Caged (16 page)

His last comment stung. My ability to both feel his pain and sympathize with it all at once was far too much for me. I ran across the room to find stability against the window frame. My head hung low as I tried to breathe slow and sure breaths. I didn’t want to believe what he told me. Any of it. The Sean I knew, or believed I knew, was nothing like the man Eric described. Was it really all a lie?

“What happened then?” I asked.

“Shortly after my abandonment, I met Marcus. He led me to where I am now. He’s my family now,” he said, rising to join me. “So is his pack.”

No wonder he’d been so upset when I commented about the party. I’d insulted the only people that really ever cared about him. My sensitivity skills were mind-blowing.

“And Sean?” I prompted.

His face darkened from across the room, and I would’ve sworn the temperature dropped about ten degrees.

“He got exactly what he wanted,” he said coolly.

We stared at each other for what seemed like forever. Eric understood pain. It was a trait I appreciated immensely in him.

A blaring sound from the apartment downstairs broke our silence. Cell phone. Eric stirred on the other side of the room, recognizing the ring. He quickly walked towards the door.

“It’s Marcus,” he said, running for the stairs. “It’s his ringtone. I have to take this, Ruby. I’ll be right back.”

I watched his form disappear from the room, but a heaviness remained. I stood frozen - a statue, a breathing, empty shell of who I used to be, or thought I was at least.

I heard Eric’s voice echo through the stairwell, but didn’t even try to discern what he was saying. It didn’t matter. So little did. My life was filled with lies, deceit, and treachery, and not by my doing.

Eric suddenly appeared before me, speaking, though I didn’t seem to hear what he was saying at all.

“Did you get that?” he asked, grabbing my shoulders. “I have to go. I’m so sorry to leave you. I wanted to bring you with me, but it’s a pack matter…I can’t,” he said looking pained by his situation.

I tried to smile.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking,” I said. “Go. I’ll be fine. I’ll drive down in the morning. We can figure out what to do then.”

“Marcus will know,” he said, caressing the side of my face tenderly.

“I hope so,” I replied with a wan smile. He kissed me softly, but pulled away before the heat built up between us.

“And what about Sean?” he asked, suddenly looking ferocious. “I can’t leave you here, Ruby. He can’t be trusted.”

“There’s no reason for me to see him, Eric. It’ll be OK,” I said, leaning my body into his. “If he calls I’ll just give him a lame excuse and tell him I’ll see him tomorrow. He won’t think anything of it. I do that all the time.”

I forced a chuckle.

Eric grabbed my arms firmly, but not aggressively, in response.

“He is not to be toyed with, Ruby. Nor is he easy to lie to. If he calls I want you to leave immediately. Just get in your car and drive. Call me. Marcus will find a way around Sean.”

“You need clothes,” I said absentmindedly as I looked down and realized what he still
wasn’t
wearing.

“Only you, Ruby, would care about that at a time like this,” he said smiling, brushing away a loose strand of my hair. I shied away and ran downstairs to my room in search of anything that would fit him. A white v-neck men’s undershirt and charcoal grey sweats from Old Navy were all I had for menswear. Sometimes I liked to wear extremely baggy clothes.

He threw them on quickly and grabbed his phone and keys.

“Remember,” he said, taking my chin in his hands, “you get in your car and drive like a bat out of hell if he tries to see you.”

“And call you immediately,” I said with the faintest hint of mocking. He furrowed his brow. “I know, I know, he’s not to be trifled with. I don’t have a death wish,” I said, hoping to placate his growing anxiety.

“You’d better not,” he said, stealing a kiss before running out the door. He was off to his home, his family. It made me long for mine.

I stood in the middle of the room, unmoving - I barely breathed. My life had just become surreal, impossible, and one enormous lie. I needed to go, to run somewhere, anywhere to beat back the reality that was rapidly closing in around me. The image of him was burned into my retina, flashing over and over again like a warning. He was trapped somewhere between human and decidedly not, and I realized that was my new reality.

I was too.

I wondered if my blackouts served as a kind way of saving my mind from the reality that I was indeed a monster.
I killed those men…that’s how I got away…

A knock on the door snapped me out of my pending meltdown. Every cell in my body froze - only one person would come over unannounced in the middle of the night.
Shit…I didn’t lock the door again.
My lack of eye for detail was sure to get me killed one day. Maybe sooner than I thought.

Another knock echoed through my apartment more loudly and sharply than the last. He knew I was home. There was no escaping him. He would know if I went for the fire escape, and in the process I would lose the only advantage I had; he didn’t know how much I knew. If I were able to put on the performance of a lifetime, it could save my ass. At least for the night.

His pounding vibrated the wall hangings. As if that wasn’t subtle enough, he hollered my name, demanding that I open the door or he’d do unfavorable things to it to remove it from his path. I pulled myself and my story together as quickly as possible.

I opened the door to see a vicious-looking Sean looming right over top of me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice measured and controlled. He had no idea about the shit that had gone down, or if he did, he certainly didn’t let on. I was suddenly terrified of him; he was my assassin. A fever flushed my cheeks in an instant despite my every effort to contain it. Once he knew the truth it would be the end of me. I needed to play the situation up well against he-who-was-not-to-be-trifled-with.

I snapped out of my inner plotting when two large hands encircled my biceps and started to shake me.

“RUBY!” he yelled. “What’s wrong?”

I stood silently, trying to figure out the best plan of action. While I did, his face plunged dangerously near mine as he searched my face for signs of something.

“I…I had a rough night, Sean. I’d really prefer it if you leave. I want to be alone,” I whispered, trying to put on what I thought was my best wounded face.

“Rough night my ass,” he scoffed. “What’s going on with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

My acting needed improvement ASAP. I knew his persistence was only beginning and it irritated the shit out of me.

“Really, Sean. I’m so not in the mood for this song and dance with you right now. Go, and I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow,” I demanded, hoping upon hope that he was buying what I was selling.

He took quick inventory of the room. Shit! I’d forgotten what the scene must have looked like. Shredded clothes lay on the living room floor and furniture was askew. I hadn’t noticed earlier; I was too busy trying not to die.

“Who was here?” he asked calmly.

I looked at the floor while rubbing the toes of my shoes together. I didn’t know what the best move was, but I figured lying wasn’t a good game plan as I would have bet money on him knowing that little detail already. He only asked to simply maintain his charade.

“Eric,” I muttered to the floor.

“Why was
he
here?”

I still couldn’t bring my eyes up to his. “He was worried about me.”

“Why are there ripped clothes on the floor?”

“Something happened,” I whispered, head hung low.

“What did he do to you?” he asked with decidedly more heat in his voice.

I maintained my eye line, trying to find answers in the patterned grain of the hardwood floor.

“TELL ME WHAT HE DID!” he screamed.

I literally jumped, snapping my attention to the hate on his face. The animosity between the two men was more plain to see than ever. I continued to say nothing, hoping that divine inspiration would strike and help me lie my way out of the deteriorating situation, but God clearly had more pressing issues to attend to.

Sean’s face softened slightly, seeing my fear. The killer’s edge diminished, but his body was still coiled with rage.

“If he touched you, I’ll kill him…tear him apart with my bare hands,” he said, trailing off as he broke away from me to angrily investigate my apartment.

“Could you?” I asked under my breath, thinking he was out of earshot.

“
What
did you say?” he asked, crouched down next to the pile of tattered clothes. Assuming that he couldn’t hear me proved to be a bad move on my part. If only I lacked the power of speech.

He stalked towards me as I frantically thought of things that could replace what I’d said. “Please do,” “would you”, and “me too”, all came to mind, but none came out.

“What did you say?” he repeated, moving so near me that I could feel the heat radiating off of him.

Fuck it.

I figured that I couldn’t wiggle my way out of the hole I’d dug, so I threw caution to the wind. If I was going to die, I was going down fighting, not cowering in a corner.

“Could you?” I asked, raising my fury-filled eyes to his. “Tear him apart, I mean?” I was baiting him and I knew it. Eric had warned me that Sean’s temper was not to be trusted, but I was too far past rational thought to care. A fight was just what I wanted. “You’d have to be
pretty
strong to literally ‘tear him apart’,” I mocked.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked with a questioning tilt of his head.

“Wrong with me? Hmm…where do I start? Let’s see. It could be that I just saw a man’s flesh tear open and morph into a wolf, or that the reason I have blackouts isn’t medical at all, but in fact it’s that I have a little condition that makes me a monster when I’m scared, or that someone I trusted, my friend, is actually an assassin sent to kill me!” I yelled. My hysteria hit a crescendo before I paused to take a deep breath, hoping to regain some level of composure - calm people were far more scary. “But maybe it’s just that I broke a nail…who really knows.”

I could feel the anger in my face contorting and warming it while I waited for the shitstorm to hit. During my rant I watched his face slowly change from hurt and concerned to defensive and angry, then eerily calm and collected.

“So I guess your little friend has been busy spilling the beans, so to speak. I’m sorry I missed his little show, but I’ll see him soon enough to discuss his performance.”

“Performance? It wasn’t a play, Sean; I nearly shit my pants!” I snarled, “And you knew. You knew all along!”

“You seem to be blowing this out of proportion,” he said, cool as a cucumber. My temper flared.

“Are you not a killer, or did I blow that out of proportion as well?”

“No, Ruby, that’s true enough,” he said, his lips pressed tightly together.

I went pale at his nonchalance. He was a murderer; Eric was right. My stomach jumped at the thought that everything he’d told me was true.

“Then before we do this, you will clarify some things for me. You owe me that,” I said, puffing my chest up towards his.

A half-smile twitched across his face.

“Before we do what exactly?” he asked, looking down at my aforementioned chest.

“Drop the act, Sean. I’m not going to be played any longer. If you’re going to kill me, respect me enough not insult me first.”

Everything changed in an instant. He looked confused, his posture softened, and he actually took an uncoordinated step backward as if I’d hit him.

Then it was my turn to look confused.

“You are here to kill me, right?” I asked, trailing off quietly.

“You think that’s why I’m here? To kill you? What the fuck has he been telling you?” he asked while truly looking wounded by my comment.

Bullshit.

“You just admitted to being a killer like it was a regular career, Sean! Why wouldn’t I think you were here to kill me? Eric was right about everything else,” I cried.

He said nothing.

“You know what I am, don’t you?” I shouted, unable to hold back the tears that were streaming down my face. “I know what I am, why I have all those blackouts when I’m scared. I also know why you’ve been following me around, trying to get close to me; Eric told me everything.”

I was borderline hysterical, and that border was rapidly disappearing. I flailed my arms while I screamed all my new found information at him. I hit him in the chest, the face, and anywhere else I could connect with until he finally pinned my arms behind my back with one large hand encircling both wrists. I watched his eyes change color as they closed in on mine. They were darkening by the second.

His smile was long gone, replaced by hostility. Looking at him, I realized I’d never really
seen
him before.