Page 64 of Prey

I delivered only one meal upstairs to the big boss on the phone in his office; when I knocked, he told me to leave it in the hallway. I breathed a sigh of relief because he radiated a scary vibe that I felt as soon as I stepped out of the elevator. Meeting him in person would turn me into a nervous wreck. Of course, it was amplified by the stories that I didn’t know if they were true or not.

Apparently, he went to town on Freddie and the dance crew and threw half of the girls out. Now, they’re down on dancers and will have to hire more. I’d expect to see the advertisement at the Student Job Search while Cheetos lingered, eager to leap at an opportunity to make some cash.

I wonder if Cheetos will ever tell me her real name. Weirdly, she seemed to like me calling her Cheetos, or maybe she had secrets she wanted kept buried, too.

My head was stuffed with circling thoughts as I walked to class. Now and again, I’d glance about, searching for a masked man, but I didn’t see or feel him nearby.

My classroom was on the third floor of the science building, and I decided to hike up the stairs instead of using the elevator. I arrived early to get a seat by the window so I could gaze outside when my eyes got tired from staring at the professor’s visual presentation on microscopic organisms.

I stepped aside for three students to pass as I climbed the first flight of stairs and paused to gaze out the floor-to-ceiling window at the view of the hills in the distance surrounded by a curious-shaped cloud. Stepping aside for more students coming down the stairs, I ran up to the next floor and paused again at the large window to examine those clouds again.

They were odd blue-grey tufts of cotton rapidly twisting and contorting into interesting shapes: a running dog, a snail, a face.

Hisface.

Gunner Kaiser.

My heart hammered in my chest as I glanced behind me, expecting to see someone there, hoping to see my nightmare standing behind me. The face in the reflection looked so much like Gunner—the Gunner I knew three years ago, the son of the family that saved me from a dismal life, the son of the family I destroyed.

Footsteps echoed up the stairs to the floor of my classroom, and I followed behind, wondering if I saw a ghost or a man who looked like Gunner. I ran up the stairs, hoping to catch the Gunner lookalike before he vanished behind a door or disintegrated into my imagination.

Judith told me never to search for the Kaiser family online because I had to put them in my past. Part of me was too scared to search for Gunner on social media because I didn’t want to see the mess I left him. I didn’t want to see him walk through life worse off than before I betrayed them. I didn’t want to see the scars of grief ingrained into his handsome face that I caused.

The hallway on the third floor was empty. Not a single student lingered; the only sound was muffled voices from the classes behind closed doors. I found my classroom and leaned against the hall wall outside, watching like a hawk for my ghost to appear.

The linoleum on the floor squeaked under my sneakers, and the wall smelled of fresh paint. No ghost resembling Gunner Kaiser appeared.

Doors squeaked open. Voices murmured beyond. Footsteps pounding the stairs of incoming students heading to class.

The classroom door swung open, students filed out, and none resembled Gunner. I imagined it. That’s it. It wasn’t a face, but a smear on the glass or glare of light that looked like eyes and a face shaped like Gunner’s.

What did Gunner look like now? From a sixteen-year-old boy to a nineteen/twenty-year-old man. Would I recognize him if he walked up to me and said hi?

“It’s my birthday, Gunner,” I whispered as the students floated past me slowly, creating a cool breeze that brushed against my cheek. “Happy birthday to me.”

Blinking back the hot tears burning my eyes, I removed my glasses to clean the fog off the lenses while composing myself. I entered the classroom and found a table beside the window, where I wanted to be.

I took my books and note paper out of my bag as a looming depression weighed down on me, and having no one to talk to only made it worse. Annika was officially twenty years old today, and anyone who knew her didn’t care. No one at Gotland knew who Annika was.

The professor set the visuals up as the seats slowly filled with students, and I gazed out the window, daydreaming of Ronan in the pool and Rourke in my room. Unfortunately, it didn’t cheerme up. Annika was twenty today, so maybe I’ll buy her a cupcake with pink icing and mourn quietly.

The presentation started, and I left Annika’s 20th birthday behind me. I also began taking notes on a fascinating subject. Slowly, the weight of depression lightened, but fatigue set behind my eyes, and I didn’t feel like going to work at Savile later. I hadn’t been working there long enough to call in sick, and I knew I’d feel better once I got there, but I wanted to spend Annika’s birthday drowning in my sorrows, stuffing my face with cupcakes and Cheetos.

Eventually, the presentation ended, and I left with pages of notes and descended the stairs, glancing out the window again, expecting to see Gunner’s face, only to see my reflection. Plain. Glasses. Boring. Lonely.

I skipped my next class and walked back to Hallen Hall to wallow in self-pity by lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. My desire to stuff my face with Cheetos and cupcakes had vanished under nausea-laced despair. If I had more time, I’d take the bus back to the natural spring and spend hours diving through the cold water and exploring the forest—alone.

That’s the problem. My place of solace and therapy had been desecrated by the most handsome man in the world, who used and discarded me, and it will never feel the same again.

As I approached my room, I knew someone had been in my room. And by someone, I meant Rourke, the masked man. I wasn’t in the mood for his theatrics today, not on Annika’s birthday. Even when he trusted me enough to show me his allegedly scarred face, I couldn’t show him who I was in return. It seemed like a bad deal for him.

When I walked in, I expected Rourke to be lounging on my bed, but the room was empty, apart from a single item resting on my pillow. Not a flower this time, but a heart-shaped box.

It’s strange how the melancholy fell away at seeing a single gift on my pillow. Shaped in a love heart. Rourke came through for Annika on her birthday. Not that he knew that. Not that he will ever know that. But still, Annika will take whatever she can get.

But of course, this was Rourke, the silently sullen, mysterious rogue. So, whatever was inside the heart-shaped box was unlikely to be the average romantic gesture.

I dumped my bag down and cast my eye about the room, and it looked as though he hadn’t gone through my stuff again. That was good. Even though I was warming to his weird ways, it was inappropriate to do that, and it gave me the ick.

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