Page 24 of Knot Just A Fan

“I’m sorry, ladies, but I have more patients to see. I’ll write you the prescription and note that you’re discussing payment options, but there’s nothing more I can personally do. This is your best bet for curbing your heats. For this one, it sounds like you’ve tried all you can. Keep yourself safe for the next few days, and I hope you’re able to sort out your situation.”

She nods to me then to Cami, looking perhaps slightly embarrassed—for me, no doubt—then excuses herself, closing the door. I’m frozen with my phone in my hand, staring at Cami, who’s staring back. She tucks a wayward strand behind her ear. Dark circles shadow her eyes.

“Girl, let’s get home. I’ll order lunch and then I’ll get some groceries in. Get you in your room. You can call Nic on the way.”

I step away from the exam table and button up my coat, my fingers both burning and numb simultaneously.

“I don’t understand any of this.” My voice trembles but I won’t cry. I cried last night as I fell asleep. Until I know what the fuck is going on, I’m not crying for anything.

Cami grabs my elbow again, like her arm’s a leash keeping me from humping strangers on our way back to the flat, which is thankfully a five-minute walk.

“I don’t either, mate, but let’s focus on your safety first. Home. And then we can figure out who’s getting my blame and wrath.”

“I was waiting for this,” comes Nic’s husky voice on the other end of the line. As my superior—my unwitting mentor after Grayson left the Guild—she’s my point of contact. She’s more like my manager. She works with me over gigs and scheduling, and technically is supposed to mentally and emotionally support me with any issues that come from being an unmatched Omega.

Ageriatricone, I remind myself. I knew that’s what they called unmatched Omegas past the age of thirty, but hearing it for the first time is like the final pin-prick that breaks the skin open.

“What’s going on? Why has my insurance been voided? I was just at the clinic to get more meds?—”

“Let me stop you there,” Nic snaps, like she’s had a long day and I’m the last thing she wants to deal with. Even though it’s barely noon. I hear Cami open the door to the food delivery—Thai green curry that I would normally devour but now smells rancid because heat messes with your senses—and then she slams and locks it. She bustles in the kitchen making a tray of food for me.

I know she’s right in her plan to stick me in my bedroom and barricade the door. But it makes me feel like a wild, untameable animal. And an ashamed one, at that.

“I can’t speak to you about details, because of the circumstances under which this case has been brought to us. All I can tell you is I came into the office with a bloody pounding hangover this morning to an urgent message from ArcadiaEcho’s manager stating that you were involved in an incident at the show last night that warrants your immediate termination from the Guild.”

“WHAT?” I yell into the phone. I nearly drop it. My arm is trembling and I’m staring at Cami, who’s frozen in the hallway with a tray of food mid-ear, watching me unravel. “What do you mean, termination?”

They can’t. They bloody can’t. They said if I came near Grayson again, if I tried to speak to him, they’d have me ousted.

I thought it was an idle threat. A cruel and inexplicable threat, but idle nonetheless. And I haven’t so much as drafted a message to him.

“I didn’t do anything! I did my job, and didn’t even have a single sip of champagne on the clock!”

“I’m not to discuss it with you. Their manager?—”

“His name is Ash,” I shout.

“Yes, he signed off on an email about what their current needs are, and where they feel you are not the appropriate person for the job at this point.” She huffs out an irritated sigh. “I don’t have time for this, I’ve got to find someone to cover for you before their next gig on Wednesday night in Southampton—not to mention the gigs for your other two bands. So since your termination is effective as of 9 a.m. this morning, your insurance is void as well. I’m sorry to tell you, Briella, but you’re no longer part of the Guild. Make appropriate arrangements to find another source of income and protection, is my advice.” She sighs and pauses, maybe realizing that if this happened to her, she’d be as up shit creek as I am. But that empathy, if it truly was, evaporates quickly.

“Your final pay will be deposited as normal, but insurance ends when a contract is terminated. I know that’s shitty. Honestly, between you and I, for years there’s been talk of aseverance package. But it hasn’t passed the courts. Best of luck. I’m—sorry.”

And then she hangs up.

Ten years I’ve given them. And this is how it ends.

I hold the phone there for a full ten seconds, waiting for her to call me right back and go, “Just fucking with you! I’ll have it sorted by this afternoon.”

But that doesn’t happen. I stare at Cami.

Nic didn’t sound sorry. She sounded relieved. Was this all about her? Her jealousy that I was asked back to work with Echo? I want to call Grayson, or even Ash, to confirm this. Why would Ronan and Enzo do this to me?

“What did that bitch say?” Cami demands.

“No insurance. No job. The Guild’s kicked me out.” My voice shakes with disbelief.

A storm seizes Cami’s face and she walks swiftly to the kitchen where I hear her slam the tray down.

“Those fuckers,” she says, as she marches back into the living room. She takes me gently by the arm and walks me to my room and sits me on the queen-sized bed which takes up the majority of the space. “I will find out what’s going on.” Her voice is soft but her eyes hard as steel, as they look between mine, dancing back and forth, trying to inject hope into them. “Regardless, you will not be left alone.”

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