Heaving. Sweaty. His shirtless body, clad in a pair of torn jeans, glimmering with blood. His golden brown hair is slicked back with haphazard strokes of red. His clear eyes glow against the dark night and the crimson streaks masking his face.
He is a monster. And I have run right back into his clutches.
The last thing I expect to see when I frantically push the barn door open, is Vesper. I was ready to hunt her. To tear every last fucking tree down if I had to. I was going to go after her. And yet, here she is.
Vesp comes to a sharp halt when I lock eyes with her. She freezes as her gaze travels quickly over me and back to meet my glare. I'm so fucking wound up, it almost hurts. Every muscle in my body is knotted. My heart is on overdrive. My mind is filled with racing thoughts, still wanting to hunt the woman who has tracked me.
She's panting too. She's been running. Her hair is dripping wet. Her white gown is soaked through, so that I can see her tightened nipples pressing against the fabric. Streaks of mud stain her skin and gown. The blood. The deep red stain of loss, it's still there, slightly diluted by her excursion into the water.
The water.
She tried to leave. But she's here now. And I don't fucking understand.
“What have you done?” she asks, her voice wrapped with horror.
I look down at myself, at my blood coating my skin. I feel the burn of the cuts like little lashings all over my side. What she sees is who I am. I shake my head faintly at her question still holding every muscle taut as if she's holding a gun to my head and might shoot at any moment.
“That wasn’t a person?”
I shake my head.
She nods, glancing over to the barn.
“Was it one of the animals?”
I shake my head again.
“Is that blood…yours?”
I nod, just barely. I’m not even sure if she can see it. I raise my arm and glance down, the layer of blood on my arm thick and gleaming like the shell of a candy apple.
She looks back at me, raising her palms just a little bit, smoothly, as if I'm the one with the barrel to her head.
“I'm here,” she utters, her voice quivering and weak. “I'm here, Sam,” she says more assuredly.
But her words don't mean shit. Words have done nothing but betray me my entire life.
“I tried to leave. I did. But I came back. Because I made a choice. I…” she drops her head down, and stifles a sob. “I don't know why. But I didn't hurt the baby. I liked spending that time with you in the cabin. You don't have to force it. I'm here. I'm here. We can keep doing what we were doing. None of it has to stop. But if you want this. If you want a life where you don't have to look over your shoulder, wondering if I'll run, then you can't take me back to the way it was. I just want it to stay the way it's been.”
Every thought is telling me that this is somehow still a lie. That every nice gesture, every smile is just a way to deceive me. Who would want me? A demon, covered in scars, struggling over every other utterance. I crave things that aren't normal. I know this. My mother knew this. It's why she kept me out here. She was protecting me from myself.
But Vesp is here. I didn't run her down. She came to me. Do I reward or punish? Sometimes things aren't so clear. Maybe she gets that.
So I have to do both.
This was a mistake. Coming back here. Thinking I changed him.
It's like he's under a spell, and I'm trying to speak to that tiny piece of him that can still hear me. Trying to coax him back to reality. He's holding a knife. I didn't even see it at first through the mix of light and shadows hitting his body.
No one will ever know what became of me.
They'll never know my story.
And even if they found me some day, would they know I came back? That I had a chance to survive and I ran right back into his path?
I run out of words. Words I'm not even sure are reaching him. I used them early on to pry out his humanity. But the person in front of me is dazed. Savage. Beyond language.
He stares at me for a while. I dart my eyes up at the moon and hope that if I have to go, I'll see my grandmother. Then maybe dying wouldn't be so bad.
He lingers. Stretching the moment out, his chin tucked down as he burns me with his intense eyes, glowing in the night like a mountain lion’s. I wish I knew his secrets before leaving this earth. It doesn't seem fair that I don't get to learn them.
“Please…” I stammer. It's arbitrary. I don't think it'll help me, but I say it anyway.
Then I do something. It's not really a calculation. It's as animal as the man before me, unfazed by the wounds along his arm and chest. It's beyond language. If I can't speak to the part of himself he's imprisoning, I can speak to the one who's here right now.
I descend to my knees and bow my head. This isn't a standoff. This isn't a battle. This is acceptance. Acceptance that needs to go both ways.