Page 53 of Running Feral

I’m waiting for him to do something, but he moves slowly. Like he has all the time in the world. It’s as obnoxious as it is menacing. The cigarette gets thrown on the ground and stomped out, and it’s a small miracle he doesn’t set the fucking floor on fire with how much high-proof liquor is soaked into these floorboards right now.

He pulls his gaiter back up before spinning me around and slamming me gut-first into the bar. All the best memories of sitting here and being with Gunnar are knocking at the edge ofmy mind, but I do my best to shut them out. They’re ruined, of course. But I don’t have to physically watch them taint and warp in my mind’s eye as Eamon paints this place with the same disgusting brush he’s painted the rest of my existence with.

“Look at the camera, pet,” he says, his voice husky in my ear in a sadistic attempt to be seductive.

My stomach drops again as I realize what he’s about to do. I never fight him. Not anymore. I know it only makes things worse. But the realization makes so much fear and shame flare inside me that for a second, I don’t think straight.

“No, no, no, no, no, please, Eamon,” I say. My words are a jumble and the panic in my voice is obvious.

Not here. Not where Gunnar will eventually see. It’s bad enough for him to know exactly what’s happened to me, let alone actually see it.

I already have to fight with the constant voice in my head that tells me this is all my fault. I can’t do that if I’m picturing Gunnar watching me, questioning every moment where I choose submission over more pain, or compliance over death.

Fuck. Please don’t make me do this.

“I always told you what would happen if you disobeyed me, Tobias,” he says as he pushes me harder against the bar. “Stop acting like all of this isn’t your fault. You should have known exactly what to expect.”

He’s right. Well, he’s wrong, but he’s right. It’s not my fault that he’s a fucking psychopath and happens to have set his sadism sights on me. It’s not my fault that I got dealt so many shitty hands I fell from one bad decision to another until I ended up being a chew toy for a lunatic, trapped in a cycle of violence that there’s no escape from.

But I shouldn’t be surprised that this is where we’ve ended up. Allowing myself to hope… That was my fault. That was dumb. All the shame and disappointment that I’m feeling right noware because I let myself have too many hopes and dreams for a future that could never possibly exist.

I shut it down. All of it. Gunnar, the future, my own precious humanity. None of it is real anymore.

Before I was upset that Gunnar would be disappointed to see me not fight enough. Well, he’s about to see me not fight at all. I consciously make myself as limp and pliable as possible. I put a simpering expression on my face, and I focus on doing whatever I can do to end this as quickly and painlessly as possible, especially considering how long it took me to recover from the last time we did this.

Letting myself act like a human was my first mistake. I won’t make that again. Let’s just get this fucking over with.

Chapter Eighteen

When I finally get home, the cold, blue-tinged dawn light is breaking over the horizon and I’m fucking exhausted. Tristan drops me off in the Feral Possum parking lot before heading home to catch some sleep himself, promising to call me in a few hours.

The cops were useless. I was useless. No one’s seen Eamon. Tobias is in the wind, and right now I’m trying to figure out how to sleep in my shitty apartment without the sound of his breathing beside me.

The first thing I notice is the door hanging ajar. It’s too early for anyone else to be here, even staff. I know we left in a rush last night, but not that much of a rush.

My brain immediately spits out the idea that it must be Tobias. It’s totally illogical. The chance of him escaping this quickly is slim. He doesn’t even have a key to that door, so it’s not like he could let himself in. But none of that stops me from barreling across the parking lot, cold gravel flying behind me in a spray,until I burst through the open doorway in the desperate hope that he’ll be standing inside.

Instead, I see… I’m not even sure what I see. It’s too much. It takes too long to filter through all the sensory information I’m receiving right now and put together a complete picture of what the fuck happened to my bar.

The floor is sticky when I shift my weight, and I look down to realize it’s covered in something. Probably booze.

When my eyes flick back up and look around the room a second time, more of it sinks in. The place is trashed. Just wrecked.

Every single piece. I picked each inch of this stupid decor myself. The dorky little coasters, the sandwich board with drink specials written in chalk that everyone says looks too hipster, all of it. And it’s all turned into rubble.

I’m not sure how long I wander around, taking hesitant step after hesitant step through the space that used to be my favorite place in the world. There’s a shattered barstool that I remember Tobias sitting on while he got shit-canned the day before he showed up at my apartment.

I don’t know what to do. I’m always the person who stays calm when shit gets real, but right now, I have no idea what to do. I need to call my insurance company. I need to call the cops, although my body revolts at the thought of seeing them again after I just got finished with them. I need to call Kasia and Sav.

I need to…

I need to…

I need to…

I need Tobias back.

I wish my dad were here.

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