Page 115 of Hunter or Hunted

Then my stomach roiled. He flailed and tossed, and I pulled tighter, and I swore, through that thin line of nylon, I could feel his heartbeat. With each yank of his head, each jump of his arms, each kick of his feet—all still tied in place to the wooden chair—my heart pounded so hard against my ribs, I was certain it would break a few of them.

The moment I locked that rope in place, his breathing ceased.

I hated this man. I loathed him with every fiber of my being, yet bile burned up my throat, and it took holding my breath to keep my hands in place. Vomit stung my tongue and the back of my throat, flooding my mouth with the visceral disgust I had felt for months. Anytime I thought of him, thought of what he did, I recognized the feeling that welled in my body as hatred and repulsion.

Even still—hating him the way I did, knowing exactly how awful this man was—this act, this intimate violence, repulsed me as much as allowing him to continue to live would. I hated doing this as much as I hated him, and I only continued because I knew the world would be better once his heart stopped beating.

But he had done this to the woman he’d claimed to love.

He had wrapped a rope around her throat from behind, squeezed with all his might, and felt the life leave her body.

This did not take seconds. The clock behind me must’ve ticked a hundred times, and he was still twitching.

I hated him, and if I didn’t, I would’ve stopped by now.

He’d had the time to stop.

Even one second was too long in an act like this. The knife would’ve been quicker—maybe that’s what I should’ve chosen—but he needed to feel what she had felt.

Yet I knew he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

He ended Delilah’s life. The man she’d loved ended her life.

Evan could never feel what she had in her final moments, because I doubted he ever loved anything. Truly loved anything. He didn’t love her the way she loved him, or the way that I had loved Troy, who had done just the same to me.

He told me he loved me later that night. He told me he was sorry. That he would take it back, that he wished it had never happened.

Then he did it again.

Not a quick slap, not a fist to the face in a moment of fury, but an intimate act of violence.

Men like this—like Evan, like Troy, like David—they didn’t love. No one could do this to someone they loved. I could barely do it to someone I loathed.

But I did.

Eventually, he went still.

That wrenching in my stomach intensified.

I ran out the metal door and failed to hear it clink shut behind me over the drumming of my heart in my ears.

Kneading my fingers into the muddy grass, I heaved in shaking breaths. Anything Sebastian and I had eaten on our road trip steamed in the cool spring wind. Light brightened the sky now, but I could hardly make it out through the black tunnels that overtook my line of sight.

When I finally sat up, sweating and shaking, a familiar face formed before me, framed by the pink and yellow glow of sunrise. That was all I could make out really. Sebastian’s vague outline and the warm glow of the spring sunrise.

He held out a water bottle.

I took it, spun off the lid, chugged, and prayed it wouldn’t come back up.

He lowered himself to the grass beside me. I half expected him to put a hand on my back, or over mine, or to tuck some vomit-drenched hair behind my ear. He didn’t. He just sat beside me.

Eventually, just as the tunnel vision lessened and I could make out the entirety of the sunrise on the horizon, he said, “How do you feel?”

“Like I should’ve brought a ginger ale,” I said.

A sound left him. I couldn’t call it a laugh, not quite a snort either. I breathed for a moment. Only then did I notice the birds chirping in the treetops. Sebastian’s voice almost harmonized with them when he said, “I meant emotionally. How are you feeling?”

Honestly?