I wish I’d paid more attention to psychology when the world was right. Maybe then I’d understand the natures of the beast before me.
“Why did you kill Madam Levy that night?” I ask, trying to learn more about him.
“Because I had the urge to kill.”
“Do you have that urge now?”
His eyes scan to me. “You’re in no danger.”
“Then tell me why I’m here. You could have just let the zombies kill me, but instead, you rescued me. That took effort, which means on some level, you found me worth it.”
“Ever since you’d fled the safe house, I’d been looking for you.”
“Why?”
“You have me curious.”
“In what way?”
“The women I’ve been with were horrified by what I did but relieved that I did it. None of them have ever asked me to takethem with me before. Having you at the safe house with me was different, and it had me thinking things.”
“Thinking what?”
“About what it would be like to have sex without having just tortured somebody.”
“Oh…” My heart starts racing in my chest because what he just said is absolutely bonkers.
And yet, there’s a small part of me that’s enthralled by him. Like he’s some kind of puzzle.
More like the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser, because I’m pretty sure the depth of his soul resides in hell.
Hunter doesn’t just kill his victims. He tortures them. And judging by the boner he gets from the act, he greatly enjoys it.
And no, I’ve never been the type of woman that wants to fix broken men. I know I can’t change him. Very few women are capable of changing a man’s nature, and when they do, half of the time, the man never really changes at all. They just get better at hiding their true selves.
I wonder if Hunter has ever had a girlfriend, and if he has, did he kill her? Something tells me he’s never been interested in forming and nurturing a relationship.
Which makes him infinitely safer than my ex, who was all sugary-sweet promises wrapped in a bow.
Before the apocalypse, I had a Disney outlook on the subject. Men rescued women and made them their queens, putting them on pedestals no other woman could topple.
The Mouse sells lies. Pretty lies that cost girls their happily ever afters.
Hunter is no Prince Charming. He’s not even a Shrek. He’s the Darkling from that fantasy book by that author, Leigh Bardugo. What was the name of it? Shadow and Bone, if I remember correctly.
It was the last book I’d listened to before the dead rose. The narrator had a great voice, and the story was more realistic than anything Disney had to offer.
And now I’m in a situation where I’m being held hostage, just as the girl from the book was.
But my Darkling is far different.
“Now that you have me here, what will you do?”
He hunches forward, placing his forearms on his thighs and tenting his fingers together. “I don’t know.”
Suddenly, I feel like a cat toy. A shiny little object that caught Hunter’s attention. One wrong move and he could pounce. If I don’t move at all, he still might.
I think back to the time we’d spent together so long ago.“I’d like to lick your cunt,”he’d said, then he told me he’d never done it before.
