Kayla
Vero is all the way across town, on the island, sleeping off his episode. It has left me a little rattled and feeling fucking helpless—I hate those feelings. I sent him a message when I got to work because I needed to know he was okay and wanted to let him know I was thinking about him.
The bar fills up around seven, and I fall into the grind of the night, which is what I needed. I don’t have to think when it’s busy. I just pour and smile.
You heal a part of my soul.
I meant it. He heals a part of me every time he is close, and I don’t want to stay away.
Bianca sends me a look from the other end of the bar, and I shake my head.
I’m fine,I mouth, so she stops worrying.
Bianca rolls her eyes and goes back to serving customers. Vero messages me somewhere around eight,and the knot in my chest loosens when his name comes up on my screen.
He is okay.
I take a picture, sending it quickly when Vero asks, saying he needs to see my face. I know more about him now after my talk with Brawley; he helped me understand him a little better.
I place my phone face down behind the bar and get back to work, and don’t look at it again for twenty minutes. By the time I do, the crowd has thinned out a little, and Rogue is doing her rounds of the floor. I unlock my screen just to check he hasn’t sent anything new.
A silence settles over the bar, causing me to look up from the glass I’m pouring. I startle at seeing Vero standing on the bar top, wearing his orange jumpsuit, his Hannibal mask pushed up onto his head, and he doesn’t look like himself. My heart drops straight through the floor.
“Vero.” I set the glass down. “Get down.”
He doesn’t look at me, too fixated on glaring at someone at the far end of the bar. I already know from the way his whole body is angled that something is happening in his head right now; he already has a target.
“In a minute,” he says distractedly.
“Now.” I hold my hand out. “Come on. Get down, and we can talk.”
He looks at my hand and then past it. I can see that Bianca has already signaled Bruce, and I shake my headat her. Bruce won’t help this situation; he will only make it so much worse. I need her to trust me.
I know what this is. Brawley explained it last night while we were sitting in the hallway outside Vero’s room. He told me what it looks like when it is coming, what it looks like when it is passing, and what to do versus what not to do. This is what it looks like when it is not passing and turns dangerous.
“Vero.” I say his name again. “Look at me.”
He doesn’t. He moves down the bar toward the man at the end, and I follow, needing to stay close. People on their stools are pulling back, giving him room, watching with their phones out, and I hate every single one of them.
“She is mine,” he says to the man, and my chest aches.
The man says something, and Vero laughs.
Everyone goes still.
I push around the end of the bar, needing to get to him in time. I make it three steps before the stool goes flying, and the sound of breaking glass makes me flinch.
I don’t even register the pain at first, then I look down at my hand and see the blood across my palm, a clean slice from a shard that caught me in the chaos. Curling my fingers into my palm, I press my fist against my upper thigh. It’s not deep, and it doesn’t matter right now.
Vero is still going. There are now two men on the ground and a table on its side. Rogue is now behind me,calling my name. She is trying to get me to breathe, but I am breathing—I just can’t make my legs move.
The doors to the bar fly open.
Clay comes in first, followed by Brawley, then Ares is behind them both. The bar feels small with all of them here. Brawley moves toward Vero, while Clay goes left, and Ares comes straight toward me. But I don’t want any of them near me right now; I can’t manage all of this at once.
He puts his hands on my arms and says something as I look up at him. The room comes back into focus. Broken glass. Overturned furniture. Bruce lying flat on the ground, along with two other men who just wanted a quiet drink on a Wednesday night. My regulars are pressed against the walls with their hands over their mouths. Bianca is behind the bar, arms crossed and eyes bugging out of her head.
This is where I work. It’s not the island, not their world. This is the place I have worked for three years. A job that pays the rent on my loft and lets me not be the daughter who wasted her potential.