Prey Drive by Jen Stevens
Chapter 47
the lamb
my front door startles me, sending my fresh plate of chicken nuggets flying all around the kitchen floor. On instinct, I look out the sliding glass doors for Bash, unsurprised to find nothing but the open grass and cold lake.
He hasn’t been back since I refused to stay in New York with him. Since he made his crazy confessions. It has taken me days to sort out the things he admitted to, and every time the puzzle pieces lock into place, I find myself spiraling a little further.
All the creaks and groans I grew so used to seem to have disappeared, further digging the knife of his admissions and confusing me. Were they all him? Was I ignorantly living in this home while a stranger coexisted down the hall?
For some reason, that feels worse than him being a murderer. It's more personal. Violating.
In all the time Bash was around, I never felt unsafe with him. Not in a way that made me think he would take my life. If I'm being honest, I don't think my brain is fully comprehending that he's capable of such ugly things. I'm still too fragile to obsess over that part yet and connect the dots. It's like there's a block against it, protecting me from a full-blown mental breakdown. Though, I know the time will come where I have to.
We've each remained firmly planted in our stubborn argument, neither one willing to admit we’re wrong or reach out. He appears to be giving me space after his ridiculous ultimatum. It’s odd how much I grew used to having him around, lurking in the shadows. If I didn’t receive emails from him daily for work, I might even miss my stalker.
But he would never knock, especially like that.
Once my heart returns back into my chest, I round the corner of the kitchen just in time for my visitor to begin assaulting the door again.
“I’m coming!” I yell, glancing out the front window to catch a peek at who it might be.
Everything stops when I see Gabe’s face peering back at me through the glass. He smiles at my alarmed reaction, pointing to the door and mouthing for me to let him in.
In all the chaos of Bash, I nearly forgot about Gabe.
There’s a long moment when I hesitate behind the steel door, considering my options. I could refuse to open it. He would probably make a scene, but it’d be worth it to keep him out of my space. Or, I could invite him inside to hear whatever he has to say that he deems worthy of trampling over every single boundary I’ve placed against him.
He doesn’t deserve that courtesy from me, but I know he expects it, nonetheless.
“Come on, Jo Jo. Open up,” the voice of my nightmares shouts from the other side of the door, reminding me that he and my mother shared the same, ridiculous nickname for me. I’m forced to make a decision.
What can he really do to me that he hasn’t already tried? That I haven’t already survived?
Taking one last moment to gather myself, I suck in the biggest breath I can muster before swinging open the door and allowing Gabe to come in and steal it from me.
“How did you find out where I live?” I ask, not even bothering with any sort of polite greeting.
“It’s not hard to look people up these days,” he replies condescendingly, his eyes roaming over my body.
When I don’t make any moves to open the door farther and let him in, he gestures behind me.
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside to see your new place?”
No. I want to say. I don’t want any part of him infecting my safe space after the months it took for me to build it out of the rubble he created of my life.
“I’m busy, Gabe.” Leaning my hip against the door jamb, I block him off from the entrance.
“It’ll only take a minute. I know you don’t have to work today…” His tone is confident and testing. He knows he’s got me caught in his net. Part of the game is catching me in a lie, so he can turn around and use it against me.
I want to ask him how he could possibly know that. Why did he feel the need to look up my address after I made it clear that I didn’t want to speak to him by ignoring his countless threatening calls and text messages? What is it about me that gives him the impression he has any power over my life anymore? And when will his iron grip on me loosen?
“Just let me in,” he urges again, his voice so low, it almost comes out as a growl.
With a relenting sigh, I swing the door open in defeat, stepping out of the way so he can push past me triumphantly, just like he always does.
I follow behind as he walks himself through my sacred space, and I feel like having his eyes brush against all my things is somehow sullying them forever. Like a child who walks through an art gallery and can’t resist running his grimy, sticky hands over all the preserved paintings, Gabe takes his time violating my home. And as the submissive little girl he’s trained me to be, I watch each and every one of his reactions as he absorbs the things that matter most to me, unable to stop the pangs of hurt when his eyes flit over them dismissively, or his lip curls up in disgust. It’s like he knows precisely which things to do in order to get a reaction out of me.
“So, this is where you’ve been hiding out all this time.” His eyes pause at the overripe fig sitting in the middle of my dining table, then continue with their ruthless scan, deeming it insignificant.
“It’s cute,” he offers patronizingly with a sarcastic lilt in his voice.
Gabe leads us straight back to my family room, and I can’t decide if the move was intentional because he somehow already knew the layout of my home before coming here, or if the flow of the house brought him here naturally. Either way, he stops in front of the couch, and I walk past him in an attempt to block him from moving any farther, into my bedroom.
That’s my first mistake.