Page 13 of The Deer and the Dragon
If I hadn’t already been miserable, this new, fresh hell tore through me.
Hundreds of people pushed in around him, but he’d set his focus on my table. The warehouse was not big enough to contain the swell of my anxiety as fight or flight overcame me, little more than a mouse with her leg caught in a trap. The lusterless lights were suddenly too bright. The world was the wrong color. He seemed taller, somehow, more powerful than I’d remembered him being. Nothing looked right as I soaked in the too-wide grin of a man I distinctly remembered as the only date I’d walked out on.
Richard.
I pinked at the long-dead name, eyes shooting to EG, who was already searching my face for answers. My lips pursed into a tight line. My look communicated two simple words:Help me.
He bypassed the snaking queue of expectant readers who clutched their installments ofPantheon.
EG was a sharp woman, and she knew me well. Her eyes widened, darting between the rapidly approaching stranger and me as she asked, “Is Maribelle your—”
“Yes,” I hissed, and that was enough.
This man was shouting my escorting alias for the world to hear. I barely had time to answer her before the long-abandoned client was at my table. I hadn’t seen him in more than two years. We’d gone on half of a date, and it was one I’dhoped to leave in the past. He’d been a referral from one of my favorite clients—one who’d bought me my black strappy bag with the triangular platinum logo. The bag alone had cost him just shy of five thousand dollars. I’d considered bringing that exact bag today but had settled on a seven-dollar tote bag from my local bookstore.
I lived my life in extremes.
I’d been braced to see former clients at any number of restaurants, bars, or events. I’d kept my eyes peeled, relying on mutually assured destruction as my lone comfort, that even if I spotted a man from my past, he would be just as reluctant to admit where he knew me from as I would.
I’d never thought I’d see one at a convention for bookworms.
EG was on her feet in a flash. She moved around the table in the time it took to blink, attempting to intercept him. She put a hand on the man’s arm, and despite being half his size, she took control of the situation fully. She used her most authoritative customer service voice to usher him away, allowing me to stammer through my meeting with the next fan in line. If the heat pulsing through my face was any indication, I had to be a worrying shade of reddish purple. The girl in line fidgeted nervously at my obvious discomfort, and I winced as I misspelled her name in the signing. I doodled a butterfly and apologized profusely for my blunder.
Over the fan’s shoulder, EG and my assailant disappeared behind the shuffle of bodies, and I did my best to return to my job.
EG reappeared at my side. She offered the next in line a friendly smile while she leaned into my ear. “He left quietly and apologized. I think he understood his blunder. Would you like me to put security on him?”
Richard. His name was Richard.
I thought of my date with the man and suppressed a shudder.
“You said he left?” I asked. I smiled at the next in line,asked her name, and signed her book. I added a few doodles of hearts and stars for embellishment while she gushed about the second book in the series, particularly loving how I’d portrayed Artemis’s character. I nodded along with the friendly fan. She thanked me and hugged her book to her chest. I wanted to give her my whole attention, but I kept one eye on my editor.
EG waited for a break between attendees before saying, “He was very polite. Do you think he’ll give you any trouble?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. Telling her that he’d technically done nothing wrong would require explaining why I was afraid of him in the first place.
I offered a smile to the next reader, but the joy didn’t reach my eyes. I saw it as she looked back at me with a mild disappointment. Of course, I wasn’t giving her my best self. I rallied my joy as I looked down, conjuring a grin from the depths of my belly before I looked up once more. I beamed at the fan, thanking her sincerely for reading thePantheonnovels. She recovered from her disappointment and asked if I could tell her anything about the third installment. I winked and repeated the only tidbit I was legally allowed to share: it would take place in South America.
“Mar—Merit?” EG corrected, calling me by my pen name. Her voice was low, but we were still in public. “Do you feel safe? Is there anything I can do?”
I appreciated her. She was my rottweiler.
“I’m fine,” I promised.
“I know you’re strong, so I’m not just asking about you. Ishegoing to be a problem?”
I shrugged, as much for myself as for her. “He wasn’t a problem two years ago. I don’t see why he should be one now.”
I finished out the sixteen-hour day, allowing the staff to collect the books, collapse the table, and do whatever housekeeping was necessary. EG offered to walk me to my car, but I was parked in a well-lit garage and walked with my keys on a swinging lanyard, ready to bludgeon anyone from a distance.I poured myself into my Mercedes, checking the back seat for goblins before I started the engine. The luxury vehicle was a flex I’d been able to purchase in cash after a monthlong booking with an inventor known for his fleet of yachts. He’d talked my ear off for thirty days straight and had been the lone reason I stopped doing vacation bookings. This vehicle was my swan song to sex work. After that, the advance forPantheoncame in, followed by the royalties, and the money I’d stashed in stocks and savings continued to grow.
Life with a full wallet wasn’t so bad.
I melted into the chair as punishingly upbeat music blasted on the radio. I’d been playing it at an unbearable volume to psyche myself up for the event. Now that the conference was over, it was the last thing in the world I wanted to hear.
I hit the volume button as if it were personally responsible for my inner turmoil and rolled out of the garage in silence. The quiet soothed me as I eased onto the interstate, falling into something of highway hypnosis as an internal GPS pulled me home while my mind remained elsewhere. The city lights disappeared, fading into something else entirely as I approached the warehouse district. The engine’s hushed purr and the consistent sound of rubber on the pavement occupied my mind, allowing everything else to drip from me like condensation from a tailpipe. It took roughly forty minutes to get from the convention until I could put my car in park in the safety of my parking garage. I’d left most of the toxicity on the freeway, and in its place, the drained husk of a human remained. I pressed the button to kill the car, closing my eyes and relaxing against the headrest as a headache bloomed between my temples.
Normally I was all too enthusiastic to escape back into my apartment, but instead of opening the door, I leaned forward until my head bumped against the steering wheel and let the stillness calm me. The sensory overload of conventions was an essential poison, and their necessity didn’t keep me from hating them. I allowed the silent moments to act like leeches,sucking the discomfort and suffering and misery of having to exist as a human in this world from my body. It took a while before I could take in a full, relaxing breath.
