Stop being difficult is the last thing a woman hears before a man who believes he owns her decides to prove it.
"Are you home?" My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. Someone calmer, someone steadier, someone whose vision isn't narrowing to a pinpoint.
"Yes, I'm back home now. I locked everything." She's crying and talking at the same time, the words tumbling over each other.
"He smiled at me after he said it, Saylor." Her breath hitches. "He smiled and walked away. Like grabbing a woman in a parking lot and threatening her is a normal thing people do."
I push off the wall, already reaching for my jacket. "I'm coming to get you."
"No. Stay where you are. Stay at your friend’s place."
My fingers tighten around the phone. "Mom?—"
"Saylor, listen to me." Her voice steadies by sheer force of will, the same way mine steadies when the shaking gets bad. Like mother, like daughter. "If you come here and he's watching the house, he sees you. He follows you. Right now the safest place you can be is where you are."
She's right. I know she's right. And knowing it makes me want to scream until my lungs give out.
"I'm telling Rookie." I push off the wall. "And then I'm calling you back. Don't open the door. Don't go outside."
Her breathing slows by a fraction. "I won't."
I press my palm flat against the wall. "Promise me."
Her voice breaks again. "I promise."
I hang up and walk through the bar with my phone in my fist and my face set in concrete.
Rookie is at a table near the window, nursing a Coke, his laptop open in front of him. He looks up when I stop beside him, and his body goes rigid before I say a word.
He reads me the way he reads code. One look. Every detail processed.
"Saylor." He closes the laptop. "What happened?"
"Creedy was at my mom's office." My voice is flat. Level. Costing me everything to keep it there. "He grabbed her arm.Told her my pathetic excuse of a father wants her to stop being difficult."
Rookie's expression empties.
Not anger. Not shock. Something deeper than both. A stillness that starts in his shoulders and moves through his entire body until even his breathing goes flat.
I've seen him angry.
I've seen him pace his room and hit walls and shake with the effort of not hunting Creedy down in the dark.
This is different. This is the version of him I haven't met yet.
The one that lives underneath the college student and the prospect, underneath the man who makes me laugh with ridiculous pens and kisses my forehead when I'm scared.
This version is very, very calm.
He pulls his phone from his pocket. Dials. Holds it to his ear without breaking eye contact with me.
"Prez." One word. "Creedy put hands on Saylor's mother. Her workplace. Tonight."
He listens. Nods once.
"I'll send you the address." He ends the call.
Tildie appears at my elbow. I didn't hear her come up behind me. She's holding a glass of water, and she puts it in my hand without asking and stands beside me with her hip touching mine.