Page 82 of Jaded Princess
21
STICK SHIFT EMERGENCY
When a certaincrackof sound hits the air, the noise too quick to be a car backfiring, cutting off too fast and hard to be considered a firework, thepopso viscerally recognizable, so spine-chillingly accurate, an ancestral instinct deep inside of us immediately recognizes it as danger cutting through the air, target unknown.
Human nature is to run away from it.
I sprinted toward it.
Taking the same route I used to escape this house, I tore through the hallway and burst through the door leading into the poker room, and what greeted me wasnotwhat I exited mere minutes ago.
Men were toppled over on chairs, one spread eagled across the felt table. The fatherly one, the only kind man in here, remained prostrate in his seat, but was rubbing his forehead. There was no blood on any of them that I could detect. No bullet wounds. My own throbbed.
Quickly, I tallied the men, one key player missing.
Two, actually, my gut reminded.
Rebecca, the cocktail waitress, cowered in a corner, not quite standing, but not quite sitting, either. I ran over to her.
“What happened?”
“I…” she looked at me like I was shining a light into her eyes, and she flinched. “It was so fast.”
“What did Trace do? Rebecca, look at me. Please. Take a breath and tell me what happened. There’s not much time.”
She swallowed, and I took that moment of her hesitation to reach behind me and grab someone’s drink on the table that somehow remained unspilled. “Here. Gulp deep.”
She accepted the glass and drained the golden liquid.
“Someone was arguing outside the doors,” she began. I nodded my encouragement, outwardly calm. My heart drummed in my throat.
“It was a man, and he was angry. He and Edgar got into it. I…” She paused, thought. “Edgar didn’t win.”
Theo, I thought.
“So the man busted through the doors, and he asked”—She met my eyes quizzically— “He wanted to know where ‘Scarlet’ was.”
Yes, definitely Theo.
“He was so demanding. Frightening, just like … he looked exactly like Trace.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“They saw each other,” she said, louder now. “They saw each other, and Trace grinned like—like somethingevil, and next thing I know, his lookalike was on top of him. Literally. They fought, the other players tried to intervene, but then Trace pulled out a gun and shot at the ceiling…”
Ah. The one area I hadn’t scanned. I followed her gaze and noted the small black hole in the molded fleur de lis pattern above.
“Everyone froze,” Rebecca continued. “Trace said he had Scarlet, that if this man wanted to see her again, he had to go with Trace. He did.”
“Did what? He went with Trace?”
“Yes. I told you it happened fast.”
I rescanned the room while I straightened, the men mumbling to themselves or smoothing out their shirts. Only a rivalry of the Saxon brotherhood would cause such a brief, potent scuffle, so much so that I doubted these men knew what to do with themselves during the aftermath.
“You all have to leave.”
Henry regained authority and stood from his curled up position under the table. “I’ll call the police if you don’t. This night is finished.”