Chapter 7: Zayna

Chapter Seven

Zayna

H e might be the one. I don’t know what Ruger wants, but I don’t think he’s as crazy as he seemed at first. I looked into those man’s demon-blue eyes and saw something. His eyes are such an icy blue, I half expected to see the Titanic wreck after staring so long. He jumped to get those fingers around my neck. I’m surprised he didn’t try earlier, considering his obvious problem with violence.

I can use him.

It might take a while, but I know I’ll get what I want if I’m patient. This man has a blood lust he can barely hide. I don’t think he feels a single lick of remorse for killing these people. If we’re sharing a bed… I guess I’ll find out how he sleeps tonight. I know my ass won’t be sleeping, forced into bed with a man the size of a fucking bear who murdered people?

Yeah. I’ll have both my eyes ready to snap open and fight for my life. Or escape. Depending on which makes the most sense. Ruger takes me on a tour through his cabin. He moves quietly, which I notice right away. It’s weird not to hear the footsteps of a man so big on the floors of a log cabin. He introduces each room in the house with a single word unless I ask him any questions. Zeus follows us around for the entire tour.

But he’s weird. He calls the living room the “parlor”, like an old Southern gentleman or something. His eyes scan the room, making contact with all his mounted heads. He turns on a small, warm orange light, allowing me to see the bear, the enormous bison head over a well-used fireplace, and a weird looking deer thing. Creepy.

Once he points out the parlor, Ruger skips past the kitchen and I follow him down the hallway. I know Eden’s bedroom, which is the far left-hand door at the end of the hallway. Ruger pushes open the middle door – which is on the right. His dog doesn’t follow us down there – curling up on his doggy bed. I try to focus on Ruger’s tour.

“Bathroom.”

Yeah, I already used it. So it’s the room I’m most familiar with in the house. It’s a beautiful bathroom with a Monstera plant and a pothos plant taking over the entire room. He must be the one taking care of that plant, which honestly surprises me because he doesn’t seem like the type to care for anything. Except… I can’t deny the way he was looking at Eden. The way he was holding her.

If I hadn’t seen that, I wouldn’t believe he had any humanity in him at all. If it wasn’t for that and the plants. Not choking me to death obviously benefits Ruger. He made it clear he needs help with the newborn, who honestly might not stay asleep much longer.

Once he shuts the bathroom door, Ruger shows me a small “office” which has a bunch of guns leaned up against the walls, a rancid smelling can of dip spit, a card table with three chairs around it and two mystery powders cut up into lines. Naturally, his affinity for taxidermy spreads to this room too. There’s a ghoulish Jackalope – don’t ask me how I know what that is – and then more deer, a stuffed raccoon holding a pink glass weed bowl, and a wooden duck decoy with the name Ruger violently etched into it.

It’s giving meth binge.

Ruger describes this room with one word.

“Office.”

Office? For who? Satan’s henchman? I’m happy when that sicko shuts the door. The more he shows me around this depraved murder cabin, the more I wonder if I’m going to make it here and how the hell I’m going to channel Ruger’s violent urges away from me. I don’t think escaping this man is an option, but survival always is.

The worst thing about violent men is how unpredictable they can be. Actually, maybe the worst thing about violent men exists only in the ones who hide it. It's trickery I don’t like.

If you’re going to be a violent man, you should at least be honest about it. Hm.

Won’t be any trickery with this man. I’ve touched the blood on his hands. I know he’s fucked up in the head. It’s a dangerous game. But no more dangerous than any of the shit I did in Vegas. At that point, I was so fucked up from what happened in Massachusetts, that I barely even cared. I walked right into another trap. Right into the arms of another violent man.

This time, at least I can say I was given to Ruger. It’s not my choice to be here. He would obviously snap my neck if I tried to up and leave. My only chance might be earning my way out but… not if I don’t play nice. Ruger hesitates at the bedroom door.

He gives me another once over. He does that a lot and I have to pretend that it doesn’t make me nervous – especially about the whole sharing a bed thing.

“We need to get clean.”

“Bedroom?” I ask, pointing to the door, desperate for something to separate us before this man does something unhinged like climb in the shower with me.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s the bedroom. But I don’t like dirt in my room.”

His mean look gives me the creeps when he says dirt and for a paranoid second, I think he’s referring to me. Ruger exhales slowly, his gaze spreading terror through me for the first time since we walked into this house together. It’s just something in the way he said “dirt” that rubbed me the wrong way.

“I’ll be more than happy to sleep in a dog bed in the living room.”

Zeus runs over to the bed once he hears the word.

It’s the type of comment that could make one man laugh and another one smack the shit out of me (or worse). It’s the unpredictability of violence. He laughs.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If you have a problem with dirt in your bedroom.”

Ruger looks at me bewildered. “We’re fucking filthy and you smell like my ass after a day of hauling bales of hay.”

Okay, damn. He didn’t have to go in like that. There’s still something fishy about him. I don’t question a racist vibe when I get it.

“I’m showering alone.”

“Like fuck you are.”

He says it with a startlingly casual tone. Like something I would expect out of someone who knew me a hell of a lot better than this grunting neanderthal who murdered his wife. That’s the only reason she’s his ex-wife. Because he killed her. I don’t want him acting casual with me about anything. Especially not that.

“You can’t shower with me,” I tell him, failing to hold back the fear that I obviously feel now that he threatens to get naked with me in a confined space. I haven’t done a terrible job so far, and he doesn’t scare me most of the time, but just then, he does. And he knows it.

Ruger likes it too.

“Why not?” he asks. No need to hide his amusement. He’ll show me anything he thinks will scare the crap out of me. He’s obviously fucked in the head.

“Because I need to fart.”

I’m trying to gross this man out, but Ruger just… laughs again.

“As far as I know,” he says once his little chuckle session is over. “Nothing I’ve done can stop your ass from farting if you want to. I’m not letting you shower alone.”

“You just said I was filthy.”

“I didn’t say it bothered me.” He seems to notice himself approaching the edge of something. “I won’t climb in with you. I’ll just watch.”

I don’t believe him.

“There’s nothing for you to see. I’m not all that.”

Ruger laughs.

“What?”

“I still want to see.”

Now he looks shy.

“I told you. I’m not much to look at.”

His face gets all serious again and there’s a flicker of fear running through me.

“I’ve never seen a woman like you before without clothes on.”

“What? A short woman with no ass?”

No laughter. Just curious blue eyes. I feel like I want to disappear. The sense of something sinister on the horizon grows. It feels like something large pushing against the walls of my chest. I don’t know why there’s something off about this man wanting to see me naked.

“A black woman.”

Oh. There it is.