36. Warpath
36
Warpath
The widow crashed into the stairs, all spindly limbs and chomping fangs. One of her legs clawed at Victor. Another knocked him in the back.
He grunted and closed his eyes. My protector. My Spider-Man. He braced himself for another hit. The widow writhed across the uneven landing.
That bitch wasn’t going to hurt him again. Without thinking, I twisted Victor aside and kicked her as hard as I could.
The spider shuddered and curled its legs, then tipped over the edge of the stairs.
I gasped. Was anyone else down there? “Get back,” I shouted.
The widow rolled down the stairs. Each tumble shook the structure. Victor held onto the railing, and I held onto Victor, shrieking behind clenched teeth.
This was wild: rogue spider at the movies. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.
Finally, the widow splayed and stilled at the bottom of the stairs, her head askew and stomach up like she just wanted a good belly rub and had absolutely no intention of crushing us.
I looked at Victor. He stared at me. We were flushed and breathing heavy as if we actually had fucked in theater thirteen. But we were fine. Just a little sweaty.
Inexplicably, I started giggling.
His brow twitched.
I slapped my hand over my grin. “Sorry. I think it’s the adrenaline. That was fucking terrifying.”
“Indeed.” He flexed his back and winced.
“Are you okay?” I tentatively touched his tense arm.
He flinched and frowned. “I’ll be…"
The few people in the theater ran towards us, some with phones up, others screaming.
“…fine.” He deflated. “Are you?”
“Yeah. The paperwork is going to suck,” I said. I could only imagine the accident report. What about security and the Sam thing? Would Victor ever get to have fun things here again? At least no one got hurt—unless he was downplaying his injury.
I waved to the mess of our widow on the staircase. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“Eventually.” He rolled his shoulder as if to test if he’d dislocated anything.
Would we be okay?
My gaze bounced around the lobby in search of a first aid kit. “I can grab an ice pack, if you need it.”
He clenched his jaw and pulled down his sleeves. “That won’t be necessary. I need to take care of my managerial duties at the moment, so you’re free to leave.”
“Oh.” Was he done with me? Now or permanently? I thought I’d been drawing a boundary. I just needed him to talk to me. I needed to understand, to think.
I stood rooted to the staircase. Our silence hung heavy amid the chaos of the lobby.
He fastened the buttons on his cuffs, then popped his collar.
I guessed this was it.
He was on the clock, after all. We had an audience and a spider carcass to contend with. I took the first impossible step away from him.
Most flings ended in a whimper. Ours went out with a crash. Maybe one day, I could pull my broken heart from the wreckage.
“Bye,” I said softly.
Victor bowed his head. My gentleman. My protective spider man. His actions spoke louder than his words. But what and who was he under this facade? A territorial predator or a sweetheart with teeth? The beast in my chest gnawed on my ribcage. Whatever he was, he’d hurt me. I supposed I might’ve hurt him too.
I staggered to Hot Contra in a metaphorical fog. This wasn’t how today was supposed to go.
Bree slid off the counter as soon as I walked in. “Shouldn’t you still be on lunch break?”
“Yeah, I have to…” Think.
Bree snorted. “Did his dick scramble your brain?”
“What?” I blinked.
She raised her eyebrows. “Look in a mirror babe. He left you with sex hair and smudged lipstick. Must’ve been a quickie if you’re back this early.”
Bile crept up my throat. “Shut up, Bree.” I swiped my fist under my lips and glared into the mirror by the jewelry display.
God, she was right. I looked like a mess, and not just because Victor had ravaged me.
“A spider fell on me,” I said, half numb with pain.
She laughed and leaned on the counter. “Who are you, Little Bo Peep?”
“What?”
“You know, the nursery rhyme,” she said.
I smeared the mussed makeup off my skin. “That’s Little Miss Muffet.”
“Oh, yeah. Peep had the sheep.” She propped her chin up and gave me a wry smile. “Must have been a big-ass spider.”
“It was the widow.”
She shot upright, her eyes alight. “No way. It fell? You could sue the theater. Say you got a back injury or something. Kat, you totally won the lottery.”
“I didn’t win the lottery,” I snapped, and the acid floodgates within me poured open with a violent surge rivaling the power behind that blood elevator in Kubrick’s The Shining . “The manager there took a hit for me. He’s hurt. I’m hurting. But you don’t care about that. You don’t care about me, or Victor, or this job, or anybody. Maybe you should just leave.”
She recoiled and blinked. “Are you serious?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. I didn’t want to overreact like Victor had with Sam. Sure, she didn’t care about anything. She was always late, always lying, always slacking, and always shitting on somebody. But I was angry. Plus, security would be busy, and firing her meant working an open to close again. “Take a ten, please,” I said.
She held her hands up and scoffed. “Fine by me.”
Working alone made it easier to think. Or not think. Once she left, I turned off my brain and put up a Join the Contra Crew placard in the window. Inevitably, we’d get teens who could last anywhere from two hours to two years. Some came back during school breaks and others stayed indefinitely. That was true for any relationship, not just employees. Some people were in our lives for a reason, and others for a season. At least Victor and I had Halloween.
I dragged my fingers through the silver necklace display. The chime of chains reignited bright memories of pulling Victor in for our first kiss at the theater. Of dancing with my coworkers. We'd been brilliant. Happy.
Bree waltzed in but avoided my gaze. Maybe she’d be on her best behavior for a few hours again. She probably worked better when I wasn’t here, reminding her we couldn’t goof off as much as we had when we were teens. We had responsibilities. Now, I owed it to my team to make sure they could grow.
I had to let her go.
Pain pulsed behind my skull. It probably didn’t help that I hadn’t had anything to drink since this morning.
I slipped into my office and double-checked security footage from her last few shifts to make sure I was doing the right thing. Customers blurred into trailing ghosts. The sped-up footage melted my brain. That was probably why found footage films used jump cuts to get to the interesting bits.
I shook my head and chuckled at my employees, who’d clearly forgotten they had a camera on them. AJ picked his nose and posed in front of the mirror when he thought no one was looking. Willow barely moved for hours and lurked like some cursed girl in the corner with her hair in front of her face. Bree often sat on the counter and played with her phone. As I suspected, she’d dumped the clothes last night and only sorted a few so she could leave early. But while she hung the last of her stuff, she side-eyed a customer by the costumes. Was she judging them? Or were they being weird? I slowed the footage and zoomed in.
Bree thrust open the office door.
I jumped and clutched my cross. “Oh my gosh, can you knock?”
“You got a delivery.” She dropped a takeaway container on the desk. “I didn’t think we could order food or drink to the store.”
“We can’t.” I frowned and paused the surveillance playback.
“You must be an exception.” She flashed me a vicious smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. She sauntered out of the office and yanked the door shut behind her.
What the hell was she playing at? I hadn’t ordered anything. Was this a prank? Or poison?
I opened the container. Steam curled around my fingers as I took in its contents: chicken fingers and fries and the order slip with a little heart on it.
“For my wife. – V”
Fuck, that was romantic. I took a bite of meaty deliciousness. My heart ached more than my stomach.
Somehow, amid the spider-crash-chaos, he’d remembered me. And my lunch. He probably even reheated it. I scratched the faint bite mark on my collar. This was true romance, wasn’t it? But could it be ‘true’ without the full truth? Why couldn’t he be vulnerable with me?
I crept out of the office, fully expecting him to be standing at the register. All I caught was a familiar hunched silhouette slinking past our window display.
“Hey,” I called.
Everyone else turned, but my Spider-Man couldn’t hear me.
Would it be weird to chase him down?
“Hey, Kat, I need some backup while I’m on register.” Bree stuck her ass out and gestured to the dressing room.
“Yeah, one second.” I wanted to chase down my man, but I supposed my job came first. The curse of management.
I went into the office to grab the dressing room key and stopped short in front of the computer. On-screen, a teen spinning a jewelry display peeked beyond its rails at the empty cashier’s station. I zoomed in on his face and hit play. The teen fidgeted his way around the store, taking more interest in the employees than the merchandise. A chill pricked my skin. I knew that teen. I raced through the footage.
From the looks of it, Sam the Squirrel-boy had been sneaking around Hot Contra ever since my promotional party. Was he stalking or shopping? The fisheye lens warped his head into a flat disc as he tried on a killer clown mask. The villain with a garish smile and rotten teeth would have no problem biting me without any happy ending. I flexed my fingers over the screenshot button. It was time to unmask the men from the cineplex.