Eric shrugs and disappears. I catch a look from the bartender and she looks suddenly sympathetic, and I quickly look away, down at the polished bar. I know the men I’m dealing with, the sort of monsters that lurk behind the pretty shiny curtains of a place like this, the sort of creatures that make bartenders scared and dancers keep gyrating their hips late into the night long past when their stamina wears out. Anything for more cash.
He comes back a minute later looking unhappy and gestures with a single finger for me to follow. I bet he was looking forward to manhandling me outside, not that I would’ve given him the opportunity. I’d rather take a beating than get groped by some asshole. At least physical wounds heal, but the sticky sensation of being touched against my will never goes away, not with time, not with distance. Something I know too well.
We go through a series of short halls until he knocks on a back room. The music is nothing more than a thud and a beat. The walls are plain white and I smell whiskey and cigar smoke. The door opens and a big guy stands there, pale white with dark hair, frowning at me. He says nothing, only nods with his chin, and steps aside.
Eric leads me into an office. There’s a card table on the right with two other men sitting around it, smoking and drinking and looking at me curiously like I’m a sideshow amusement. Eric stops and half turns to me like he’s presenting me with a gift and there, sitting behind the desk and looking like he hasn’t changed since the day I found him in the woods behind my momma’s trailer looking like he hadn’t eaten in a month and smelling like it too, is Nolan Vandello.
Nolan’s smile is like a wolf. He leans forward and the world shrinks down to him. The music disappears, the other men in the room disappear, and there’s only him, only Nolan. The boy that saved my life. The boy that ruined it too.
He’s a man now. Harder, bigger. Like all his wavy lines have straightened out. He’s got muscles under that white shirt slightly damp with sweat and his dark eyes search mine for something I doubt he’ll ever find. His skin’s tan, his hair is thick and black, and a trim beard covered his square jaw and chin. Those lips never stopped talking all those years ago but now it feels like his voice is something precious, a jewel he hides, a treasure he keeps to himself.
It comes out a purr.
“I thought they were joking, but here you are. Cora Stone.”
“Hello, Nolan.”
He leans back and studies me. I study him in return, refusing to look away. We played this game when we were kids: who’d break first. Who’d give in first. Like chicken, but with everything—running through the woods at each other, or shoving too many Oreos into our mouth, or swimming out further and further into that dirty lake. Dozens of contests. And he’s almost always winning.
“Everyone, out.” He looks away and I wonder if I’ve lost. “Now.”
Eric’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t argue. “Get moving,” he snaps at the others, and they file into the hallway, Eric closing the door with an unreadable stare.
“You look good,” he says, staring at me again. “I used to wonder how people can change so much as they get older. Now I understand it isn’t them that’s changing, but the world that’s making them change. You seem like the world hasn’t touched you.”
“And you’re the same old Nolan, lecturing me like you know anything at all.”
He eyes are laughing but his mouth is a dangerous smirk. “What do you want, Cora?”
I can’t look at him for this part. It makes my skin crawl, coming to Nolan for help, but there’s no other way. “Kady’s in trouble.”
“Little Kady? Last time I saw her, she was barely a teenager. How’s she doing?”
“Not great. She got mixed up with some bad people.”
He laughs at that. “Something you know all about.”
I glare at him. “You really wanna bring it up already?”
“No, Cora, I really don’t.” His smile disappears, leaving only the sharp edges. The hardened bits of him I’ve never seen before. Nolan was always tough, always able to take the most pain, always able to grin through the agony, but now it’s like that grin is gone and in its wake is this creature, this thing of stone and iron.
“Her ex-boyfriend is threatening her. Trying to blackmail her into doing some things for him she shouldn’t be doing. It’s getting bad and it’s only going to get worse, and I don’t know who to go to for help.”
“The police might be a good start.”
“Can’t go to them. The guy’s connected.”