Page 33 of The Taskmaster
I hated not knowing.
I needed to know everything, to be in control. Some might call that a flaw, but to me, it was a superpower. I was omniscient. God and the Devil were taking tips from me. I didn’t cope well with failure, and that’s what this felt like.
Abigail liked to talk. She’d talked freely to her colleague earlier about the photo. I had to cover all bases here. So, I went back to Abigail’s desk, taking the opportunity to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. I knelt down and placed a bugging device under her desk, so that I could monitor her at work. I already had access to her apartment, I was tracking her whereabouts, and I could hack into her computers any time I wanted. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to hear her, too. I wanted to know everything.
The door to the office suddenly swung open, and I froze as I stayed hidden underneath her desk. I knew it was Abigail who’d walked in because everything changed, the air around me turned electric, and my body felt alive. My stomach churned as she breezed in and said, “I have just officiated the cutest wedding ever, with dogs.”
I knew whose wedding it was. A soldier of Brinton Manor. I also knew those dogs. I preferred them to the owners, but didn’t everyone? Fuck. I was hiding under her desk like a fucking weirdo. This was not the way I wanted to meet her for the first time. The official first time, that is.
“Dogs?” Jess asked in surprise as I watched Abigail from my position beneath her desk. The churns inside me turned to flutters of excitement as I noticed that she was aware I was here. I could tell by the way her body stiffened as she loitered in the middle of the room, appearing a little nervous as she bit her lip and tried hard not to look my way. Knowing I made her feel like that made me feel a certain way. Uncomfortable maybe? I had no idea. But her nervousness fuelled my confidence. It made me feel powerful again.
“We’re marrying dogs now?” Jess joked.
“No, stupid. I meant they had dogs at the wedding, carrying the rings. Two of them. An adult rottie and a puppy. It was so cute.”
I couldn’t fight the urge anymore, and just as Jess went to speak, I said, “Sounds like the perfect wedding to me,” from my place under her desk, inserting myself into the conversation.
“It was,” a quiet, hesitant voice replied, and I didn’t like that she was speaking to me that way.
Where was the woman who screamed in her apartment, telling whoever was watching her to fuck off?
Where was the woman who fought the attacker in the alleyway?
Who didn’t really need my help to overpower him.
I came out from behind the desk and locked eyes with her, and as I did, I realised she was speaking that way because she was unsure about me. Wary even. I liked making people afraid. Petrified even. But with her, I wasn’t so sure. Whenever I’d seen her sleeping, her peacefulness had a calming effect on me. Now, standing in front of her for the first time, looking in her eyes, I didn’t want fear. I wanted something else.
“Dogs are special,” I replied, as I became aware of a pain in my chest, that began to ache harder the more I stared at her.
What was that?
I hadn’t felt it before.
I rubbed my chest to ease the burn, wondering why I felt uneasy. I didn’t care what people thought of me. I didn’t care how I came across. I walked my own path, and I’d dare anyone to try and cross it. But in this moment, I couldn’t deny, I kind of did fucking care.
“They’re a gift,” I went on. “We don’t deserve dogs. They’re too good for us.” Fuck, I sounded like some cliché Hallmark character from a romance movie. The words spilling from mymouth didn’t reflect the thoughts running through my head. Yes, I loved dogs. Put me in a room with a dog and a man, I’d choose the dog every damn time. Even a rabid one. I trusted dogs more than I’d ever trust another man, but she didn’t need to know that. No one did.
Why was I giving her this insight into myself?
Okay, it was small.
Tiny, in fact.
She probably didn’t even realise it was an insight.
But I did.
“Do you have a dog?” she asked, her cheeks growing red as she clutched the folder she was holding tightly to her chest. But I could still see the way she was panting. The folder couldn’t hide her deep breaths or her eyes that looked at me with a hint of curiosity. And knowing that fleeting exposure, showing my weakness just now hadn’t lessened my effect on her, made me smile.
As I stood up, her eyes scanned my tall, muscular frame, and then they landed on my tattoos, and her eyes grew wider, and dare I say, warmer somehow. A warmth that made me break eye contact, and I hated myself for that, so I walked to my laptop in the corner of the room and began typing as I answered, “No. I don’t have a dog. I travel around too much. But I know people with dogs. Did you know that petting dogs is good for you? It’s good for them too. It releases a feel-good hormone in the person and the dog. Gives you both a little mood boost.”
Again, what the fuck was I saying? I didn’t like being around people, and this was why. Usually, I just killed them, maybe tortured them a little bit for fun. Others, I ignored. They were the wallpaper of life. But this girl was turning me into a weirdo who couldn’t regulate his brain before engaging his vocal cords. If this carried on much longer, I’d have to cut my own throat to put us all out of the misery.
“That’s so cute. I love that,” she replied, giving me the kind of smile I know she reserved for her dad, seeing as that was the only other time I’d seen her light up like this, and I smiled again.
I didn’t know how to interact with people. I wasn’t built to be around folk because I was awkward, socially unaware and downright angry at the world. But I’d made this girl smile more than once by switching my brain off and letting words flow. Maybe that was the key to all this? I needed to let my instincts take over. But for a control freak, that was a big ask.
I felt a shift in the air again and could sense Abigail watching me.
