Things that Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 10: Grendel

“Isn’t it cool? You can see all the way to the river from here.” He commented, pointing toward the shimmering waterway in the distance.

Yes it was cool.

It was cool that I could see freedom and life from my prison.  I felt like some sort of exotic animal locked in a cage so it wouldn’t go extinct.

“So what do you think?” he asked me, walking behind me and looping his arms around my waist, pushing his face into my hair and breathing deeply. I felt numb. Like my whole body had fallen asleep and I couldn’t shake myself enough to wake up.

“Cool.” I mumbled.

I didn’t want to talk to him.

I didn’t want him touching me.

He didn’t seem to realize that. Not after that night. Not after I turned traitor to all my core beliefs to protect my family.

“This will be our first place. Eventually though we can move away from the pack house. Buy a place with a few more bedrooms, a big back yard.” He commented.

He was insinuating he wanted children.

My mind flickered to Kyrie for a moment and blessed him for visiting me while the monster was getting the paperwork to transfer me out of the holding cell. He gave me a stuffed animal toy that was filled with leaves of a plant that prevents pregnancy.

I would not become pregnant.

I would not have monster children.

I would not have his children.

“Is there anything you want me to get for you from your old house?” he asked, his voice sounding curious and a little uncomfortable at the same time.

I thought of the pictures of my father and mother that were in an album under my bed, the teddy bear that I still slept with even though it was so old that the stitching was coming out, the box of letters my father wrote to my mother in college, the scrapbook filled with my baby pictures and my favorite sweater that had belonged to my father before he died and still smelled like him.

“No.” I whispered. “Nothing.”

He frowned but otherwise remained silent, still looking at the view.

He was not touching my things.

He was not going to go through them.

I didn’t want him to see the parts of my life that I held dear and had kept even though I shouldn’t have.

No.

That was mine. And even if I never saw any of it again it was better than him laying eyes on it once.

“Are you hungry baby?” he asked, nuzzling my neck again.

“Tired.” I told him.

I didn’t want to eat. I might actually throw up if I eat. Which wouldn’t do. Something told me that he would be even more obsessive compulsive if I threw up.

“You need to eat Mate.” He whispered into my ear. If him calling me that wasn’t enough to put me off food his kiss to my cheek definitely did it.

“I’m not hungry.” I confessed, wanting out of his grip. He loosed his arms’ hold around my waist but did not let me go.

“Why don’t you take a nap and I’ll make dinner for us?” he asked his black eyes alive with excitement. I nodded but didn’t say anything else. He leaned down and kissed my cheek before letting go of me to go to the kitchen.

“I picked up some clothes for you earlier, there in the drawers on the left in the dresser. If you need anything I’ll just be in the kitchen. I’ll come get you when the food is ready.” He told me, smiling a big grin and then left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

I looked at the bed.

Choice.

Pretend to be asleep on the bed or pretend on the floor? My eyes suddenly locked on an arm chair that sat in the corner next to a small book shelf.

Bingo.

Best of both worlds.

I wouldn’t have to force myself to sleep on that thing that he had slept on and I wouldn’t have to nap on the floor and possibly get yelled at.

I looked through the books on the shelf. I spotted Beowulf.

Perfect.

What better book to pretend to fall asleep reading than the tales of the ancient man’s man warrior? It would make my snoring even more convincing. I sat down and opened the book, lazily beginning to read.

I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit to myself as I read about the brave Beowulf’s campaigns against his monster foes. I found it funny that a real life monster had a book about killing monsters. To me the werewolf in the kitchen was much like Grendel or the Dragon, except I wasn’t Beowulf. At the moment I felt much more like the hysterical Hrothgar in the second story, completely at a loss to know what to do in the situation. The part of me that was so strong I could shatter a sword merely by holding it and therefore had to fist fight in all of my battles had gotten lost somewhere. Where was that person? I felt like I was slipping, like the strong uncompromising person that I thought I was, was slowly being ripped away from me.

I felt frightened.

Terrified.

 And that in and of its self pissed me off. 

The emotional fall out of what I had done was starting to set in and I increasingly understood the reason why Scarlet O’Hara always “worried about that tomorrow.”

I was ashamed.

I had lost a battle.

Conceded something precious and unrefundable in order to survive and let other survive.   

I would never be the same.

Any notion of romantic love had been stricken from my already cynical heart and replaced with a shame and hatred so severe that if I thought about it too much it made it hard to breathe.

The world lied.

There was no knight in shining armor and no special someone who would love you. There was no epic hero  living inside all of us that could even help you save yourself.

There was only Grendel.

And you, scared shitless, trembling in your chainmail when in a massive change of events, the monster says the worst three words that can ever be said.

“I love you.”