Page 73 of Hunting Gianna

Epilogue

Gianna

Iusedtolovethe city. I used to think it was alive—churning, electric, a million stories all crammed together just waiting to be uncovered. Now, every time I look out my window, all I see is sadness. Desperation. Being a housewife for the last two months has been great, only… I know Knox isn’t happy.

The blinds are drawn so tight you’d think the sunlight was a stalker. The glass is sealed with duct tape—Knox’s handiwork—to keep out “the bugs,” which is code for neighbors, traffic, and whatever else he feels we need protecting from.

He’s sitting at my old kitchen table, hunched over his laptop, typing so hard the keys sound like they’re groaning in protest. He’s been working for Kairo’s business the past few weeks, some kind of hush-hush security gig that involves a lot of encrypted spreadsheets and not a single second of fresh air. His face glows blue from the screen; everything else is shadow. He hasn’t shaved his face in a week. His beard is growing out, along with the hair that’s now falling in his eyes, almost hiding the color that used to knock me dead.

I watch him from the hallway, arms crossed, weighing whether it’s worth starting another fight about “the cave.” That’s what I call our living room now, since the sun hasn’t touched the floor since we moved in together. My old paintings—flaming reds and screaming blues—look faded in this light, like they’re embarrassed to still be hanging up.

I’m not one to judge a man for losing his edge, but I can’t help cataloging the difference. In the woods, Knox was an animal. All sinew and muscle, eyes flicking to every movement like he was starved for it. He was violence in a shirt that barely fit, and it turned me on more than I care to admit. Here, he’s a ghost of himself—pale, sullen, quick to irritation and slow to everything else. I don’t know how to make him whole again.

I scratch at a bruise blooming on my forearm, a gift from last night. We fucked like we were trying to kill each other, which, in a way, we were. My thighs are still sticky from the after. My neck’s got a half-moon of purpled bite marks that I traced in the mirror this morning, memorizing the pattern in case he ever stops leaving them.

But now, in the daylight, he’s different. Neutered. Tame.

I lean against the doorframe. “You gonna eat something today, or just mainline coffee until you have a heart attack?”

He doesn’t look up. “Not hungry.”

I wander in, kicking aside a mound of takeout containers. Some are from last week, some older. The kitchen smells like sour sauce and the metallic tang of burnt plastic. Sure, I’m a housewife, but even I need a break sometimes, and Knox is a difficult man to please on the best of days. I open the fridge and laugh when I find an entire drawer devoted to Red Bull and nothing else. I pull one, pop the tab, and take a long, gluttonous sip.

Knox pauses in his typing. “That’s my last one.”

“Maybe if you left the apartment, you could get more.” I make it sound like a joke, but the words curdle in the air between us.

He slams the laptop shut and leans back, pinching the bridge of his nose. His fingers are stained from the wood polish he’s been using on the old table, the one I insisted on keeping even though it’s ugly as sin. “We’re not doing this right now, Gianna.”

He always says my name instead of calling me little bird. It makes me sad.

“Fine,” I say, and wander to the living room. It’s worse here: pizza boxes stacked like failed Jenga, the couch slowly dying under the combined weight of our bodies. The hunting knife he used to carry on his hip is propped on the coffee table, next to a copy of Infinite Jest and a half-empty bottle of Four Roses. I pick it up, test the edge with my thumb. Dull. Just for show now.

There are days when I wonder if we made a mistake. Maybe we should have stayed feral, out in the wild, eating each other alive instead of melting down in a city that doesn’t want us. Maybe Knox needs to kill something every now and then to feel right. Maybe I do, too.

I hear him pacing in the kitchen—back and forth, back and forth, like a zoo animal working a rut into the floor. When he thinks I’m not watching, he’ll pace for hours. If I catch him, he’ll freeze, go rigid, and pretend he was just stretching.

I flop onto the couch, legs splayed, and stare up at the ceiling. There’s a new water stain above the light fixture, shaped like a face screaming. I try to count the cracks in the drywall but lose interest after three.

This is how most days go: me killing time, him killing himself by work. The sex is the only thing that feels honest, and even then, sometimes I catch him with his eyes closed, like he’s picturing someone else. Maybe himself, as he used to be.

I rub the bruise on my arm, trace the outline with my fingernail until the skin raises in protest. I want to show it to him, see if ittriggers anything in that dull animal brain. But I know it won’t. He’s too far gone for that.

I could fix this, probably. I could throw open the blinds, drag him out by the hair, force him to face the world until he remembers how to be hungry again. But I’m not his fucking therapist, and anyway, part of me likes him this way. Broken. Malleable. Easier to keep.

I shut my eyes and listen to the pacing. It’s almost soothing, the regularity of it. Like a heartbeat you can’t escape.

If this is what forever looks like, I’ll won’t stand for it it. I’ll be damned if I let it get boring.

Knox is in the shower, which means I have exactly twelve minutes to save his life.

He’s always the same in the morning: up at dawn, a punishing run through the city streets, then a scalding shower long enough to turn his skin the color of boiled shrimp. It’s the only routine he hasn’t managed to ruin yet. I watch the bathroom door, steam crawling out under the crack like a living thing, and I count down the seconds.

His phone sits face-down on the counter, screen already splintered from last week’s tantrum. I pick it up, thumbprint override, easy. He hasn’t changed the passcode since we leftthe woods—one more little sign he’s not really here, not really present. I scroll past the calendar reminders, the texts from Creed and Slade and the rest of his feral support group, and land on the only number that matters.

Kairo Evans. The King of the Crazies.

I don’t hesitate. I hit call.

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