Watching her lashes flutter and the slow sway of her head is making me sleepy too. I’m leaning against the windowsill. Nearly drifting off . . .
Until a shadow moves under the trees behind Mara’s house.
I jerk upright, pressing my eye against the telescope, swiveling the lens to look down instead of across.
I only catch a brief glimpse of the figure disappearing around the side of her house, but I know it’s Shaw. Only he possesses that bulk, that heavy tread.
And only he would be lurking on her street, staring up at her window.
I push aside the telescope and slip my arms into my coat.
I don’t like playing defense.
I’d rather be hunting than waiting.
Shaw exposes himself, coming out alone at night.
I’ve got a knife with me, and my garrote too.
I can end this right now.
I descend the stairs of the Georgian in the dark, leaving all the lights turned off. I slip through the front door, closing it behind me, the soft snick of the lock settling into place silent as a sigh.
At the far end of the street, Shaw’s hulking frame is just turning the corner.
I trail him from a distance, knowing that I’ll have to stalk him with much greater care than usual. Shaw may be impulsive, but he’s not stupid.
Shaw likes to think we’re the same species—lions hunting gazelles.
He’s an animal, but I’m no fucking lion.
I’m me. Myself. The only one like me.
Our only commonality is that we’re both predators. And all predators share certain characteristics. Our senses are heightened. We physically overpower. We kill and consume.
It will be hard to trail him unseen. To sneak up on him. To take him down without suffering serious injury or death. It benefits me nothing to kill Shaw if I bleed out right next to him.
So I follow with the appropriate level of respect.
Shaw walks rapidly, head down, hands in his pockets. He’s dressed in dark sweats, hood up, like he was out for a nighttime jog. Really he’s concealing his most memorable features, including that shock of sun-streaked hair.
He weaves, crossing over several streets, cutting through alleyways, jumping a chain-link fence at one point. I can’t tell if this is his usual mode of travel, the most direct route wherever the fuck he’s going, or if he suspects that I’m following him.
I know he hasn’t actually seen me, but he came to Mara’s house on purpose. He knows damn well I could have been watching.
He could be luring me somewhere right now.
The question is . . . do I want to be lured?
Plenty of women thought they were ensnaring Shaw when they flirted with him, when they enticed him back to their apartments. They ended up beheaded on the beach.
Predator and prey, hunter and hunted . . . it’s not always obvious which one is which.
The puff adder puts out its tongue, mimicking the movement of an insect. A toad that believes it is hunting soon becomes the snake’s dinner.
This intuition solidifies as Shaw leads me into the grittier part of the Mission District—where every window is covered in iron bars and nailed-up plywood, where the graffiti scrawls cover not only the walls but also the doorways and awnings. Where half the buildings seem perpetually under construction, propped up by scaffolding, under the shadow of which squatters congregate and petty drug dealers run their businesses.
I have no fear walking through an area like this. Criminals know who they can rob and who they should avoid at all costs. Only the young and foolish would approach a man with Shaw’s bulk.
I’m something else entirely: a dark figure that repels even a curious glance. Gliding along like death, like famine, like a plague in their midst.
Shaw pauses outside a ramshackle building, one of several in a row. They might have been apartments once—now they’re all condemned, their doors chained and locked.
After glancing to both sides, Shaw takes a key from his pocket, opens the padlock, and slips through the door.
I hesitate on the opposite corner, pondering my options.
He might be waiting inside for me. Hoping to attack me in this isolated place.
If that’s his plan, I’m not averse. I want to end this thing between him and me. I want it over, one way or another.
Or he might truly be unaware that I’m following him. In which case, I’m curious what he keeps inside that building.
It feels like a trap. But also like an opportunity.
Stay or go? I’ve never been so torn.
If I go home, then tomorrow I’ll be right back where I was, staked out by Mara’s house, wracked by the paranoia of when and where Shaw will attack.