Bounty Hunter

Zinnia

“Reed! You fucking asshole! Get back in here you misbegotten son of a leprose donkey,” I yelled at the top of my voice, furious at Reed for walking out on me.

My conversation with him did not take the turn I had expected. All alone in the alien beige room, I digested the words I threw at him. instant regret washes through me.

I felt shame for comparing Reed to those men. He might be a killer, but he would never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. That doesn’t make him a bad person. To me, he was more like a demon slayer. Eradicating the earth of evil bitter men. He was the judge of the wicked. Not a merciless killer.

We might have started in the most unconventional way, but he has done a lot for me than those who were supposed to protect and care for me. And for that, I owed him my life.

The door creaked open. Due to the pulse monitor and intravenous drip on my hand, I couldn’t turn to see who it was.

“Reed, is that you?” I called out, desperate for his sultry voice to fill the room. But when Alex spoke, I sighed in frustration, then hated myself for having such a reaction towards Alex’s presence.

“No, is just me. I came to check in on you,” Alex appeared before me. Her beautiful face was covered in bruises, her full lips looking dry as though she had been patched for an eternity. Her left arm was suspended in a sling, probably due to the accident.

“You don’t seem too excited to see me,” she remarked sadly, taking a seat next to me.

A weight of disappointment settled in my chest, each regret a heavy word etched into the narrative of my existence, feeling the ink of self-blame at how I’d been treating her.

“No, of course not,” I lied through my teeth, unable to meet her intense gaze. “It’s just, that I had an argument with Reed and I was hoping he’d perhaps come back to apologise,” I added, momentarily staring at her.

“Yeah, that was pretty intense,”

I tense at this, adjusting myself. “You overheard us?” Panic flowed through my body, wondering if Alex had overheard every nasty, grisly detail of our conversation.

“How could I not? You guys were screaming at the top of your lungs,” she replied, unable to meet my gaze.

“Oh..”

The room, once alive with our tense exchange of words, fell into an uncomfortable stillness. Unspoken words lingered in the air like hesitant dancers frozen in mid-step. The silence was thick with unspoken tension. Both our eyes darted, searching for refuge in anything but the awkward void that now occupied the space. Each passing moment felt like an eternity as if time itself had paused to witness the discomfort.

In that pregnant silence, a symphony of unspoken thoughts played-a cacophony of apologies, explanations, and desperate attempts to fill the void. Yet, the silence persisted, stubborn and unyielding, casting a shadow over the room.

“Zinnia,” Alex began, but I stepped in before she could press further.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“Before you say anything, Alex, I need you to know, Reed isn’t the man I painted him to be in our argument,”

“What? A merciless killer who preys on naïve girls like you? This man raped you, Zinnia. How can you sit here and defend him after everything I overheard? For fucks sake, Zinnia, he’s the reason we got into an accident,”

“I mean, he technically didn’t make the car crash, right?” I tried to pathetically defend Reed.

“He might as well have crashed the car. That man is dangerous, Zinnia. What do you even see in him? His looks? Not only is he ugly, he’s rough and brutal. That mark on his face is disgusting as fuck, not to talk about his hideous mismatched eyes. And to top it all, he’s a rascal. A killer. That man should be locked away. The world would be a better place without people like him,”

Hearing Alexandra talk about Reed in that manner made my blood boil. I knew who he was. True, he was rough around the edges and a killer. But deep down, I knew Reed had a good heart. He was a good man.

“He’s not dangerous, Alex. He would never hurt me, or you for that matter. He just has peculiar points of view about certain things and just because they don’t sit right with you, doesn’t make him a bad person,” I defended.

“So, you mean to say he has reasons for killing people and putting us in danger? Wake up, Zinnia. I don’t know what this man has done to you, but I need you to snap out of it. The sex and whatever kink you are into might have been great, but you need to realise this man is bad. Just because he’s good for your hole doesn’t mean he’s good for your soul. He’s slowly dragging you into eternal damnation and you’re too blind to see that,”

“But… you don’t know him like I do, Alex. He’s a good man. He’s controlling and sometimes a little aggressive and overbearing, but I know he cares for me,”

“No, you’re delusional, Zinnia. This man stalked you. He fucking raped you. As if that wasn’t enough, he put you at risk, a prey to those vile men you talked about. How can that be care? I know men like Reed. They’ll sweep you off your feet with their rough exterior and you become so engulfed in it that you fail to see the damage they’re causing. You’re losing yourself to this man and when you least expect it, he’ll sell you to those same men he called evil,”

No. I refused to believe Reed would do something like that. Reed, despite being a killer, had principles he adheres to. He would never hurt me, I could bet my life on that.

“No.. that’s not the Reed I know. He-”

“Are you in love with him?” Alex’s question took me by surprise. I squinted my face.

“What? Why would you think that?”

“The way you talk about him. In your eyes, he’s a Saint, irrespective of all the bad things he has done. So, are you in love with him,”

Did I love Reed? Was I in love with a bounty hunter who goes haywire at the sight of blood? The same man who fucked me with a gun? The man who fucked me while I watched him kill a man who laid his hands on me? The man who forced his dick down my throat next to a dead body? That man?

“Yes. Yes, I am in love with Reed.”

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