Page 84 of Wolf.e

By the time I pick it up I’m convinced that it’s probably knives or something demented but when I open it, I see different compartments. I pull each one out. The top one is full of medals and articles pulled from some sort of magazine. It’s about a mission the E-12 Marines carried out to neutralize a warlord, but during the attack the enemy bombed their own village. I look away when I flip the page over. There are photos on it. One is a village with people everywhere. Dead people. Another just like it, a car blown to bits. No wonder he has no belief in God or the Devil. No wonder his faith in people is nonexistent. How can one see this sort of carnage and come out the other side with faith?

I pull the next two compartments out and they’re filled with photos. Old ones. I instantly recognize him in the sea of kids. Big and strong even when he was young. He seems to be about ten, standing with his mother. Her beauty overwhelms me. Long dark hair, pretty features, and a beautiful smile—Gabriel’s smile. There are other photos with the club, I see the man who must be his uncle with the president patch, him and another kid on bikes. Maybe Sean?

There’s another of Gabriel in his teen years, arms folded across his chest. What hits me the most is it’s the first picture I’ve found where his eyes have the same hollow and emotionless look as they do now. I glance back at the first photos, the ones where his eyes have a mischievous light. I run my finger across them and smile. That’s the Gabriel I wish I could’ve seen, before life jaded him.

I pull another compartment out and squint. I don’t know what these are. I pick one up. It’s small, the size of a quarter and it has the Apple logo on it. I flip it over and read the back. AirTag. Can be tracked miles away, or even in a different country, provided it is within Bluetooth range of an Apple device on the Find My network.

Is he actually tracking my car? I pick one up and put it in my pocket, tidying up this mess as best I can.

I make my way down the stairs and out the front door. Pulling the device out, I look at it again and decide he’d probably put it inside. I open my door and begin my search, feeling down the cracks and crevices in between seats, under the dash, but it isn’t until I get on my hands and knees that I see it, stuck to the underside of the driver’s seat.

Motherfucker.

He makes me stay here every minute of every day while he comes and goes as he pleases? I make a promise here and now, no more. From now on, I’ll be making him tell me everything. And this little tracker?

Well, two can play at that game.

Over Three Weeks Later

“Fuck you!” I spit out obscenities I wouldn’t even have been comfortable with two months ago but now the sound of my voice echoes through the space.

All my clothing sticks to me with sweat. We’re on hour two of this little routine we’ve got going. We’ve been at it every day and I’m about to go crazy. Always an hour at the shooting range, then hours in the gym. I’ve learned over the last few weeks that every plane of Gabriel's body is an integral part of the weapon he is. He’s all rippling muscle, hard lines and simmering just below the surface is all his power and rage. It never ceases to both piss me off and turn me the fuck on to watch him hardly break a sweat in training with me.

“I can’t do it… you’re too goddamn heavy,” I bite out. “And we’re both already bleeding.”

He could go on like this for weeks and I’m panting after the first forty-five minutes. At least this last week I’ve made it forty-five before panting, so I guess that’s progress.

“Yes, you can, just get fucking angrier.” Gabriel chuckles as I struggle to get out of his hold. I’m pinned below him; we’ve been working on this particular move for days. My lip is still bleeding from ten minutes ago when I tried to push him off of me from my stomach and he forced me back down. My teeth met the nice plush middle of my bottom lip, which in turn made me claw at his neck deep enough to draw blood.

“You’re never more alive than when you’re bleeding,” Gabriel grunts as he holds me, trading between looking like he’s either going to tighten his hold on me or kiss me, or both.

“If I gave up when I saw my blood in that cave I wouldn’t be here. Every drop I bled meant I was still living.”

I stare up at him as a new piece of his sadistic mind is revealed to me.

Gabriel leans down even closer, that cruel light in his eye glints as he holds me. “And I like the look of my blood on you, hummingbird,” he says, his voice low and even. “It’s when I feel the most alive. Now, secure your position and fucking fight me!”

I do my best to remember the steps while his forearm is currently cutting off my air supply.

“Come on!” he snarls. “Knee to my stomach, foot on my hip.”

I try, but he weighs so much.

“Shit,” I grit out but I somehow manage to find the will, simultaneously lifting and twisting his weight with my foot and my knee, using it against him.

“Attagirl,” he growls as I pull my hand away while pushing up with my leg to escape his hold entirely. I fall onto my back on the mat, my arms in an outstretched U.

I feel like I might die. Every muscle in my body screams at me and I look like I’ve been run over by a truck, while he looks like he just got back from a leisurely ten-minute walk. I let my eyes rake over him, sweat glistening slightly on his chest. As frustrating as he is, that is a really nice half naked body to stare at while I die.

“Stop eye fucking your attacker.” Gabriel smirks as he throws his t-shirt on over his head and makes his way past me, heading for the stairs.

I breathe out a sigh, surprised we’re done for the day, but at the same time? Thank fucking God.

“I want to come with you to the Glen Eden rally this weekend. Layla is going, there are vendors and so many people. I need people. It’s one day,” I plead, taking a seat at his kitchen island. I’m showered and feeling slightly more human after that workout, while he makes us a version of the same meal I’ve eaten every day for the last four weeks. Some form of protein, quinoa or jasmine rice, and veggies. I’m not going to lie and say the effects on my body haven’t been startling. In just under a month I’m more sculpted, I’ve grown physically stronger, I’m lifting much heavier weights and I’m faster. Physically, I’ve never been healthier.

Mentally, I’m going insane.

Gabriel eyes me up, still shirtless, as he stirs chicken with some sort of homemade marinade, in a cast iron pan. As it simmers, my stomach growls but it’s not the food that makes my mouth water. It’s the sight of him.

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