Page 77 of Flame
Chapter Nineteen
Despite the time I’ve spent away, Mr. Zhang’s shop feels the same. Here, amongst the dusty bookshelves, I can ignore the rest of reality. I even volunteer to finish out the business day, allowing Mr. Zhang to leave early.
But I can’t ignore the tension lacing the air with every passing second. I’m jumping at every noise to break the quiet, and when the bell above the door chimes, I stiffen in anticipation even before I turn to face the figure standing near the entrance.
Shock hits me like a punch, but not in the way I’ve been expecting. “Mara?”
I stagger around the counter to meet her, stopping a few feet away. She’s wearing her black uniform from the restaurant and must have just gotten off. Her arms are crossed, her gaze wary.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, but I can’t stop myself from scanning the view of the street behind her. Apart from a few pedestrians, no one else is there.
“I’m sorry, were you expecting your boyfriend?” Mara asks, turning on her heel. “Let me just leave, then—”
“Wait! I’m sorry,” I blurt in a rush. Awkwardly, I fiddle with a stand of pens beside the register, unsure of what else to do with my hands. From over my shoulder, I say, “I am just surprised you’re here.”
“My dad needed me to pick up a cookbook for him,” she snaps, crossing over to a section of glossy new recipe books. She grabs one seemingly at random and flips through it, her back to me. After a second, she pointedly clears her throat. “Isn’t this the part where you grovel for forgiveness?”
“Um…” I blink in shock and promptly knock over a row of silver ballpoints. I scramble to rearrange them, but when I finally face her, she’s watching me, her head cocked expectantly. “Yes. I’m so sorry—”
“Good.” She sets the book aside and places her hands on her hips. “Holding grudges can give you wrinkles, and I just don’t have the energy to expend on dumb boy drama. Besides, it looks like you have more than enough of that for the both of us,” she adds, raising an eyebrow.
My cheeks catch fire. Only God knows what the chaos outside of the café looked like to her. “It wasn’t like that.”
“So what was it like, then? Just you gloating over the fact that you were screwing Rafe despite encouraging me to go after him? That’s fucked up.”
I don’t deny it. Finally, she sighs.
“The least you can do is spill the drama. I might be able to forgive you for keeping Rafe your naughty secret, but two sexy men? Who was that boy scout?”
I choke out a sound that might be a laugh. “Someone who I can assure you is all yours.”
“I’m off this weekend,” she says, heading toward the door without the cookbook. “You owe me dinner. My parents’ place, and you might want to borrow lover boy’s wallet. I plan on eating big.”
“Deal.”
I watch her go, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders. The relief lightens some of the heavy mood from before. When I finally finish my shift and head out the dread returns. I’ve barely put the key in the lock when I sense a presence approach me from behind. “You think this is funny?” a man snarls against my ear. Alarm shoots down my spine, but before I can even think to run, he snatches my forearm in a vice grip. “You go and jump out of a fucking window? What the hell has gotten into you?”
I turn to face him, steeling myself for what I might find—but nothing could prepare me for this. Branden, but in a state I’ve never seen him in before. His eyes are wild, hair mussed, and unkempt. Instead of his uniform, he wears crumpled sweats and a T-shirt, and his breath sears my nostrils, unmistakably tainted with alcohol.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
His eyes narrow. “You really want to ‘talk’? Then come with me. Now.”
He tugs me after him, but I don’t resist, letting him shove me into a nearby van. It’s the same one from before, and he instantly engages the locks.
I don’t bother to hide the fear from my voice. “What do you want?” Fighting to keep my breathing steady, I crane my neck to watch him. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere where you can’t run away,” he warns, pulling away from the curb. “So you want to talk? Who have you been running your mouth to, huh?”
His inflection varies wildly, his eyes unfocused as they dart around the road.
Inhaling deeply, I pose a question of my own. “Did you hurt Faith? Were you the one she was really messaging?”
He snorts out a harsh laugh, his nostrils flaring. “That little cunt. Why would I be speaking to her, huh? You ask yourself that.”
But the answer is obvious in the way Faith had reacted to the topic of her mysterious DW. She was terrified of him, and I’d been so stupid not to recognize it. The last time I saw her alive, her haunted expression stuck with me for a reason—it was the same exact one I saw every day in the mirror.
“She was someone you could control,” I hoarsely point out. “Until you couldn’t anymore.”
