequence of the action.
I’ve named my handgun Til after the Watchmaker in Atomic Blond. Strangely, thoughts of my Glock, Til, have become my happy place partly due to the charmer who sold it to me. I’m okay. With Til by my side, I”m safe, and my hand moves away from my thigh to grab the soap.
As I wash my naked body, I let my mind travel to other happy places: the garden, the herbarium, and the three men piquing my curiosity lately.
Cormac’s splendid body in all its glory shimmered wetly under the lights, and those sky blues were filled with a severity that I can’t quite articulate. It’s not uncommon for ambitious athletes to have an unrelenting attitude, which can swiftly turn into cruelty if you press the wrong button. But with Cormac, I suspect the harshness that I occasionally see hints of hides another more fascinating aspect of his personality.
There’s a tingle between my legs, imagining Cormac kissing me everywhere and those huge hands running down my spine to my butt cheek. My hand gravitates to my clit where I receive an instant buzz from a single touch that quivers down my thighs to my toes.
A quiet sigh escapes my lips as I place a finger on each side of my clit and rub as the impending orgasm is already on the edge. So close. Pressing my forehead against the cubicle wall, the water dribbles down my flat stomach as my ponytail becomes soaked.
I haven’t used a tampon for two years, repelled by what happened to me, nor have I let my fingers slide up into my soft canal to pleasure myself. Yet, this attention I’m receiving from beautiful men is awakening my core, once dormant and ignored for some time.
Taking a deep breath, I slip my fingers into my soft, wet canal, and The Four intrudes uninvited, bringing a sense of self-loathing, and my desire is doused. Brushing their ugly mugs aside, I try again by picturing Gabe’s hands all over me and his lips gently touching my breasts, then sucking my nipples. But The Four still linger, killing every shred of an impending orgasm, and the moment is completely lost.
Sighing through the dissatisfaction in my core, I switch off the water and step out to dry myself. There’s a perpetual emptiness that, at times, is incredibly difficult to fill. I’ve tried everything – alcohol, drugs, exercise, healthy food and yet failed to achieve contentment.
After drying my body and slipping on dark blue shorts and a pink T-shirt with an image of a Bonsai tree, I step out and notice Lucy sitting there, scrolling on her phone.
“See you again, Lucy,” I call out to her as I leave, still unable to meet her eye, unable to believe someone as attractive as her would bow down to the insidious clasps of The Lion.