Page 127 of Cost of Courting

I can smell him, feel him behind every door, every corner. This monster that has haunted me. He’s the shadow I can’t rid my world of, and the happier I get and the more I have, the more conscious I am that he could take it all away.

Why can’t I just be happy?

Why can’t I just move on?

And then, this…bullets, threats in letters, danger on every corner.

I can’t think clearly. I can’t calm down.

I must not go back to feral. If I slip into that place, I might never come back. But in all the years since I recovered, it’s never been so close as it has now. Like it’s just beneath the surface. Pressing outwards. My control is snapping.

We didn’t find any sign of him through any grapevine. No one with a tiger tattoo. No person matching this sick son of a bitch’s MO.

But I know that letter was about me. He knows I’m here. But how?

I pause outside the door, listening to the hum of their conversation. Some of the tension eases just by knowing they are safe and well. I lean against the wall, just listening, until, gradually, the words start to make sense.

“Well, I guess it all started with just a small thing, really. Luna brought home a date.”

“A date?”

“Yeah, a guy she’d been seeing. He was all charm and smiles. He’d help out and wear button up shirts. For a month, he pushed himself into our lives. Luna was happy. I didn’t trust him, but I was too busy with my own grief. So I didn’t pay much attention.”

I lift off the wall, stepping closer to the door, curious.

“I don’t know what changed, but I offered him sandwiches for dinner. He snapped,shouting and yelling at me, calling me a whore and a bitch. Luna got up and intervened, and it was clear she knew how to deal with him like that, but that was when he hit her.”

Selene sighs, and I can hear the pain in her voice from here.

“I chased him off. Or I thought I did. I had the whole neighbourhood backing me. Luna hated me for it, but I wasn’t about to let her end up like our mum. She might not remember, but I do. He went. A week later…”

“He came back?”

“He came back. With his gang, the Cobras. He beat the crap out of several people, including me. Called us all names, waved his big shot aggression cultist gang at us and demanded reparations. Luna tried to go to him, but he said she was, and I could never understand this, ‘a good way to get in and wait for his favourite bitch to come out of hiding’.”

I clench my hands so hard they shake.

Favourite bitch. Favourite bitch? I’ve heard that, so many times, I’ve heard that. That’s me. But, no, we cleared Benson. It’s not him.

Edric and Kingston press in close, listening hard but containing me so I can’t explode. When did they get here? The letter is pulled out of my hands. I hear one of them curse and grab my face, forcing me to stare into Kingston’s eyes.

“He said that since the coward didn’t come back, he was going to make us bleed for it until he did.” Selene laughs. “I wish I’d known who he was waiting for. I would have saved us the trouble and handed his ass over.”

There’s a silence while I absorb that blow.

“What does Benson look like?”

“Uh, he’s just taller than me, bald, tatts on his face, brown eyes, he sneers a lot, and he’s got a strange red and black striped tattoo of what looks like a snake that wraps around his neck.”

I can’t breathe.

Kingston lets out a small sound and yanks me back away from the door. I’m pushed into a wall while Kingston’s face swims in front of me.

“I did that,” I whisper. My voice alone betrays the raw agony crashing through me. “I did that.”

“You did not!” Edric hisses. “Hold it together, Mael. We checked Benson, we looked into him, there is no sign he’s the same person, but Bailey and Selene need us.”

“I called for her. I led him to her. Everything she’s suffered is because of me. This whole community has been tortured because I called for her and then didn’t come back. You heard her, he waited for me, and I didn’t come back.”

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