by Zoe Caldwell
PREDATOR
Zoe Caldwell
Copyright © 2020 Zoe Caldwell
The right of Zoe Caldwell to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Bloodhound Books
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Print ISBN 978-1-913419-93-6
Contents
Love crime, thriller and mystery books?
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Acknowledgements
A note from the publisher
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1
The date rape drug he’d intended to give me has knocked him out so hard he’s barely even flinched despite being dragged to the top of a twelve-storey building, stripped naked and bound to a post.
His head lolls towards his chest. I stand back to admire him. I take in his slumped frame, wilting against the pressure of his rope bindings. He looks Christlike, vulnerable. His skin is grey in the murky moonlight. His body is incredible, hardly surprising since he seems to spend half his life at the gym. His stomach is taut, rippled with abs. He’s so rock solid that the ropes lie flat against his steel-like limbs. His pecs are straight from a swimwear ad, his broad shoulders and ripped arms built like a boxer’s. His biceps are strong, lined with veins that will soon cease to pump blood. He has the kind of arms that could pin you down so tightly you wouldn’t be able to move a muscle. His hands are large – the least attractive part of him: dry, thick, stubby. They’re the type of hands that could grip your wrists and stifle screams. Hands that could have killed me tonight. Hands that would have hurt me. Hands that would have held me in place while he raped me.
I let my eyes wander down to his cock, which would probably have been pounding away inside me around now. I could tell pretty early into our date that he was a predator. Perhaps it takes one to know one, but I could see it in his dark eyes and sly glances, the hungry way he took in my body, the type of questions he asked, his eagerness to buy me drinks. He probably didn’t think I had it in me to notice. Of course he didn’t. He just saw my shiny, sweeping hair, my lashes, my clothes, my smile. He saw what everybody else sees: my mask.
It’s two hours earlier and we’re one drink into our date. He’s wearing a crisp navy shirt and he’s been asking the kind of questions that could pass for ordinary getting-to-know-you chit-chat but actually provide highly useful nuggets of information for rapists. Do I have many friends nearby? Am I close to my family? Do I live alone? Do I get on with my neighbours? He probably thinks he’s coming across as interested in my life, rather than concerned about whether someone will hear a struggle or see him leaving the scene. He probably doesn’t think I suspect a thing, but he doesn’t know me.
I excuse myself to go to the toilet and deliberately leave my glass of Shiraz alone with him: a test. I can feel his eyes on me as I walk to the bathroom. I feel them land on my body, sliding over my hair, my waist, my arse, my legs. I turn to look at him over my shoulder. His gaze darts back up to my eyeline. I give him an indulgent, flirty smile and he winks. He literally winks.
I head through the door leading to the toilets and once I’m on the other side, I shudder. Eughhh. I walk past the ladies’ and slip through the fire escape at the end of the corridor instead. The air is cool as I step out into the alleyway where the bins are kept. I know this bar inside out. It’s five minutes from my flat and I used to come here all the time. There was a time when it was quite trendy, exclusive almost, but it’s had its day. The leather sofas where people used to gather are now fading. Tasteful art collects dust on the walls. Hardly anyone comes here anymore, and it feels neglected these days, shabby.
I hold the fire escape door ajar and look around for something to jam it open with. I scan the ground, but there are no twigs about, no pieces of rubbish I could use. I reach into my handbag and pull out an eyeshadow palette. It’s longish and narrow, it’ll do. I stuff it between the doors and then I creep, ninja-like, to the front of the bar. I peer through a gap in the curtains and watch Julian. That’s my date’s name. Quite a nice name, actually. Wasted on someone like him. Although for a minute, as I watch him sitting there, his back to me, staring into space, I wonder if maybe I’ve got this all wrong. He looks bored. My glass of Shiraz is untouched. Maybe he’s not going to tamper with it after all. Maybe all those questions came naturally to him and he just has a unique interest in my neighbourly relations. But then suddenly, he leans forward. He moves my drink closer to him. Here he goes. I was right. My gut’s always right. Julian reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls something out. He brings his hand up to my glass and swiftly drops a pill into my wine. Done. In less than a second. He waits a moment and then slides my glass back across the table, before reclining into his chair.
I knew it, but even my suspicions weren’t enough to prepare me for this: the feeling. The prickling, cold, sinking, empty, suffocating feeling. The icy vice that constricts my heart, my throat, my lungs. Again. And Again. And Again.
I turn to head back to the fire escape. My shock is morphing into something different now: a lip-curling, snarling sense of disgust. The kind of disgust that makes your skin crawl.
‘Fucking asshole. Fucking prick. Fucking, fucking prick,’ I spit to myself as I pace back down the alleyway.
I pull the fire escape door open, scoop my eyeshadow palette off the ground and slip back into the bar. For a moment, I pause in the corridor and catch my breath. Adrenaline is surging through me. Rage. A normal woman would call the police at this point. But a normal woman would never have been paranoid enough in the first place to pretend to go to the toilet, only to sneak out of the fire escape and spy through a window to watch what her date does when he has five minutes alone with her drink. Nope. A normal woman would have gone to the loo, done a pee and topped up her lipstick. Or she’d have texted a friend about her hot date, feeling giddy with hope and excitement.
Now, let’s think about what would have happened to a normal woman.
A normal woman would have headed back to her date, smiling prettily, before sitting down and drinking her drugged drink. Then a short while later, that normal woman would have started feeling far more drunk than she normally does after just a couple of drinks, but she’d probably blame herself. She’d wonder if maybe she’d drank too much. Or m
aybe she’d blame herself for having not eaten earlier in the day because she didn’t want to look fat in her dress. Or maybe she’d blame herself because that’s just what she does; she blames herself. And then just as she started to feel woozy and a bit confused, her date would take her outside for some fresh air and she’d be grateful to him. She’d think he was caring and responsible, when really, he was just whisking her out of sight. Whisking her out of the bar before she started to look less like she was drunk and more like she’d been drugged. And then the next thing she’d know, she’d be staggering into the back of a cab and her date would be asking her to tell the driver where she lived. And when she’d barely be able to get the words out and her date made a joke to the driver about how drunk she was, she’d feel small and embarrassed. And then she’d find herself slumping into her date’s open arms, flopping against his big manly body, and she’d feel grateful once more that this man was taking care of her and getting her home safe.
And then, once the taxi slowed down and she blinked her eyes open and found they’d pulled up outside her flat, she’d notice in a fleeting moment of clarity that when the driver asked for the fare, her date thrust two crisp ten-pound notes towards him in a weirdly premeditated move as though he’d known this moment was going to happen all along. As though he’d had the cash lined up, the plan set, and she’d feel something. Something. But then she’d be staggering out of the taxi, even sloppier than when she got in, and her legs would be buckling, and she’d cling to her date for support, her makeup now smudged, her eyes half-closed, her hair messy. She’d look a state and he’d ask her which flat is hers, and she’d walk with him to her front door, to the flat where she lives alone. To the place that’s full of books and cute knick-knacks from charity shops and colourful but inexpensive clothes. She’d unlock her front door, her hand sliding drunkenly over the lock and she’d lead him into the place she’s been using as a base to try to get ahead in life and then he’d look around, keen-eyed until he spotted her bedroom and he’d draw her in. And then all of a sudden he’d be in her bedroom and she wouldn’t be able to remember if she’d asked him back or not or quite how this happened and it would all be moving so fast and her thoughts would be unable to keep up – they’d keep sliding away – and he’d be kissing her and she’d be unsure what’s happening as he pulls off her dress and she’d wonder, did she ask for this? Does she want this? Has she been a slut again? But the thoughts would be weak, they’d keep falling away and he’d be confident and he’d be certain and he’d be good-looking and he’d be pulling off her bra and taking off her knickers. He’d be pushing himself inside her.
The next day, he’d be gone by the time she woke up. She’d be blocked, unmatched and she’d feel like such a state. She’d blame herself. She’d hate herself. She’d feel like a mess. She wouldn’t want to leave the house.
That normal woman used to be me.
But I’m not normal anymore.
I’m better now. I’m much better.
I draw in a deep gulp of air and head to the toilets. They smell stale, musty. I flick on the lights and take in my reflection in the mottled mirror. My eyes are glassy with tears. It doesn’t matter how many times a man turns out to be a rapist, an abuser, a piece of shit, it still hurts. It always hurts. I blink the tears back and root around inside my handbag for my lipstick. There are two compartments to my Furla bag and they’re a bit like me. In the front compartment, which is the one I open in public places, I have all the things you’d expect a woman to bring on a date: lipstick, makeup, phone, wallet, hairbrush, even condoms. When things go well, that’s all I need. But the pocket that sits behind that one is a different story. That’s where I keep my pepper spray, my flip knife, my handcuffs, my duct tape, my drugs.
I knew Julian would be bad, but I didn’t expect him to be this predatory. I heard about him a few months ago. An article caught my eye in the local paper. Julian Taylor, a twenty-eight-year-old from Dulwich, south London, had been given a twelve-month suspended sentence for assaulting his girlfriend. She’d been left with a broken nose and needing stitches, traumatised, in a counselling programme, yet he was free to walk. Fucking joke. My blood boiled when I read the article. It contained a mugshot of Julian. A striking-looking guy, undeniably attractive with an endearing, feminine-looking beauty spot under his left eye. I took a picture of the article, making a mental note to inflict my own personal punishment on him at a later date. Then a few weeks later, I was swiping on Tinder, my location set to Dulwich, and I found him. We matched.
I pull off the cap of my lipstick and apply a slick of it to my lips. It’s one I haven’t used for a while and I glance at the label: Dangerous Liaison by Charlotte Tilbury. Ha! How apt. I press my lips together and pout in the mirror, before dropping the lipstick back in my bag.
I reach into the second compartment and twist open the cap of a multivitamin bottle, which actually contains a couple of dozen tabs of Rohypnol I bought online in anticipation of this. It was disturbingly easy to get my hands on them. Selling roofies is meant to be illegal in this country, but they were still only a few clicks away. British law can’t exactly stop sellers in Thailand and China shipping here. An eight-year-old with an iPad could find their online shops. Vendors brag about their products: ‘best date rape drug!’ and ‘highest potency Rohypnol!’ Their sales spiels include shit like, ‘It won’t matter if the police come, there won’t be any trace in the body after five–six hours’ and ‘Guarantees complete amnesia. She won’t remember a thing!’
Is it any wonder I’ve become the way I am? Seriously. How is it even possible to relax for a second in a world where men invent such a thing, where they buy it? How is it possible to not be raging?
I slip a pill into the front pocket of my handbag for easy access. My sinking, snarling sense of disgust turns into something else: excitement. Nothing’s more fun than playing a player at their own game. Drugging the druggers. Abusing abusers. Controlling controllers. Don’t worry, I’m not into raping rapists. Sometimes I murder them, but I’m not sure if Julian warrants the special treatment. I’ll probably just get him into a stupor, rough him up, leave him in a park somewhere, or an alleyway. He’ll wake up tomorrow morning, bloodied and bruised, having been pissed on by drunks, shat on by pigeons, and he’ll realise not all women are as weak and defenceless as he thought. He could do with a taste of his own medicine. Literally.
I pull my bag up onto my shoulder. I’m ready for action. I swagger back out into the bar.
Okay, that’s a lie. I don’t swagger, I walk daintily on my Zanotti heels while touching my hair. But inside I’m swaggering.
Julian is sitting there, gazing into space, his eyes misted over. I wonder what he’s thinking about, if anything.
‘Hey,’ I say as I approach the table.
The focus comes back into his eyes. ‘Hey,’ he replies.
I bat my lashes a little as I sit down, as though I’m still attracted to him.
A silence passes between us.
‘I’m starving,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Skipped dinner. Should have got a bag of crisps or something. Would you mind getting some from the bar? Don’t make me stand anymore in these heels, they’re killing me!’
I gesture towards my six-inch stilettos. Julian looks at them, perplexed, clearly unable to relate to female shoe troubles. I imagine forcing one of the spiked heels into his eye, his aqueous humour making it shine.
I really need a moment alone with his drink.
‘Please,’ I implore. I move my foot closer and stroke my toes against his ankle. That should do it.
Julian’s face softens.
‘Sure,’ he replies with a laugh, before getting up.
‘Thanks, Julian!’ I beam, smiling through my unease, as I pick up my wine and pretend to take a sip. The wine is wet against my upper lip. It sloshes against Dangerous Liaison like a wave.
I watch as Julian heads over towards the bar. Lawrence, the owner of this place, is sitting on a stool, tapping on his
phone, a glass of what looks like whisky in front of him. He looks lazily towards Julian and stumbles as he gets off his stool to serve him.
I place my handbag on the table, using it as a screen for what I’m about to do (a perk of doing this as a woman!). I grab the pill from the front pocket, glance over my shoulder to see Julian leaning against the bar, his back to me, as Lawrence roots around for a bag of crisps. I drop the pill into Julian’s pint. Done. It disintegrates into the golden liquid, lost among the rivulets of tiny bubbles. Then I tip a third of my wine into a wilting aloe vera pot plant on the table to make it look like I’ve been drinking.
Julian comes back with a tray, laden with a bag of salt and vinegar crisps and two shots, messily poured. I try to look relaxed, hoping he isn’t observant enough to notice the tiny red splashes on the aloe vera leaves.
‘I got us some shots,’ he says proudly.
‘Nice!’ I reach for one.
We neck them. Tequila doesn’t really make me wince, but I do a wince-face like a girl. Julian’s eyes water and he winces too, using his pint as a chaser. He downs half of it in one go. Perfect. A lad. He doesn’t seem to notice the strange taste. I guess in comparison to the tequila, his drugged pint probably tastes pretty good.
‘Glad you’re up for shots. My kind of girl!’ Julian says as he thuds his beer back onto the table.
‘They’ll help us get to know each other better,’ I purr, eyeing him sultrily and placing my elbows on the table in a way that pushes my breasts together, making my cleavage full.
