The little girl is too excited to eat, rambling on and on about the amusement park, climbing all over the table, giving her father a hell of a time. She’s not careful at one point, waving her arms all around, smacking her drink over and sending it spilling across the picnic table, splashing me with it.
“Jesus, Jenny, you need to calm down!” the man says, grabbing napkins, trying to clean up the mess, as he shoots me an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry. She got you, didn’t she? She’s just excited...”
“It’s okay,” I say quietly, looking at the little girl, who seems to be on the verge of tears. “I’ve got a daughter. I know how it is.”
“Yeah?” He laughs. “How old?”
“Five.”
“Ah, so you do know how it is.”
“I’m six!” the little girl chimed in.
“Wow, six?” I feign shock. “I bet that means you can count pretty high, huh?”
“To a hundred!” she exclaims. “You wanna hear me do it? I can!”
I’m about to say yes, because you don’t turn down a proposition like that, when her father chimes in. “As much as we’d all love to hear it, baby, we’ve got to get going.”
“Next time,” the little girl tells me, nodding. “I’ll do it when we come back because Daddy said we would!”
I give her a smile. “Make sure you practice.”
“I will,” she says.
Her father shoots me a look that says he might not be too fond of my suggestion, like maybe she already practices too much, but I don’t feel bad for him, not at all.
He doesn’t know how lucky he is.
He doesn’t know how good he’s got it.
What I wouldn’t give to live in a house again swaddled with the incessant chatter of a little girl who just wants you to share in her excitement...
I sit here after they’re gone. Others come and go, resting for a bit before moving on, a few people politely greeting me but for the most part, I’m left alone. Six o’clock approaches, the beach closing.
Getting up, shoving my hands in my hoodie pockets, I keep my head down as I head down the boardwalk. It’s only a few blocks to the police precinct, darkness falling by the time I reach it. Shift change. Officer Rimmel, who usually works the front desk, is walking out, a young guy sitting there instead, one I’ve never encountered.
I always come in the mornings.
I’ve never been here at this hour.
“Hey there,” I say, smiling sweetly, trying to turn on the charm. “Any chance Detective Jones is still in the building? I meant to stop by earlier, and well, I got a little caught up with things and just made it.”
“I’m not sure,” he says, picking up the phone. “I can call up to his office. Who should I tell him is here?”
“I, uh... Scarlet.” Shit. “Any chance I can just run up there quick? It’ll only take a moment. It’s sort of a surprise, if you know what I mean.”
Gabe’s antics are notorious. Even a front desk rookie would know all about the way he is with female visitors. The officer hesitates before hanging up the phone, scowling and motioning toward the elevators. “Go ahead.”
I don’t linger, not wanting him to change his mind, hitting the elevator and heading straight up to the third floor. Gabe is locking up his office to leave when I get there, and I watch, following him to the locker room on the floor.
I slip inside behind him.
His locker’s in the far back, tucked away in the corner. He approaches it, starting to undo the combination lock as I creep closer. He turns the knob, glancing back, a look flashing across his face when he spots me. My stomach drops at the sight of it. Anger. Hunger. Something I don’t like. There’s a sinister twinkle in his eyes. He doesn’t raise any alarms, though, continuing what he’s doing, taking the lock off to open his locker.
It’s a fucking mess in there.
“Well, if it isn’t Miss Myers,” he says, his eyes flickering all around me. “You alone?”
“Of course,” I say. “Thought I’d catch you before you left. I felt bad about how I acted last time, bad about how we left things.”
He’s so easy. That’s all it takes. I can see the distrust in his eyes, but he’s not going to pass up an opportunity if he thinks one might exist. As soon as I’m within reach, he grabs ahold of me, dragging me closer. I wrap my arms around him, grimacing when he buries his face in my neck, kissing and biting at the skin.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
I know, I know... ugh... look away.
“Where’s your little attack dog?” he asks, a bitter bite to his voice. “You know, the mutt you sent here to threaten me this morning?”
“Who?”
“Scar,” he says—although not long ago he claimed to have never heard of anybody called that. “Tell me you haven’t taken up with that guy, Morgan. I told you—”
“Anyone named Scar is trouble, I know,” I say. “He’s got his own motivations, though. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Sure seemed to,” he says. “Told me he’d cut off my dick if I ever touched you again.”
My eyes widen. He said that?
Gabe pulls back some to look at me, his hands roaming. It makes my skin crawl, and I ball my hands into fists, keeping myself from punching him.
“Doesn’t matter,” Gabe says, grinning. “Kassian... Scar... doesn’t matter who thinks they own you. Won’t ever stop us. Isn’t that right?”
“Right,” I whisper when he turns me around, shoving me against the row of lockers as he fumbles with his pants. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My heart races as I panic, my body shaking, wedged between him and the cold metal. “Wait... Gabe, wait... condom.”
He sighs, reaching past me, shifting things aside in his locker but coming up empty. “Damnit.”
“Don’t you have some in your office?”
“Yes, but—”
“Just go grab one.”
He groans, pushing away and saying, “Wait here.”
My stomach twists as he walks away, leaving me here alone. The second he’s out of sight, I dive right for his locker, knowing I’ve only got like thirty seconds until he gets back and then I’m fucked.
Figuratively. Maybe literally, at the rate I’m going.
I’d rather neither way happen, to be honest.
So I grab stuff, sorting through it, looking for anything that might be something, but it all seems to be nothing. No files, no papers, no journals, no flash drives. Shit. I’m about to give up, on the verge of panicking, when my hand hits something wedged along the back at the bottom.
A DVD.
I yank it out, heart racing. It’s tucked into a worn protective sleeve, a lone word written on the front of it in faded black marker: Aristov.
“Thank you God, and Jesus, and even fucking Krampus,” I mumble, shoving the DVD in my hoodie pocket, gripping it tightly as I scurry away.
I get to the door of the locker room just as it swings open. Gabe.
“Whoa, where are you running off to?” he asks, grabbing my arm to stop me. “Come here.”
“I can’t do this,” I say, trying to pull away. “I’m sorry, I just... I can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t, so I’m just going to go now.”
“What?” He grips tighter to my arm. “What are you talking about?”
“This,” I say, shoving away from him. “Don’t touch me. I told you before... don’t ever touch me again.”
“What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?”