Across the street, the diner is lit dimly by the flickering signs. Thinking of the encounter from before, I pull Kathleen close to my side, keeping her close to me.
“Something isn’t right,” Kathleen mutters, keeping her voice low and quiet. “There are usually more people here. The lights are off inside too. I don’t like this.”
“Stay here, and I’ll go take a look inside,” I tell her as we stop in front of the front doors. I hold her face in my hands, leaning down to kiss her, but she pulls away. She looks annoyed and smacks my arm with her hand, making a face.
“What do you think this is? A cliche scary movie?” Kathleen says, her eyes going wild. Her mouth is set in a hard line. “Hell no, you’re not going in there to check anything out without me. I’m not someone who’s okay with staying behind.”
Despite the circumstances, I let out a chuckle. I know she will keep me on my toes for the rest of my life if I let her. And yeah, I want to let her.
“No, I should have known you weren’t going to be okay with that.”
Any woman who cares for her entire family without a moment’s doubt is not a woman to be left behind. Kathleen would go to war for me. I can see it on her face.
She would scratch and claw her way out of any situation if it meant keeping me safe. It’s better to stay together anyway, I decide, grabbing her hand.
“This shouldn't be locked,” I tell her as I realize someone has locked the front door. I know I didn’t lock it, and the club is still supposed to be open right now.
I use my key to unlock the door, and Kathleen sucks in a breath at the darkness that awaits us. It’s eerily quiet inside the club.
I hold Kathleen behind me as we shuffle inside. She grips the back of my shirt, seemingly glad to have something to hold onto. I can feel her breathing as she presses close to me. As we walk, I use my phone to light the way in front of us.
“Chrissy?” Kathleen calls in a cautious whisper. Her voice echoes through the club.
Suddenly there’s a heavy thump from the back room, close to where the doors lead into the girl’s changing area and lockers beyond that. Kathleen goes to step into the room first without me, but I grab the back of her shirt, stopping her.
Again, I’m sure she would all but dance into battle for the people that she loves.
“Let me go first, Kat,” I say into her ear, holding her back at my side. “Please.”
I also want to shield her just in case there’s anything horribly bad that she doesn’t need to see. I’ve heard horror stories about strip clubs, and though I’ve only had this one for a little while, I still don’t want it or the women in it to become a statistic. There’s a groan, and Kathleen takes off, running toward the sound of it.
I can see her phone light bouncing as she disappears into the back of the club.
She lets out a gasp in the darkness, and my heart is in my throat as I run after her. I resist the urge to yell out her name like a madman.
I finally find her in the locker room.
She’s kneeling on the floor, and even though I’m happy and relieved to see that she’s just fine, I realize what she has her light pointed at now.
Myers is slumped against the lockers, bloodied and battered. One of his eyes is swollen shut and his blood drips, half-dried, down the side of his split lip and his broken nose. Blood is also covering his shirt, and he looks terrible.
He looks as if someone wanted to kill him, but they didn’t manage to succeed.
It’s jarring seeing someone as big as him knocked down like that on the floor.
“Myers,” I call, kneeling down beside him. I move to feel his pulse in his neck. “Myers, can you hear me? Hey, Myers? Are you alright enough to move?”
“I’m alive,” the big man grunts, sounding hoarse. His one good eye opens slowly. “It’s alright, boss. They didn’t get me just yet. You gotta find Chrissy, though.”
He tries to get up, but I press a hand to his shoulder, stopping him. He doesn’t look to be in any condition to be getting up and helping us look for her himself.
“I’ll go look around and see what I can find,” Kathleen says, already moving to walk away from me and into the unknown. “We need to find out where she is.”
“Hey, wait a minute there.” I stop her quickly, grabbing her sleeve so that she doesn’t leave. “I don’t think you need to go look alone. Just wait for me, okay?”
Kathleen shakes her head at me, smiling placatingly at me. “I won’t be long, and I’ll be right back. I just want to see where she is, okay? Don’t worry about me.”
As if any part of me could sit and not worry about Kathleen Henderson, sure. I just really don’t think that’s possible without going insane.