Page 29 of Running Feral

“You need to stop standing,” he says, pointing at me before he walks back to where he was before.

“I’m fi—”

“Don’t even.” His expression is so fucking stern, I don’t even bother to mess with him right now. “Anyway, as I was saying. Kasia’s piece of shit ex is trying to drag her through family court for custody. Not because he wants custody, but because he knows she can’t afford it, and he wants to fuck with her. Correct?”

Kasia nods, still sulking—like she’s being called out for secretly wanting help—but not interrupting him.

“You guys weren’t here when all of this went down, but Jorden is actually more than just your average abusive shitheel.” I wince at the words. I’m not sure why. Gunnar is very much on his soapbox, though, so I manage to keep the weird reaction under his radar while he keeps talking. “He also turned out to be a pedophile.”

If anyone wasn’t paying attention before, they are now.

Kasia rolls her eyes, like she’s been over this a million times before and is sick of the sound of the same words being repeated over and over. I can picture what that might feel like.

“I was trying to get away from him anyway, and then I found him talking to teenage girls online. It was bad. I took the kids and left, reported him to the cops and everything, but somehow that slippery fucker managed to keep what he was doing under the radar. He couldn’t hold down a job the entire time I was married to him, but when it came to proxy servers and anonymous internet use, he was suddenly a Mensa candidate. He only got some bullshit battery charges and probation, in the end.”

“So, him trying to get custody is a very big deal. Which is why it is ateam effort.” He stares at Kasia while he says the words, and she seems to soften for him. “Sav, Tobias, congratulations. You are now on the team. Please start brainstorming solutions. Preferably ones that don’t include murder. Not that anyone here would do something like that.”

He looks at me and Sav, and it’s so dry and unexpected, I swear to god I almost laugh out loud. Sav doesn’t look offended, at least. He seems to consider it for a second before responding with his trademark shrug.

“Excellent,” Gunnar continues. “We’ll talk about this again later, then. Sav, can you help Tobias get upstairs so we can open please?”

A little piece of me is upset that he’s not going to take me himself, but that feels too pathetic to even acknowledge. It’s a thirty-foot walk.

Plus, before we’re even out of sight, I catch Gunnar leaning in to wrap Kasia up in his arms, and she actually lets him. I know from first-hand experience how comforting it is having that big, solid body wrapped around you. It would be selfish of me not to share.

Just this once, at least.

Chapter Ten

It doesn’t take long for things to go back to normal after our dramatic interlude. My subconscious can’t decide which it wants to worry about more—Kasia or Tobias—so it settles for doing both in excess.

I’m running on autopilot as I open the bar and start serving. Because it’s later than we usually open, Wednesdays tend to start with a rush instead of a trickle, and within half an hour we’re pretty busy. Kasia is focused, as always, but I keep an eye on her, anyway. None of this stuff with her ex is new. That doesn’t mean it isn’t awful every time it rears its head.

Sav left, because tonight is one of his nights off before the weekend and he only comes in to clean if he wants extra money. So, between the two of us, we’re at least not given the space to get too deep into conversation.

Instead, I let myself keep tearing apart the problem in the back of my mind while I work. How we could convince the courts he’s a piece of shit without having any new evidence. Or howwe could convince him to drop it without doing anything super illegal. Nothing comes to mind, but I’m determined.

I’m so focused on it, instead of what I should be focused on, that I don’t see him until it’s too late.

“I’m hoping you can help me find something I lost.”

Eamon managed to walk in and push through the crowd until he leaned against the bar and spoke to me, all without me noticing.

Idiot.

I’m not sure what my face does. Several variations of shock, if his quiet glee is anything to go by. He always seems to look happiest when the people around him are freaking out.

My first instinct is to tell him to get the fuck out and call the cops. I can already feel the anger rising in me, and the words are on the tip of my tongue. But then I remember the most important thing.

He still doesn’t know where Tobias is.

He might suspect, but he doesn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t be in the bar, he’d be upstairs. The angrier I act, the more it’s going to confirm that I know exactly what he did to Tobias and, at the very least, know where he is. Which would probably lead to him beating the information out of me.

I have to remain neutral.

My favorite.

“What can I get you?”

---