Page 68 of Hunting Gianna

Yep. The same car I never fixed.

Her car is a joke—a powder blue hatchback with shitty shocks and a carburetor that’s been dying a slow, miserable death since 2018. How the hell it even got up here is a mystery. She calls it the Egg. I get under the hood and fix what I damaged. Clean the terminals, replace the spark plugs, slap some duct tape over thehose that keeps hissing antifreeze onto the manifold. I offered for us to take my Jeep, but of course, Gianna being Gianna, huffed and puffed until I gave in.

I’ll get Noah to drive it into town later.

She watches me from a stump, arms folded against the cold. She’s got my old flannel on, the one with the hole at the elbow. It swallows her, makes her look like she’s playing dress-up in the worst way. I want to tell her she looks hot, but she’d throw something at me, so I just keep working. The memory of her hands on my back last night is a fever under my skin.

When the Egg finally turns over, she claps. “You’re a genius, you know that?”

“Least I could do since I was the one who fucked it up. Still gunna rattle though.”

“Good. I like the noise.” She’s already smiling.

She slams the hatch and we load up, heading back down the path. She sings along with the radio, off-key but loud. I don’t tell her to shut up. Her voice makes the hours pass like nothing. The sky goes from black to blue to white, and by the time we hit the city limits, the sun is just a shadow behind the high-rises.

The city is always so dirty. The smell hits first—hot grease, old trash, ozone. I used to love it. Now it feels off. Wrong, somehow. Impure compared to the time we just shared together.

Her apartment is a converted warehouse, three stories, no elevator. The front door opens directly onto the street, which means any asshole with a crowbar and a bad idea could be inside in under five minutes. I make a mental note to fix that.

Inside, it’s better. High ceilings, old brick, pipes that clang at night. Her couch is a lumpy red sectional, the kind that eats you if you sit wrong. There’s a small kitchen with more bottles of liquor than food. Art on the walls—hers, mostly. Bright, angry colors that remind me of bruises.

She drops her bag in the bedroom, then comes out to the kitchen and leans on the counter, watching me unpack my own shit. I only bring have one bag until the guys drop my shit off. A change of clothes, a laptop, my knife, and the demon mask.

“So… what do you think?” she asks, half-mocking, half-hopeful.

“Mmmm, it’ll do.” I say it flat, but I mean it.

She smiles, one side of her mouth higher than the other. “Make yourself at home, then.”

I do. First thing: cover the windows. She keeps the blinds half-open all the time, like she’s inviting the whole world to stare in. I find some old sheets and tack them over the glass. Block out the sunlight, the neighbors, the prying eyes. It’s better this way.

Next, the doors. I dig through her junk drawer and find a handful of mismatched screws, a flathead, and a length of chain. I rig a deadbolt out of an old hasp and some deck screws,reinforce the frame with a piece of two-by-four I scavenge from the dumpster out back. If someone wants in, they’ll have to work for it.

She watches all of this with a kind of amused tolerance. “Jesus, Knox, you expecting a siege?”

I look at her. “Aren’t you?”

She shrugs, like it’s a game. “Not until next week. I’ll put it on my calendar.”

I don’t laugh, but I do touch her hair, just for a second. She leans into it before she even knows what she’s doing. “I’d start a war for you, Gianna. You’re my Helen of Troy.”

The blush that creeps over her cheeks is so beautiful I want to bottle it and carry it with me forever.

The first night in the city, I can’t sleep. My high rise is in the fancy part of town, away from the noise. It’s built like a community, with ponds and walk ways and shit. Like bougie. It’s quiet. But no, not here. This is loud and obnoxious.

She knocks out quick, wrapped in my shirt, her feet digging into my shins under the covers. I stare at the ceiling, counting the pipes. Every few hours, a siren starts up in the distance and echoes down the alley outside our window. I picture the city as a kind of wound, never letting anyone forget that it’s dangerous, that it’ll eat you if you let it.

After spending time in the woods with my little bird, I realize that I fucking hate the city and I’d rather be anywhere but here.

After a week, my hands start to itch for the cabin. There’s nowhere to run here—no dark, no wild, nothing but concrete and the hum of too many lives stacked on top of each other. I take to walking the block at night, circling the room, waiting for something to happen.

She notices. She always does.

“You’re gonna wear a path in the floor,” she says, voice muffled by the pillow.

I shrug. “Keeps the rats away.”

She rolls over, fixing me with those predator eyes. “You don’t have to be on guard all the time, you know. We’re safe here.”

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