Page 31 of Hunter or Hunted

So why had I pretended I didn’t understand her perspective?

She got one part wrong though. I’d always known being half decent was the anomaly. It was the very reason she thought I was an antisocial weirdo with no friends. Because I didn’t like men anymore than she did.

“I never compared Sarah and Delilah because the situation was a perfect match,” Gwen said, still pacing. “I know you loved Sarah more than I could have loved Delilah in the time we knew each other. But my rage isn’t only for Delilah, Sebastian.” She finally glanced my way, and her eyes weren’t wide with rage as I had expected. She narrowed them, deep in focus. “My rage is for Sarah. For Simone, and Eve, and Rhiannon, and Lori, and Delilah, and every other woman. Alive today, dead already, or dead a hundred years. Dead a thousand. There is a war against women, and there has been since the dawn of time.

“And this”—she spread her arms wide—“is how we protect each other. We band together. We form communities. We feel what the others feel. We share in the anger and the hate and we lock arms and together, our screams are a clap of thunder.”

I didn’t feel it, not in the way she did. I couldn’t. I didn’t have that. The locked arms, the communal scream. Not as intimately, at least, but women had always surrounded and rallied behind me.

They watched Lizzie when I worked late. They babysat while I shopped for her Christmas and birthday presents. They helped me, and they loved me, but always at arm’s length. Aside from Rhiannon, and now Gwen, those women who helped me, who cared for me, never got too close, for all the reasons Gwen had just mentioned.

Because I was a man. Getting too close to me, to any man, meant risking their life.

I envied those locked arms, that communal scream.

But I understood it.

“What is that like?” My voice stayed quiet, allowing space for that thunderous clap. “Living with that every day. Feeling your pain, and Simone’s, and Eve’s, and Rhiannon’s, and Lori’s, and Delilah’s. Sarah’s.” My throat constricted at her name. “What does it feel like?”

“A storm. A violent storm in the center of my chest.”

She clapped a hand over her breast, pointer finger and thumb digging into her collarbone. The pink skin turned white beneath her touch. Her steps grew heavier, still pacing back and forth between the fireplace, the fridge, the sink, and the stove.

“Everything burning and turning, every force of nature fighting at once. A forest fire, a tsunami, a tornado, and an earthquake, all inside of me. All of mother nature’s power, banding together, ready to burst.” Cheeks flushed, she spoke through gritted teeth. “Like I’m going to explode if I don’t do something. I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

The glass bottle, still rocking between her fingertips, slammed into the handle of the cabinet door. It burst on impact. Glass shattered, raining in a circle.

And she screamed.

11

SEBASTIAN

Gwen gripped the counter and lifted her foot. Posed like a flamingo, a stream of crimson leaked from her heel. Unsteady, mumbling to herself, she pinched the piece of glass and tossed it to the ground.

I started to say, “Are you⁠—”

Just as she lost her balance.

She dropped her foot back to the ground.

“Son of a goddamn mother f⁠—”

“Okay, be still.” I grabbed the chair from the dinette, mindful of my steps. Only socks covered my feet. Setting the chair down beside her, I gestured for her to sit. “Let me see.”

Face scrunched up in some combination of anger, annoyance, and embarrassment, struggling to stabilize herself with a shard of glass in her foot, she plopped into the chair.

Aside from some muttered curses, she said nothing.

I squatted in front of her. The first cut, the one that made her scream, came from a prick the size of a pinhead. It glinted in the light that came in from the windows, informing me there was still a piece of glass inside of her skin.

The one that made her cuss? A large shard, roughly the size of a quarter, still protruded from the arch of her foot. I gripped it between my thumb and forefinger and pulled.

Gwen tensed, grunting. “Little warning would’ve been nice.”

“What did you think I was down here for?” Blood oozed from the wound. I grabbed the dish towel that hung off the oven handle and pressed it to her foot. “Hold this here for a second.”

She did. “If you grab me my slippers, I can⁠—”