Chapter 10

The Wolves

"Gil?" she asked cautiously waiting for a response, "Gil is that you?"

"In manner of speaking..." the voice replied, evenly, "You look good Sara."

The dark silhouette slipped from the comforting shadows it had been seamlessly wrapped in and exposed itself in the pale golden glow that her living room was bathed in, making her jump.

"What the Hell are you doing here?" she hissed, knowing perfectly well, "Get out of my house."

"You know, come to think of it, I'm not so sure that I'm in the mood." He replied plaintively, settling himself casually against the wall and fixing her with his unsettling gaze that seemed to strip away all of her defences leaving her bare and naked before him.

"I don't give a damn what mood you're in, I want you out, now." She told him, forcing her voice to remain steady as she delicately fished her phone from her pocket.

He made no move to stop her and simply stayed perfectly still, pressed against the wall, calmly watching her as he said smoothly, "Not so confident now are you? Without your plan an your tape-recorder and your friends with their guns." His voice lingered on the last word, drawing it out as his fingers danced suggestively across his chest, dragging and holding her gaze there for a moment.

"I don't need them." She snapped, her voice taut, "You're done and you know it. This is a violation of your bail conditions." She told him, trying to inject more confidence and authority into her voice than she actually possessed, "You are going right back where you belong you bastard." She snarled, punching numbers into the key-pad of her phone.

"You may want to wait a moment before you do that..." he told her silkily, eyes flashing.

"And why the Hell would I do that?" she demanded, shakily, her tone betraying her words and her feelings, revealing the discomfort she was concealing as a shiver traced its way up her spine, "So you can have a better shot at killing me?" she spat.

However, while her finger hovered over the call button, she did not press it. Something gnawing at her instinct prevented it.

"If I wanted to kill you Sara, "he said, slithering from his perch and stepping behind her as she stood rooted to the spot. As he placed his mouth close to her ear and she could feel her throat contract as her breath caught in it while he whispered, "I would have slit your throat in the silence and held you in my arms as it wept and watched as the life drained from those beautiful eyes of yours."

She jerked away from him, unable to contain the impulse that drove her to get away from him, ignoring the sickeningly satisfied smile that slowly spread across his face.

"You stay away from me." She choked, bile clinging to the back of her throat.

"Relax." He breathed softly, his unsettling gaze locked in hers again as he hissed, "You're safe. I won't hurt you. I don't want to. I promise."

"Well then what you want?" she asked tremulously, the fight going out of her.

She was afraid. She did not feel 'safe'. He had made her feel the one thing she had sworn she would never feel again, lost, in her own home.

The humourless laugh that issued from his thin, cruel lips made her blood run cold as he murmured, "Oh we'll get to what I want in a minute don't you worry. But first, let's talk about what you want."

"I want you to leave." She said in a strangled whisper, eyes darting uncontrollably to the door.

"No." He snarled, the sudden change in his voice cracking like a whip through the charged atmosphere and causing her already tense muscles to spasm violently out of control.

He changed instantly and alarmingly in response to this, lowering his tone and is eyes and whispering urgently in a soft voice as he wrung his hands like a child, "Oh no, oh no, shh, I didn't mean to frighten you, I'm sorry, you're alright, you're alright I promise.."

The sudden transformation and the pitching unpredictability of his mood terrified her more than outward displays of anger or violence.

She began to slide, gradually, towards the door, edging along the length of the table she was pinned against while his eyes were averted.

"Stop." He shrieked, causing her to freeze as he stepped towards her earnestly and simpered, "I told you not to be scared of me, I said, I said I wouldn't hurt you, there's no reason for you to be scared. You're not, are you?"

"No." She told him, soothingly, "No of course not." She murmured, finger sliding to the call button as she spoke.

"No...No of course not..." he repeated distractedly.

He jerked away from her suddenly, forcing her to draw back her finger as he continued, "And you're so intelligent, so clever, always. So you know...You know that what you want to do is to ask yourself what you have overlooked. To ask yourself what you should have asked yourself already. Why was I so sure? Why did I know? How could I make sure that you wouldn't call for help? What was my plan? Because I have a plan Sara...I'm too clever to get caught..."

"You did get caught." She hissed, daringly, trying to undermine and unsettle him and take control of the situation.

"No." He snarled, the flash of anger burning in his eyes momentarily before dying back down once more as he said, "I wasn't caught. I was trapped. You, you came into my house with your friends and their guns and your tricks. You made me look stupid. You manipulated me. You undermined me. You tried to control me.

His voice rose to a quavering below and as he raised his hand, instinct born of years of similar motions in her childhood, made her cower away from him.

He hastily withdrew her hand, making desperate quietening motions as she pushed herself away from him.

"Oh no, no, no, that's right, you did that because of me, because you cared about me, because you wanted to get closer to me. Your friends ruined it. I understand Sara. I understand."

He hissed, crouching down beside her, eyes gleaming as madness twisted within them.

"You're going to prison Ronald...For a very long time." She breathed, still leaning away from him.

"I think not." He said, his composure suddenly returning in full along with his smooth, glossy voice, "I'll go to court, but I won't go to prison. You should know better than most, the courts are a game of dice. Truth and lies don't matter, none of those things even matter, justice doesn't matter, none of those things even exist in the great stage play they all put on. All that matters is what you can see, what the jury can see. And they won't see a killer. What they'll see is innocence. I'll make sure of that." He hissed cruelly, "They'll see me; assaulted by his main accuser, with a restraining order against her. They'll see you walking in to my home with a gun and a tape-recorder, pushing me to say and do all of those terrible things, to say all of those lies because I was afraid of what your armed friends, lurking in the shadows of my living room, who had already threatened me earlier that day, would do if I didn't go along with what you were making me do. And so you see, I won't be in prison for a very long time...I'll be with you forever..."

"That's a lie." She said, shakily,

"That doesn't matter." He murmured, grinning, "The jury doesn't know that. All they'll know is what I'll fill their heads with. I can be very convincing when I want to be..."

She stared at him, eyes wide and horrified, half-believing his lies herself.

"And so..." he said calmly, "Where were we? Ah yes, you were about to ask yourself that question you've been agonizing over for months now. Those words that should have been the first ones to trip off your tongue..." he paused, eyes glinting maliciously before saying, voice dripping in honey, "If not here, then were is dear Gilbert?"

Her breathe caught as her resistance crumbled with the use of that last word, the only word that could ensure his complete control over her.

She felt her mouth dry and her words seemed to have to force their way past thick, cloying sand that had lodged in her throat as she choked out,

"He, he went to the university...To meet a friend..." she managed to recall, dragging the memory of him mentioning it to her from the depths of her shocked, sluggish mind.

"Are you sure about that Sara?" he hissed poisonously, "Are you absolutely sure?" He asked, eyes narrowed, "Sure enough to make that call, regardless of the consequences?"

"What do you want?" she breathed, hands shaking violently as they clenched around the phone still trapped between her fingers, her tone caught between horror and fury.

"Well I thought that would have been simple." He sneered, a deranged smile twisting his face as he whispered lovingly, "I want you."

"Want me?" she repeated, narrowing her eyes, "Want me what? Dead?"

"Oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no..." he leered, grinning psychotically at her as he said, matter-of-factly, "Just you. Very much alive."

She shuddered despite herself as he said this. He then began stalking around the perimeter of the room, leering at her and forcing her to turn in the centre of it to keep him in view, giving the impression of a rabid wolf circling its prey.

"You see, they took Edie from me, and you tried to take her from me even before that. And know I know why..." his words were teasing, almost playful, but the toying effect was ruined by the fury burning in his eyes, "You wanted this as much as I do. You left me with no option. You see, her death left this...void in me, a gaping hold that could only be filled by one thing..."

He had stopped pacing now and was walking towards her, meticulously picking his way around the obstacles between them, eyeing her hungrily as he breathed,

"You."

"Well you can't have me." she retorted, trembling.

"Oh but I can." He told her, less than a foot from her now and continuing to approach her even as she backed away, her legs hitting the back of a chair.

"I can and I will." He whispered, gleefully, "In fact, I do. I do have you. I have all of your secrets, all of the horrors of your past that you hide so well, that you bury so deep down, that you keep away from all of the people that you trust the most, I have them all..." he breathed.

He continued to move towards her as madness danced in his eyes and an insatiable, unhealthy hunger curled his thin fingers into claws.

"I have all of your deepest fears, I have them so close to me, I know them so well, that they almost belong to me. As you do. I could destroy you with just a few well placed whispers and there would be nothing you could do about it. I could control you so much that there wouldn't be anything you wouldn't do for me. Because I have everything. Everything that has ever meant anything to you, I have. And so I have you." He murmured, his hands snaking out from his body and closing the gap between them as he tenderly placed them on her cheeks, gently stroking the soft skin beneath his thumbs, forcing her face up, forcing her eyes to meet his, burning like chips of ice in his skull as he hissed, slowly and deliberately,

"You. Are. Mine."

"No." She choked, struggling against him, "Get your hands off me."

He held her still, hands dropping to her shoulders as he allowed her to see the slight flash of sliver from the gleaming blade of the kitchen knife he had taken.

She felt petrified tears that she refused to shed for him.

"Shh...Shh..." he murmured, feeling her shoulders shaking beneath his hands from the effort of controlling herself and containing her emotion. "I told you, you don't have to be afraid. This is your life now, the sooner you learn how to live it, the better. What was it that your mother used to say?"He whispered, smirking in satisfaction as he felt her choke at his mention of her mother, another button he would gladly push in time, "'Control what you can..." he murmured, making her skin crawl as he gently ran his fingers from her shoulders to her waist, tracing the delicate curves of her body as he did so, "Accept what you can't.' This is just something you have to accept now. This is the way things have to be. This is the way we made it."

One hand stayed at her waist, resting on her hop while the other made its way back up her body, resting on her cheek, for a moment as he examined her terrified, tear filled eyes,

Her heart pounded in her chest, causing blood to pulse painfully though her eardrums, the breath died in her lings as his hand drew itself up her neck, tangling in her hair that was still damp from the shower.

Her blood turned to ice and her legs to water in response to his sinister whisper,

"You are so beautiful..."

His hand gently began to sweep the loose, wet curls over to one shoulder, allowing the faint strands to linger on her skin before he exposed the pale flesh of her shoulder below to the cold atmosphere of the room and to his hungry eyes as he traced tender lines across it with his fingers and continued in a deadly hiss,

"So beautiful and so strong. Yet so fragile. So easily broken." He bent down until his lips practically brushed the naked skin he had stripped but he was careful not to make the actual physical contact, she still felt the whisper of his hot breath on it as he murmured,

"Don't make me break you Sara..."

He pulled away from her then, without warning, leaving her feeling vulnerable and exposed as she swayed on the spot while he withdrew to the door.

Before he left, he turned back to her and casually tossed out,

"Oh, and, to give you fair warning, 'dear Gilbert' will have to go...One way or the other." A sinister smile flickered in to life on his face as he said this, throwing her a sardonic wave as he added, twisting the knife as little more, "Don't do anything he'll regret now."

He slipped from the room then. The harsh clatter of the knife falling disdainfully from his cold fingers and striking the wooden floor beneath was the final thing that tipped her over the edge.

She felt her legs give way beneath her something they had been threatening to do since he had first placed his hands on her.

She felt bile clinging stubbornly to the back of her throat. It was partially responsible for the convulsions that tore through her stomach. They seemed to infiltrate her nerves too as they began to shake and twitch uncontrollably.

She wrapped her trembling arms around her stomach as she retched again, the cold wood beneath her soothing her burning feverish skin.

She struggled for breath as the tears came. Slowly and silently at first and then thicker and faster, controlling her already limited breathing, constricting her throat and forcing her to draw great, heaving, rattling breaths that strained her lungs and pained her ribs as they wracked her fragile body.

For now, there was no room in her hand to consider what had happened, to process what he had said, to contemplate what it meant. Rationale was replaced by reflex as gut instinct took over, taking control of her body and only allowing her to react in the strongest and most immediate way left to her.

She lay huddled in the half-light, holding herself until something caused her to jerk back to reality. Her head snapped up and she stared with haunted, tortured wild eyes as someone gently eased open her front door.