Page 36 of Beast

I also felt useless. I’d never just sat around. I wanted to clean the house, organize something, be productive. Instead, I went down to the basement, sat on the sofa, and turned on the television.

A scream roused me from my sleep. This time I was absolutely certain it was a scream, not a nightmare. I must’ve crashed watching the movie. Dammit. I woke up shivering, forgetting for a second where I was.

I ran upstairs, worried that maybe there was an intruder, or Grady had been hurt. The main floor was eerily quiet. The hair on my arm stood up, and I made the decision to go against his orders and creep upstairs to the third floor. When I reached his room, the door was shut. I debated knocking, but before I could make a decision, I heard another groan.

What was going on in there? I knew that groan—it was the sound my mother had made when she was in agony, when her migraines were so intense that she was sobbing in pain.

My chest stuttered, so I listened by the door, praying not to get caught. After a few seconds of silence, another moan—deep, guttural, haunting. Definitely not of the sexual variety—it was as if he was being tortured.

Suddenly, I heard muffled footsteps that seemed to be coming closer on the other side of the door. Heart pounding, I quickly hurried back downstairs to my room.

Damn, how could I be so insensitive? Giving him a hard time about not trying therapy when he clearly had been injured. He was still coping with so much physical pain that maybe he couldn’t even begin to deal with his emotional pain.

I vowed to just try to live in the here and now, be more sensitive and less anxious, and not interrogate him. No more rules, from him or from me. I would for once allow myself to be in the moment.

21

Grady

I’d been up all night fighting the sandman. Maybe it was the altitude or maybe it was all this tension with Isa, but whatever it was, I was fucking miserable. My already short-circuited nerve endings prickled my skin, my head pounded, and my stomach churned.

I snuck downstairs and was shocked to notice that Isa’s bedroom door was wide open when the other night it had been shut.

She eventually emerged from her room, her hair wild, her skin flushed. My cock rose to attention.

“Did I oversleep?”

“No, babe. It’s fine. What would you like to do today?”

She yawned and sat on the sofa, her nipple buds pressing against her tank top. “I was thinking we could just get brunch.”

Fuck. I’d been hoping for Chinese takeout, Netflix, and sex. But I wanted to make her happy. “Sounds good. There’s a great restaurant on the water in South Lake Tahoe.”

“Okay. Great. I’m going to take a shower and get ready.”

I showered in my room, dressed, and waited downstairs for her.

“Woman, we’re leaving in five fucking minutes. Get your sexy ass down here.”

Isa ran down the stairs, her hair framing her heart-shaped face. Tight jeans showed off her perky ass and it took every ounce of strength not to throw her over the dining room table and take her right then and there. Claim her as mine forever.

I smacked her on the ass and gave her a kiss. It was a sweet, normal moment, like she was my girlfriend.

I locked up the Tahoe home, a gnawing in my stomach. I hadn’t been out in public unmasked for months, outside of my doctors’ appointments, military check-ins, and that quick run to the store yesterday. She clutched my hand, as if she could sense my discomfort.

We climbed into the truck and made a pit stop to feed our caffeine addictions.

We drove in silence for around forty minutes as Isa took in the scenery and I zoned out to the music.

But something was bothering me. My gut felt she was hiding something, and I really wanted to get to know her better. Time to do some intel. “So tell me about your mom.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why do you want to know?”

“I read online that you found her body. Did they ever catch the guy who killed her?”

“What makes you think it was a guy?” Her voice was sharp and irritated.

“Because men are more likely to kill people.”