Page 9 of Obey
She blinks.
Sighing again, I pull out my cell and find the weather report and radar. I don’t know where she lives, but the whole city is getting worse by the second. Her face pales as she eyes the map on the screen. Then silently slow blinks yet again.
“I can’t get home.” Her breathing skips faster. She stares at her own phone, back out the window, then back at me. Her jaw trembles. “I can’t get home.” She whispers it this time.
“You can’t get home.” It seems like she needs confirmation there’s no hope either of us are leaving this parking lot any time soon. I’m not responsible for this woman or what she chooses to do, but she’d be fucking stupid if she tries to leave right now. And she’ll freeze to death if I leave her here in the parking lot inBessie, the car that seems close to taking her last breath.
She texts someone, then hangs her head in her hands with a groan. “I could stay out here.” Her body’s already shivering from the cold, there’s no way she can sit out here. She’d harden into an ice cube before long.
“Get out of the car, Half-Pint.”
“Excuse me?”
With a shrug, I pull the door open. “You called me Grumpasaurus. Turnabout is fair play. Come on, before we both freeze.”
Reluctantly, she opens the car door and grabs her bag. I’ve got the door to the club open before she’s even circled the vehicle. This woman has no self-preservation. She needs to hustle or I’ll reconsider letting her stay outside with her friend Bessie and the fucking weather.
She’s got a thin dusting of snow on her when she steps into the building. The heat is off, but the space isn’t frigid. Yet.
“I’ll go and turn the heat on.”
She shudders, brushing the snow off her. “I’ll be here.” She’s looking around the space. From this position, Protocol looks like a regular old bar. As long as she doesn’t wander down to the dungeon, we should be fine.
I’m reluctant to leave her by herself, but I don’t want to take her with me. “There’s bottled water in the fridge behind the bar.”
Her cautious glance tells me she’s a rule follower, and the idea of going behind the bar where only employees should go makes her uncomfortable, which, of what little I know of her, tracks.
An edgy haircut does not an edgy person make. She’s a Miss Goodie two shoes. She glides her hand up the back of her neck. I’m not sure whether it’s a nervous thing, or an adjusting to her new haircut thing, but either way it’s cute as hell.
“Can’t I come with you?”
Fuck no.
At least I kept that inside my brain.
“It’s downstairs.” I almost said “In the dungeon,” but caught myself at the last minute.
She shivers again, looking over both shoulders. If I had to guess, something about the building is ringing her fight-or-flight, and she can’t figure out why. Neither can I. My moneysays once she gets to the bottom of the dungeon stairs and sees the St. Andrew’s Cross she’s going to bolt like a racehorse out of the gate.
“There’s no one else here. You’ll be okay.”
She doesn’t look convinced, hugging her arms around her. “Please?” Her small, uncertain voice speaks to something inside my chest.
“Fine. But you’re going to need to brace yourself for what’s at the bottom of those stairs.”
Her shoes squeak as she slams on the brakes. “Wh-what’s at the bottom of the stairs?”
Just gotta pull off the Band-Aid in one quick tear. “Half-Pint, you’re standing above a sex club.”
A semi-hysterical laugh squeaks out from between her lips. The way she’s tilting her head and squinting at me suggests she’s waiting for the punchline. But when it doesn’t come, she swallows. Hard.
Here it comes.
After a long moment where she looks like she might puke up her spicy nuggets, she nods. “Oh. Okay.”
That’s all she says before she strides toward the stairs. I don’t know her enough to read how she’s really feeling, but I can tell she’s shitting her pants under her vaguely calm exterior. Her face is pale, beyond white, she’s tinged with green. She’s picking at the cuticles on one of her fingernails, and she keeps glancing around like a murderer may jump out from the shadows at any second.
There’s vanilla, and then there’s Half-Pint.