Wren’s Mom looks puzzled with this conversation and stares at Wren for an explanation.
“Maybe I’ll explain some time Mom but not now.”
“We can stay for a little bit and I’ll play it by ear.”
“Good! Now Wren follow me and I’ll show you the crown jewel of my collection.”
Margaret takes them through her short entryway and into her spacious living room. Wren is stopped short in her tracks as she looks around the room. Her Mom’s normal heavy dark wood furniture is nowhere to be seen. Instead all of it is overstuffed white leather. The dark walls are a mint green with shimmering white trim. The first wall she sees is covered by her Mom’s diplomas and degrees. The other walls however are all framed prints and magazine articles of Wren.
“This is my crown jewel! It took some time to track down the photographer who took it and a lot of negotiation to get this print but it was worth it.”
She is standing in front of a gas fireplace holding her arm out above its mantle. There framed in heavy chrome is the same image that got Norman in trouble for drooling over it. Wren had never seen it blown up so large before. She could almost read the inscription on the trophy.
“Isn’t it a little weird when guys come over to have that hanging there?”
“It does shock them but I just explain it is my daughter and they usually stop staring. You see why I can not carry it around with me though.”
Norman in the meantime has been walking around the large living room looking at all the images of Wren.
“I feel like I stepped into some obsessed collectors house. Look here Wren; were any of your bike races televised?”
“Quite a few where, Why?”
“He found my DVD collection. I taped every single race you were in. Last year I converted them all to DVD so I could continue watching them. Like I told you I have found every possible way I could to keep you in my life. Now if all goes well and I behave myself, maybe you can stay.”
They all sit down and Norman gets filled in with everything Wren found out in the afternoon. Only Norman being a lawyer digs deeper and he and Wren learn even more. It’s getting well into the evening by the time they’re caught up to current events.
“It’s getting late, is anyone else getting hungry?”
“Now that you mention it Norman, I am. How about you Mom?”
“Yes I am.”
“I believe there are a couple of restaurants around here and I’ll buy if anyone’s interested.”
They all agree on where to go and call ahead. They take advantage of the warmth of the evening and walk to dinner.
It is late, pushing Saturday, with a light rain just starting by the time they start back to Margret’s condo. The streets are vacant and the breeze passing them is cool and constant. They are all relaxed and happy with their new found friendships talking and laughing as they start to pass a mere gap between buildings.
A man jumps out from the gap brandishing a gun and pointing it straight at Wren.
“All three of you in the alley now!”
They all back into the alley not daring to take their eyes off the man in front of them. He backs them in about thirty feet, so only someone looking for them could have seen them in the darkness. With only the light of a nearby street lamp casting feeble shadows into the gap. All but Wren stand in terror.
“Well Wren, do you know what a surprise it was to see you on my turf tonight?”
“Oliver Anderson, I thought it was you I saw earlier. But where are our manners.”
Wren walks up to a confused looking Oliver and places her right arm around his shoulders. She toys with his left ear as she playfully drags the back of the nails of her left hand down his cheeks. She runs her left hand across his chest as she starts speaking again soft and seductively with all the skill she has learned at the club.
“This is my Mom and this strapping man is my fiancé Norman.
Mom, Norman this is Oliver one of the fifteen men who raped me and intended to kill me. It’s too bad he’ll be dead though before he can finish the job. But I guess he’s too dumb not to realize that the prey never attacks the Predator.”
She winks at Norman as her left hand bends backward and her right arm is drawn away. Norman grabs Margaret and hurls both to the ground. As the shocked look along with his brains leave Oliver forever with only the slightest sound of his skull shattering open from the inside to acknowledge the transaction. Oliver’s brainless corpse lay twitching on the ground, his brains covering the wall behind where he once stood as Wren looks down at her family.
“Come on guys, we need to go.”
They finish their walk back to Margret’s condo in relative silence. Each not really looking at the other, each lost within their own thoughts. They walk solemnly up to the doors of Margret’s building before anyone says anything.
“Would you two like to come up for a little while and dry off before you head home?”
“Sure Mom we’d love to.”
To Norman and Margaret the trip seems interminably slow waiting for and in the elevator. But not to Wren who has already had to deal with these events ten other times. She is already coming back to her normal self even before they have reached the building. They make it to Margret’s and sit down with some brandy at her kitchen table.
“So Wren I think you just explained what all is going on in your life. You are the Predator.”
“Yes Mom I am, and it is nothing I’m too proud of either. I guess you would want to know the whole story wouldn’t you?”
“I will admit that my curiosity has peaked and that I do not think I could possibly sleep anytime soon.”
“First Mom I need to know are you planning to turn me in.”
“Why? The way I see it you acted in self defense back there. You saved Norman and myself from certain death. Besides if I were to turn you in I would lose you forever and I will never be ready for that kind of pain again.”
“Wren, I would like to know something. When did you put on the gun? You didn’t have it on earlier.”
“I felt like we were being followed from about the point that we ran into Oliver all the way to the restaurant. I got a chance in talking to you and Mom to look backwards and saw who it was. If you remember shortly before we left I took my sweater and purse with me to the bathroom. I had to walk very near the front glass and could see him very clearly outside the entrance. So, while I was in the bathroom I fit the gun and put on the sweater. I would have put the gun on even if I hadn’t seen him though. When he jumped out I expected it. And you know the rest.”
“Now then Mom let’s start at the beginning, it was Friday May 6, I had worked late…”
Wren tells her Mom everything from the beginning up until the very minute they met in the shop. Norman, having heard all of it before, goes and sleeps on the living room sofa leaving mother and daughter to talk alone in peace. Margaret learns a lot about Wren in those hours and cries with her over quite a few memories as she recounts them. Margaret gets a good laugh from the fact that the very picture now facing Norman at near life size got him in so much trouble just a few weeks prior. By the time they are done talking it is four in the morning and both are very tired. After saying goodbye Wren wakes Norman to take her home.
It’s noon before Wren wakes up, her head and right arm lying on Norman’s shoulder and chest, his right arm wrapped around her shoulders. She looks up and finds his smiling face staring at her.
“Now who doesn’t sleep? How long have you been awake?”
“Not too long. Just long enough to be admiring you and realize just how lucky I am to have you.”
“I’m glad you still think so after what you had to see last night.”
“I already told you I knew who you were before I asked you to marry me. I just didn’t think I’d be around when you were doing your work. Let alone have to be protected by you.”
“You know I really didn’t even think about what I was doing—I just did it.”
Their conversation is stopped short by someone knocking at the door. Norman goes to the other room and looks out the window while Wren slips her house coat over her pajamas.
“Do you know anyone with a black Park avenue?”
“Not that I know of.”
Norman heads back to their room to slip on some pants as Wren picks up her pistol from the night stand. She heads to the front door as she slips the pistol under her housecoat. The knocking starts again as she reaches for the dead bolt. She cocks the gun then unlocks the bolt and pulls the door open fast with one hand still under her housecoat.
“Mom! Don’t do that.”
“Do what dear?”
Wren lets the gun slip out from under her housecoat as her Mom steps inside carrying a large box.
“I guess you really didn’t do anything, I’m just very jumpy lately.”
“I figured as much since you answered the door armed.”
“Oh!, sorry we didn’t recognize the car so I felt it better to be prepared. What’s with the box?”
“I thought, since you intend to get married in a week you might want to have this. It has been passed down from mother to daughter since your great grandmother's time.”
She opens the box and holds up an old fashioned traditional Irish wedding gown.
“Your great grandmother O’Malley was married in this as was my mother and myself. It is now your turn. The lace is all handmade by your great-great-grandmother O’Malley the dress was made by her and your great grandmother together. I made a call to a lady I know who can take it up and do some mending to it on short notice. She said if we can be at her house today she can have it done by Tuesday if you want it.”
“Of course I want it. Who wouldn’t want it? I’ll just let Norman know what we are up to and we can go.”
“That’s fine dear. But I think you might want to get dressed first.”
Startled Wren spins around to find Norman standing directly behind her.
“Get dressed…good idea, but what are you going to do while I’m gone?”
“Well if you don’t mind I think I’ll take your car and look for a suitable suit for myself.”
“I would think your tux would work.”
“If I have to I will but I feel something a little different would be much more appropriate.”
They all leave and go their separate ways, Norman and Wren both feeling a little trepidation about Margaret. Norman more so knowing Wren took her pistol with her. When Norman returns home later that evening he immediately is hit with the strong scent of fresh fudge.
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