Page 30 of Running Feral

Pushing out the words in a flat tone is excruciating, but I manage it. I even look him in the eye. And it’s not like we were buddies before, so at least my general air of contempt is nothing new.

Eamon orders the same overpriced whiskey he normally does, and for a minute, I think I’m going to get away without a conversation. But once his drink is poured, he starts at me again.

“Like I said, I lost something recently. And this was one of the last places I had it. Do you feel like pointing me in the right direction?”

If I were better scripted as a human being, this would be the moment I pulled out a lost and found box and put it on the bar in front of him.

But we don’t have a lost and found box and I am so far past finding any of this funny, even in the darkest possible way. I am completely out of patience for his bullshit.

“You know what, Eamon, if the boy ran away from you, I really hope he ran so far you’ll never be able to touch him again. Because you’re a scumbag and he doesn’t deserve any of it, and I’m sure I only see the tip of the iceberg when you’re dragging him around here and getting him suspiciously wasted off one drink. But no. If that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know anything. So we can skip to the part where you threaten me and then I’ll continue to not know anything. It’s actually a very important part of a bartender’s job to not know anything. As long as you want to stay alive, that is.”

I hope I hit the right tone. It’s entirely possible that mine and Tobias’s lives both depend on it. Eamon has to believe me.

“You’re pretty rude for a customer service worker. Did anybody ever tell you that?”

“I’m only rude to people I loathe.”

He’s leaning on the bar and so am I. We’re roughly the same height, so we’re eye to eye, and he seems completely calm, while I’m trying not to vibrate with barely contained rage. The weird staring contest goes on for way too long, and I imagine all the ways he’s thinking up to stalk and kill Tobias right now.

“I can’t help you, Eamon. I’m just a bartender.” He hums a little, but continues to stare at me. “Can I get you anything else to drink?”

“One more,” he says, before draining the glass.

I pour him another one. Generous, in the hopes that it’ll make him slow and weak. Although who knows if it’ll have the opposite effect? Just when I think he’s about to start the whole thing over again, he silently pushes back from the bar and walks away.

Of course, I don’t get away with it that easily. He finds a small booth in a corner and sets himself up in it, sipping the second whiskey slowly and not moving from the spot for the rest of the night. The crowd thickens and then finally thins while he sits there through all of it.

When it finally gets to closing time, I’m worried I might have to kick him out. But as soon as the last few patrons are on their way out the door, so is he.

Slowly. Like he’s not in a rush and is making sure I know it. He leaves, though. I see him get into his car in the parking lot, but he doesn’t turn the engine on yet.

I could call the cops and have him trespassed. Technically, the parking lot is privately owned commercial property. But part of me thinks that might be what he wants me to do. If I start something, he’ll keep one-upping me until shit gets violent and if that happens, he’s the one holding all the cards.

Instead, I decide to act like everything is normal. Do nothing to arouse suspicion. Close like normal, go upstairs like normal, and then have my freak out where he can’t see me. Where I can see Tobias is safe with my own two eyes.

That only leaves Kasia. We continue to move around the space like nothing is wrong as we clean up and close. Maybe a little slower than normal, but nothing that someone would clock through the window as unusual. Nothing that looks like we’re huddling together, talking out of concern. But every time we pass close enough, we exchange a few words.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“Nothing. I don’t want to give him any reason to think he’s got our scent. I’ll close, go upstairs, lock every door and window, and then wait.”

“Okay. So what am I gonna do? What do we think the over-under is that this guy follows me halfway down the highway and then runs me off the road or something?”

I grimace.

“Yeah, I’m not crazy about the odds. I would take you home, but there’s no way it wouldn’t look suspicious. Don’t go out to your car at all. Especially because he might not know that it’s yours if he hasn’t watched you before. I’m gonna have Sav come pick you up.”

Kasia doesn’t say anything for a while, because she hates feeling like a burden to people and it’s easy for this all to seem like an overreaction.

It isn’t, though. We both know that. “Yeah, okay.”

I step into the kitchen quickly to call him and explain the situation, and he agrees to come over. He lives close. It won’t take long, so we go back to our very slow and steady cleaning.

Part of me is almost too scared to take the trash out like normal, but then I really do feel ridiculous. The dumpster is right by the door. I don’t even have to step outside.

All in all, we make it through without incident. By the time Sav shows up and I’m ushering them out, the ratio of embarrassment to fear has tipped in the favor of embarrassment. But then the lights are off, the security system is on and the doors are locked, and I’m heading upstairs.

The sinking, twitching fear I felt before is back in force. I practically race up the stairs, desperate to get to Tobias now that there’s nothing standing in my way. I knock, like usual, before I let myself in. So he knows it’s me.

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