Predators

Ben’s part­ner had been back for three days, and he was still wait­ing for him to come home.

‘Home’ was vague­ly defined for him at this point. He had moved in with Jake three months ago and the change felt sti­fling. Change was what Ben need­ed, with­out any ques­tion, but that didn’t make the tran­si­tion any easier. 

Jake lived exact­ly like some­one would assume a man like him lived: he looked like a lum­ber­jack and he com­mit­ted to the bit entire­ly. His house was more like a cab­in, nes­tled in close to the woods, and while there were sev­er­al oth­er lit­tle coun­try homes scat­tered around the road, actu­al ‘civ­i­liza­tion’ and stores were a good forty-five min­utes away. As pic­turesque as it all sound­ed, Ben wasn’t adjust­ing well.

He didn’t know how to phrase it with­out sound­ing snooty or spoiled. He wasn’t opposed to coun­try life, but he felt iso­lat­ed. He was used to just step­ping out­side for a cof­fee to get him­self mov­ing, expe­ri­enc­ing a basic human inter­ac­tion over some­thing as sim­ple as check­ing out a library book, or win­dow shop­ping to occu­py his anx­ious mind. Here, any­thing like that required a very com­mit­ted trek back and forth, which seemed indul­gent when he could brew cof­fee at home or save all his errands for a week­end. So, he cooped him­self up indoors, and inad­ver­tent­ly stuck him­self into a self-ful­fill­ing prophe­cy: he would be less stressed if he went out­side, but going out­side made him stressed, repeat ad nausem. 

It was a fine for some­one like Jake, who lived and breathed the out­doors. He’d been at it since he was young; scal­ing the moun­tain that lord­ed over the town the same way oth­er kids climbed mon­key bars. He showed Ben every­thing he knew with a qui­et enthu­si­asm, nev­er mak­ing him feel fool­ish for how city life made him soft. He laughed (but not unkind­ly) when Ben tried to wear his sneak­ers and took him shop­ping for hik­ing boots instead. He polite­ly cor­rect­ed Ben’s first attempt at for­ag­ing by point­ing out which mush­rooms he could take home to cook and which would leave him on his back. He even spent a good week dili­gent­ly rub­bing aloe into Ben’s aching skin when he stu­pid­ly neglect­ed to reap­ply his sun block.

Rel­a­tive naivety aside, Ben liked the wilder­ness well enough. They’d take lit­tle camp­ing trips or walks togeth­er, but he very obvi­ous­ly slowed Jake down. Despite insis­tence that he didn’t mind, Ben was per­fect­ly aware that he was inter­rupt­ing an estab­lished rou­tine of ris­ing with the sun and hik­ing until a nor­mal per­son would col­lapse from exhaustion. 

So, there was anoth­er cir­cle: he felt guilty ask­ing his part­ner to stop doing what made him hap­py, so he let Jake do his hikes alone, but in his absence Ben felt nag­ging nerves regardless. 

He knew he was putting a lot on Jake. He had no oth­er con­nec­tions here, mov­ing two cities over was equal­ly about run­ning to Jake as it was run­ning from some­one else. He didn’t want to call him­self a cow­ard, but when his ex would keep show­ing up at his apart­ment, try­ing to make amends, and Jake had to dri­ve an hour to inter­vene more than once—

So, Jake made an offer: Ben could move in. There was plen­ty of space. There would be no more unwel­come guests at his apart­ment. They prac­ti­cal­ly spent all their time togeth­er any­way, and it would save on the gas. The coun­try­side was gor­geous and Ben worked from home, any­way. It also put him far out of his ex’s reach.

“Don’t wor­ry,” Jake promised. “I’m going to take care of you.”

On paper, it sound­ed per­fect. It should’ve been — but Ben turned ago­ra­pho­bic and anx­ious and annoying. 

He was per­fect­ly aware of how annoy­ing he was. Jake had to deal with his mis­placed fears and anx­i­eties about the out­doors. He soothed Ben as much as he could with sim­ple facts: Jake had been liv­ing here all of his life, and nev­er had an issue on any of his hikes; he knew how to keep him­self safe. Ben was inclined to believe him, but on a para­noid nose­dive online, he dis­cov­ered that a local woman — Evie Pear­son — who also lived and breathed these woods went miss­ing with­out a trace three months pri­or… and it was all down­hill from there. 

“Acci­dents hap­pen,” Jake admit­ted when Ben brought it up, “even when you know what you’re doing.”

Jake was qui­et in a way that betrayed his own unease with the sub­ject — the dis­ap­pear­ance of a woman he must have known — and so Ben dropped it right away, but the fear took root: that means even you, it yelled in Ben’s head, that means it can hap­pen to you too!

Ben nev­er admit­ted how the woods changed for him after that. He pic­tured the mouths of caves as hun­gry maws, the jagged branch­es as claw­ing fin­gers, and feared falling down the riv­er would be too akin to slid­ing down a greedy gul­let. In absence of any real preda­tor, his mind invent­ed one at every oppor­tu­ni­ty, turn­ing the woods them­selves into some strange monster. 

Ben told his mind to set­tle and it nev­er would. Jake would leave for a hike and the minute he was a lit­tle lat­er than usu­al, Ben would imag­ine all the dif­fer­ent ways he could have tripped or fall­en or been eat­en by some­thing lurk­ing in the trees. He would think about how utter­ly inca­pable he would be of track­ing him down and how he would prob­a­bly just end up lost along­side him. He would spi­ral on like this until Jake walked in the door, bright and sun­ny as usu­al, and Ben pre­tend­ed he hadn’t spent the last half hour imag­in­ing him dying. Because that was ridiculous.

Until the day came that Jake didn’t come back.

Ben rea­soned with him­self for the first hour or two. Then, it hit noon and he tried to call his phone — a use­less endeav­our and he knew it, giv­en the lack of ser­vice in the woods. He still made the effort, which obvi­ous­ly earned him noth­ing. He tried to find an excuse, think­ing him­self para­noid. It was when the sun start­ed to set that real, unbri­dled pan­ic set in.

He called the local police, who were less than insight­ful. Ben doubt­ed his ner­vous stam­mer­ing helped his cause. Jake had a rep­u­ta­tion as an out­doors­man, like he prac­ti­cal­ly sprout­ed out of the woods like some old oak tree, and they fig­ured he just decid­ed to camp overnight. 

“Why would he do that with­out telling me?” Ben coun­tered, which didn’t sway them at all, and the unspo­ken insin­u­a­tion was clear: maybe because he need­ed a break from you.

He knew Jake was adored here. This com­mu­ni­ty was small and every­one knew every­one. So, the intro­duc­tion of Ben: an anx­ious mess with his nose in his com­put­er all the time, read­ing weird books and mak­ing even weird­er art… it didn’t slide well. Jake was the most eli­gi­ble bach­e­lor here, and they looked at Ben like they couldn’t believe they lost such a prime piece of real estate to him. 

The same ‘weird’ art that earned Ben more than his fair share of odd looks was what made Jake intro­duce him­self. While he didn’t look like the sort who would dri­ve into the city to admire an ama­teur art gallery, he was there the first time Ben put some­thing on, strik­ing up a con­ver­sa­tion so shy­ly that it didn’t suit the sheer size of him. 

Ben didn’t think he made a good impres­sion, but some­thing kept Jake com­ing back to the next show, and the next. Ben couldn’t tell if it was him­self or the art that got Jake’s atten­tion, but it hurt more than he expect­ed to turn down the invi­ta­tion to get a cof­fee. At that point, he was still see­ing Shane — and he didn’t think they were over­heard, but the tem­per that came home with him that night proved Ben wrong.

Stu­pid as it made him feel, Ben tried to take things into his own hands. Real­is­ti­cal­ly, he knew social media was a wild goose chase, but he still post­ed Jake’s pic­ture and wrote about how he hadn’t come home from his morn­ing hike. It was ridicu­lous, as if any­one else might’ve bumped elbows with him through the huge land­scape of the for­est, but it made him feel a lit­tle less use­less. Again, due to Jake’s pop­u­lar­i­ty, the mes­sage did cir­cu­late, but no one mirac­u­lous­ly saw him in the mid­dle of the woods that day. It reached fur­ther than he expect­ed — and even Shane lit up his phone, on a new account that hadn’t been blocked.

I’m so sor­ry about Jake, he wrote, please let me know if I can do any­thing. 

You can fuck off, Ben thought but he didn’t have the nerve to text, and sobbed more than he slept. 

Jake showed up in the mid­dle of the night. Ben jerked awake to find him in the door­way, dirty and dis­tant, and Ben threw him­self on his unmov­ing bulk in a blab­bing mess. He couldn’t be coher­ent. It was prob­a­bly a jum­ble of: where were you; I was so wor­ried about you; you’re so stu­pid; what hap­pened; you scared the shit out of me; I’m sor­ry; where were you; where were you?

Jake didn’t answer. No laugh­ter or sun­ny reas­sur­ance. He just swal­lowed Ben up in his arms and col­lapsed on their bed togeth­er, not both­er­ing to remove his boots.

Now, it had been three days, and Jake was still qui­et and with­drawn. Ben tried to give him time. He made his favourite meals, though Jake bare­ly touched them. He tried to give him ample space, but Jake still left in the night to sleep on the couch by him­self instead. He didn’t pry. He tried to bal­ance atten­tive­ness with an appro­pri­ate space to breathe. It didn’t mat­ter. Jake was with­drawn, qui­et, and utter­ly unlike himself.

It was fine, though, Ben told him­self. Jake was exhaust­ed by… what­ev­er hap­pened and now he just need­ed time to recu­per­ate. Maybe it wound­ed his pride to have got­ten lost. Maybe… Ben didn’t know. There wasn’t a scratch on him and he didn’t say a word about it. He bare­ly said a word about any­thing at all. 

So today, when Jake’s name flashed on his phone, Ben jumped. He bare­ly spoke when spo­ken to the last three days, and ini­ti­at­ing a phone call was either progress or a dis­as­ter. Ben had been mak­ing din­ner when he real­ized they were out of milk. Despite Ben’s con­cerns, Jake offered to go to the gro­cery store. Giv­en his odd, sullen dis­po­si­tion, Ben didn’t like the idea of him going alone, but he already had his car keys and Ben didn’t want to fight poten­tial improve­ment by shut­ting him down.

“Hey,” Ben greet­ed, unable to help a shake in his voice: feign­ing casu­al. “What’s up?”

Jake didn’t answer right away. There was noth­ing but the steady, slow sound of his breath­ing before his voice final­ly came through: deep and odd­ly sub­dued. “I can’t remem­ber what milk you like.”

His shoul­ders sank. This was anoth­er strike against Ben in this com­mu­ni­ty: whiny and too good to eat a piece of meat. Jake nev­er fussed about it; he liked all the meals Ben pre­pared, and he made a point to keep him­self involved—including remem­ber what brands to use. Except now he couldn’t and he sound­ed hol­low, if not ashamed. He imag­ined Jake: huge, burly, and beard­ed, stand­ing like a lost child in front of a dis­play of veg­an milk sub­sti­tutes, and he felt miserable.

“It’s the one with the red label,” Ben said, weigh­ing his risks before he added. “Remem­ber?” 

Silence answered him and Ben swal­lowed against ten­sion in his throat. “Some­times it’s out of stock,” he said, if just to break the silence. It moved off the shelves since it was the best one, in Ben’s opin­ion — an opin­ion he stole from Shane, actu­al­ly, but he squashed that thought as quick­ly as it came. 

He kept think­ing about Shane; like the stu­pid text cut him and left a wound, sting­ing too often to be ignored. Shane knew exact­ly what he was doing: pre­tend­ing to be kind and well-inten­tioned, but with his own self­ish motive. He always act­ed like the most thought­ful, kind per­son in the world; that was why every­one loved him and couldn’t imag­ine why Ben left him. Shane sup­port­ed his dis­mal lit­tle art career; he had all the com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions and put him up in gal­leries that he was not qual­i­fied for; he took him to expen­sive places and toured him all around town on his dime. 

Every­one thought Ben was crazy to give that up and go live with Jake. Jake prob­a­bly couldn’t spell hors d’oeuvres, let alone afford the price of them at Shane’s favourite restau­rants. All of his friends were tied up with Shane; and they all expect­ed he would see rea­son and come back eventually.

Ben did admit that it sound­ed eas­i­er to go back, now more than ever, with Jake’s dis­tance and the cabin’s iso­la­tion clos­ing in on him. Then, abrupt­ly, he would remem­ber the nasty, unpre­dictable edge of Shane’s tem­per. Ben was always blamed for set­ting him off. Shane snapped, smashed Ben’s com­put­er in half, and all their friends won­dered what he could’ve done to make nice, charm­ing, fun­ny Shane act like that. 

Focus. Ben cleared his throat. “Did you find it?’ 

“I got it,” Jake stat­ed lev­el­ly, and Ben expect­ed him to dis­con­nect, but he stayed on the line: breath­ing steadi­ly in and out.

“Do you… need any­thing else?” Ben asked cautiously. 

“No,” Jake admit­ted, qui­et and sub­mis­sive, but he still didn’t hang up.

“Okay,” Ben said, wet­ting his lips. “Okay, baby. I’ll see you soon?” 

He offered the endear­ment like a con­so­la­tion and maybe it worked, since Jake final­ly dis­con­nect­ed, and Ben exhaled shak­i­ly. He regret­ted send­ing him out there. Ben, of all peo­ple, with his nerves and his fears, should know how daunt­ing a pub­lic space could be when you’re feel­ing vulnerable. 

When he came home, Ben beamed at the sight of him. Jake hand­ed him the milk out­right, which Ben accept­ed with an easy smile, but he couldn’t help notic­ing the extra bags in his hand. “My hero,” he teased, and Jake didn’t seem to even hear him. Usu­al­ly, his stu­pid lit­tle com­ments made Jake red in his ears, but now…

Ben turned back to the stove, wait­ing as Jake unloaded the rest of the gro­ceries he picked up. Every­thing belonged in the fridge, it seemed, and Ben did his best to seem dis­in­ter­est­ed. Jake fin­ished, retreat­ing from the kitchen, and Ben wait­ed until he was ful­ly out of sight before he pried.

Jake had filled the fridge with meat: huge, bloody slabs, wet and swelling against their plas­tic seals. There was far too much of it, occu­py­ing every spare inch of their tiny fridge, and Ben felt dizzy. 

Ben nev­er asked Jake to change his diet for him. Jake insist­ed that he didn’t mind: he liked the idea of it, for the sake of the ani­mals, but admit­ted he wasn’t enough of a cook to man­age the lifestyle. Ben was more than hap­py to swoop in with his exper­tise, and Jake told him more than once that he couldn’t believe the meals he made. He would offer praise between huge mouth­fuls and when­ev­er Ben asked, he insist­ed he didn’t miss his old habits one bit.

As Ben hov­ered in front of the open fridge, wast­ing elec­tric­i­ty and feel­ing woozy, his phone buzzed in his pock­et. Mechan­i­cal­ly, he looked at the text pre­view, and sighed at Shane’s name.

I heard Jake was found safe. I’m glad. I hope you don’t think I’m lying. Seri­ous­ly, I’m real­ly hap­py he wasn’t hurt.

The prob­lem was, Ben wasn’t sure that was entire­ly true. 

Ben didn’t bring it up. Nei­ther of them ate din­ner: Ben out of nerves and Jake out of the same sullen dis­con­nect that hung over him since he came home. When he thought about it, he wasn’t sure how Jake was func­tion­ing: he picked at his food like a bird and bare­ly took two bites.

“Is it bad?” Ben asked, and when Jake silent­ly shook his head, he pushed. “It’s just… you usu­al­ly like it when I cook for you.”

Jake only shrugged and it made him feel pathet­i­cal­ly small. 

Ben spent the whole night debat­ing if he should ask, or pry. Was he being stu­pid? Did Jake maybe hit his head and all this odd­i­ty was some sort of… con­cus­sion or some­thing? He for­got about the milk; did he for­get about the meat? It didn’t real­ly make sense, but stranger things had hap­pened, right? 

Ben left it alone. Tomor­row, he decid­ed, he would ask a few ques­tions to gauge his frame of mind, and then he would try to con­vince him to get checked out by a doc­tor. That way, Ben could con­vince him to leave imme­di­ate­ly, and not risk him get­ting cold feet overnight. 

Tonight, Ben spooned tight around him in bed, and he felt Jake flinch. The reac­tion churned mis­er­ably in his gut. Rather than recoil, he clung tighter as if to win him over by sheer deter­mi­na­tion. Jake didn’t move, so he tried to take that as a vic­to­ry — but he also didn’t stay for very long. 

He lin­gered a lit­tle, pre­sum­ably wait­ing for Ben to fall asleep. Ben felt too sticky and ashamed to admit that he was still awake, let­ting Jake go with­out a fight. It wasn’t until the door closed that he sat up, scowl­ing into the dark, and he chewed the inside of his lip. 

He couldn’t stay like this. Stay­ing like this with Shane almost killed him. Jake wasn’t like that, but some­thing was wrong, and he had to stop act­ing like a coward.

Throw­ing the cov­ers back, Ben left the bed­room with unchar­ac­ter­is­tic deter­mi­na­tion. He would coax him off the couch, and they would talk. Jake wasn’t like Shane. Jake was a good per­son. They could talk and then every­thing would be fine. 

Jake wasn’t on the couch, but the kitchen light was on.

Ben’s skin felt clam­my, a strange dread itch­ing up the back of his neck, and he nudged the door open with his elbow.

Jake was on his knees in front of the open fridge, hunched over a mess of bones and bloody plas­tic. He held a slab of red, raw steak between his fin­gers, pulling it off the bone with his teeth. He chewed, open mouthed, pant­i­ng as if drown­ing for air, bare­ly fin­ish­ing one bite before scram­bling for anoth­er. He groped des­per­ate­ly through the fridge, send­ing pack­ages tum­bling to the floor around him, as he seized anoth­er and ripped it open. He tore pieces off with his bare hands, shov­ing them past his lips along­side the mouth­ful he had bare­ly giv­en time to chew. As if his body could not keep up with the demand of his appetite, he shov­elled more and more under his teeth, stain­ing his beard wet and red. 

Spit­tle and blood tan­gled togeth­er in a foamy, sick squelch as his jaw worked. His teeth skid­ded off slip­pery ten­don, too blunt to find pur­chase, so he dug in hard­er, snap­ping wet tis­sue and swal­low­ing with a ragged moan that sound­ed like relief. Evo­lu­tion denied him sharp canines and jagged claws, so the work demand­ed strain that made his every motion fran­tic. The thought pushed in on Ben’s mind in odd dis­so­nance: you’re not a preda­tor; you’re not built for this. 

Ben made a noise that he could not define as one sin­gle sound. It wasn’t pow­er­ful enough for a scream. It was a man­gled, shocked, defeat­ed sort of thing; a stran­gled croak of bro­ken dis­be­lief. Jake heard him, whip­ping his head up to meet his gaze: his face a bloody mess and his eyes ringed with tears. 

Ben ran.

As fast as he could move, he ran back into the bed­room and slammed the door. Fum­bling with shak­ing hands, he turned the lock and he real­ized he was moan­ing under his breath — the sound ris­ing into a shout when Jake’s voice came from the oth­er side of the door.

“Ben,” he gasped, “Ben, please…”

“No,” Ben answered mis­er­ably, unsure of what he was say­ing ‘no’ to, exact­ly. He shook his head fee­bly, grab­bing tight on the door­knob, even though Jake hadn’t even both­ered to try to open it.

“Ben. Please, I was try­ing… I didn’t know what else to do.” 

“What does that mean?” Ben demand­ed, his voice chok­ing as his pulse thud­ded in his ears. 

“Ben,” he repeat­ed, and Ben wished he would stop say­ing his name. “I… Lis­ten. I found Evie.”

Ben froze. At first, the name didn’t break through his pan­ic enough to reg­is­ter. Some­where, through his ham­mer­ing heart, the thought con­nect­ed: Evie Pear­son, the woman who went miss­ing in the woods, who Jake knew and mourned—

“She found me,” Jake cor­rect­ed, “and she was… she wasn’t right.”

 Ben almost laughed at the sheer absur­di­ty. How could she be? That had been three months ago – long enough for every­one to give up hope and make peace with it; long enough for them to bury an emp­ty box.

“She’s dead.” 

“She wasn’t,” Jake insist­ed. “She just looked sick and upset, and I didn’t under­stand – I… I don’t know. I want­ed to help her.”

Because that’s who Jake was; Jake was a hero who tried to help dead women, and yet Ben was des­per­ate­ly search­ing the room for some­thing heavy enough to bar­ri­cade the door against him.

“She wouldn’t tell me what hap­pened. I tried—I kept try­ing but she would scream at me if I got too close. I think—Ben, I think some­thing else found her before I did, and I don’t know.”

Jake’s voice broke, fad­ing into a qui­et mantra: I don’t know, I don’t know… car­ried in the low tim­bre of his voice, thin­ning out into a mis­er­able whine unlike Ben had ever heard from his throat before. Ben could pic­ture him on the oth­er side of the door: his fore­head pressed against the wood, his hands paint­ing it red. 

“I want­ed to help, but she kept say­ing… she said she couldn’t go home yet. She couldn’t until she fig­ured out how to make it stop. She said—she said she didn’t think she could stom­ach it.”

Jake trailed off and Ben’s throat felt tight. Jake bare­ly said five words at a time since he came back home and now he was bab­bling like he couldn’t stop.

“I don’t think she want­ed to hurt me; I think she couldn’t help it.”

Stop, Ben entreat­ed mis­er­ably, but the word didn’t make it to his lips. You’re not mak­ing any sense. 

“I think she was… liv­ing off of things in the woods. That’s why she stayed there. So she wouldn’t pass it to any­one else. She said—please, Ben—she said if she ate some­one, then it would stop, but she didn’t have the nerve to do it.”

Ben’s knees gave out. He sunk his weight against the door and he lis­tened use­less­ly as Jake continued.

“I just thought she wasn’t think­ing right. She’d been lost for so long, you know?” Jake ram­bled. “When I touched her, she attacked me. I got away but I think… Ben, what­ev­er got into her, it got into me, and I don’t want to hurt you either.

“I didn’t under­stand what she meant. I came home, and I’m so hun­gry it hurts. It hurts and noth­ing fills it. I don’t know what to do.”

That was the dis­con­nect; that was the flinch when Ben touched him; that was Jake think­ing about tear­ing into his flesh like rip­ping bloody meat from the bone.

“I’m try­ing, Ben,” he plead­ed. “I’m sorry.” 

Ben bare­ly heard him. Some­thing had infect­ed Jake. Some­thing took Evie Pear­son and made her rabid, and she passed it along. Jake want­ed to devour him; he want­ed to rip him apart with his bare hands and eat him raw.

Aban­don­ing the door, Ben stum­bled his way to the night­stand. Grab­bing his phone with shaky hands, he did what every­one expect­ed him to do eventually:

He texted Shane.

It took an hour for him to arrive. Ben crept out of the bed­room win­dow and wait­ed for him on the porch: arms squeezed tight around him­self. Jake didn’t try to fol­low him, and Ben bare­ly heard him mov­ing inside—which was prob­a­bly for the best. He swal­lowed back against his anx­i­ety and rose to his feet.

Shane was smil­ing when he got out of his car. Giv­en the grav­i­ty of the text, Ben fig­ured he’d at least pre­tend to be con­cerned, but appar­ent­ly he couldn’t help look­ing pleased with himself. 

“Took you long enough,” Shane teased. “Just had to make me wait for it, huh?” 

He didn’t have the ener­gy to play along. “Can you come inside?” he asked, sound­ing hol­low and unlike him­self. “I wan­na get my things.” 

Shane nod­ded. Eager to play hero, he went in first, and that suit­ed Ben fine. He fol­lowed behind him, try­ing to ignore the nau­sea swelling up in his gut. When they reached the liv­ing room, he picked up his lap­top, try­ing to ignore the way his hands shook, watch­ing the cor­ners of the room for movement. 

“Remem­ber when this was the oth­er way around?” Shane asked, watch­ing him with an easy grin. “You had your big body­guard watch me while you packed up all your stuff? You made me feel like a mon­ster, you know. Over one lit­tle fight.”

Ben paused, the words cut­ting through his haze like a knife, and he nar­rowed his eyes. “One lit­tle fight?” he parroted. 

“Yes, Ben­jamin,” Shane scoffed, with far too famil­iar mock­ery. “One lit­tle fight. You’re a mess to deal with, you know. It’s not exact­ly easy putting up with your bull­shit every day, and I hit my lim­it. You made the one bad thing I ever did to you seem so unfor­giv­able, but you already have a new com­put­er. Are you going to hold that against me for­ev­er? I think I deserve some lenien­cy after how much work I put into tak­ing care of you.”

Ben said noth­ing. He felt noth­ing. He looked at Shane in his stu­pid, chis­elled face: so self-assured and uncon­cerned, and he felt nothing. 

Ben used to draw a line in his mind: if any­one he ever dat­ed laid hands on him, he would end it. Shane, even at his most furi­ous, did no such thing—which was why Ben made excus­es for the oth­er out­bursts: a thrown phone, a bro­ken wine glass, a kick against the bumper of his car. Of all the encoun­ters that set Shane off, the lap­top had been the most innocu­ous. Shane want­ed to go out, but Ben was work­ing, so he told him to go on ahead with­out him. 

Shane didn’t like that.

One moment the keys were under his fin­gers, and the next they were scat­tered in lit­tle pieces on the floor. Shane explod­ed about a lack of grat­i­tude, about dis­re­spect, and Ben was too shocked to do any­thing but apol­o­gize on sheer, hor­ri­fied instinct. 

Like prey frozen in front of a predator. 

Shane smiled at him now, and Ben noticed for the first time how sharp his teeth looked.

“I guess not,” he said flatly. 

Sat­is­fied, Shane turned away from him again, and Ben took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to smash his lap­top across the side of his head.

Shane stum­bled, swore, clutch­ing at his skull in a fix­ture of shock and fury. “What the fuck?” he snarled, and Ben’s heart­beat raced.

Shock worked in his favour: Shane was too stunned, spit­ting vul­gar­i­ty and accu­sa­tions, and Ben lashed out again. He brought the com­put­er down, over and over, and until a cor­ner of the crack­ing frame con­nect­ed against his tem­ple with just the right amount of pres­sure, and Shane’s body crum­pled down beneath him. Ben stood over him, his chest heav­ing in laboured breaths, and his arms shook. Grip fail­ing, he let the lap­top clat­ter to the floor, and choked on his voice as he called out.

“Jake?” 

An answer came in the form of a hunched fig­ure in the hall­way. Ten­ta­tive­ly, Jake showed him­self, and Ben spoke to him like a skit­tish animal. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said soft­ly, offer­ing a hol­low laugh. “You usu­al­ly like when I make you food, right?” 

Hav­ing been grant­ed per­mis­sion, Jake descend­ed with­out anoth­er word. Jake put his mouth on the weep­ing wound in Shane’s skull and moaned with some­thing like relief—the sound quick­ly pitch­ing low­er, rougher, as he dug in with his hands and his teeth. As he dropped to his knees, set­ting on his meal with a sheer aban­don, Ben fell too: sink­ing to the floor and watch­ing with a dis­be­liev­ing smile. 

Cau­tious­ly, a tremor shak­ing up his arm, Ben reached out and touched the crown of his head. Jake star­tled, his eyes wide and his face stained red, and Ben respond­ed with a soft hush with his exhale. His smile spread wider as he slid his fin­ger­tips along Jake’s cheek, smear­ing blood like crude make­up. He looked ashamed—scared in a way he didn’t recognize—and Ben smoothed his hand back through his sweat-damp hair: soft and reassuring. 

 “Don’t wor­ry,” Ben told him. “I’m going to care take of you.”