Chapter Three
Oh, I’m so sorry!”
Yeah, the fuck Denne was sorry for spilling the vinaigrette.
Standing over the two-top, she made a show out of the golly-gee-willikers fake-ass apology, spitting all kinds of mea culpas as she bent down and picked up the ramekin from the floor. As she straightened, she looked the young woman right in the eye.
“I’ve gotten it all over your dress.” She pointed across the dining room to the back. “Let me show you to the bathroom and—”
“Are you fucking kidding me!” The man slammed his phone down on the table, his antipasto plate coughing out a couple of olives in surprise. “Where’s the goddamn manager—”
“I didn’t mean to spill the dressing.” The hell she didn’t. “Let me just help—”
“Eddie, it’s okay.” The young woman rose from her chair, putting her trembling hands out. “I’ll just go fix it—”
“Manager,” he snapped. “Now. And you don’t go nowhere. Sit the fuck down.”
“Y-y-you’re not gonna want to be seen with me like this, Eddie.”
She indicated the spill on her dress, the blue silk having sucked up the vinaigrette like a dream, the stain ruining the short skirt.
Narrowed eyes raked down the woman like she was a Porsche with a scratch on the door. “You find the fucking manager after you clean her up.”
“Yup,” Denne said. “That’s the plan—”
“Sir,” he snapped as he drummed the table impatiently. “Get it right. And I’m waiting.”
Hold your breath on that, bitch, she thought.
Leading the way, Denne stayed silent. So did the woman.
To keep the optics right, she took them both down the hall where the public bathrooms were, just in case the guy had been to the restaurant before.
When they were in the shadows, she told the woman to hold tight, and then went back to check.
The man was deep in his phone, swiping like he was poking eyes out.
Returning in a rush, she whispered, “I’m going to lead you through the kitchen. Follow me—”
The woman grabbed on to Denne’s hands. “Wait. Wait—I don’t think I should…”
“Just come with me now. That’s all you need to do.”
It would be so easy to get into that brain and pull some levers to help expedite the situation. Humans were easy to manipulate like that. She was already over-involved, though.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Denne shook her head. “Yes, you do—or we wouldn’t be standing here right now with salad dressing on your skirt.”
The nod of resignation took a moment, and there was no wasting it. Denne took the woman’s hand and drew her quickly to the flap door.
The difference between front and back of the house was measured in noise, smells, and heat, and she wanted to move fast in case that resolve wavered as the rush of the people and all the sizzling pans and the flames licking up from the grill registered.
“Marco,” she barked over the din. “I need a manager on sixteen.”
“You got it. Stu, take the range.”
As Chef wiped his hands and untied his white apron, Denne strode for her office, pulling the woman along like something that was on wheels. When she got to the open doorway, she stood to the side and indicated the way in. There was another pause, and then the stilettos clip-clip’d past.
That stain on the blue skirt looked like dried blood.
Closing the pair of them in, Denne sat back against the door as the woman wrapped her arms around herself and walked in a little circle, that blond hair falling forward in a curtain of silk.
The extensions gleamed even under the wan fluorescent lighting, and you had to wonder if the bastard had paid for them.
They looked expensive. Just like the breast implants.
D cups didn’t come on bodies that thin, generally.
“Is this really happening?” The woman shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Who can I call for you? Someone to pick you up—”
“Nobody. There’s nobody.” She looked to the door, her eyes going frantic again. “What am I doing. I need to go back out there. This is—”
“Who am I calling. And if it’s an Uber, you don’t have to tell me where it’s really going. I’ll still pay for it.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I don’t get involved with things.”
God, how true was that. Whether it was here at the restaurant or in the s’Hisbe, she was just floating through life, really.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Okay, fair enough. So who are we calling—”
“He knows where my mother lives.” The woman put her face in her hands. “And my son is there. I have to go back to that table. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
“All the reason to get the fuck out when you can.”
Abruptly, the woman straightened and took a deep breath. “I’m going back out there. I’ll hide the mess as best I can. It’s fine. I’ll be… fine.”
Goddamn it.
Stepping in front of her, Denne blocked the exit and did exactly what she shouldn’t have, what she didn’t have permission to do. She penetrated the consciousness of this stranger, her mind entering the human’s with a push of cognition—
A car interior. Illuminated with an orange-red glow.
Driving along a city road, the streetlamps flaring into the interior… hitting the fleshy face of that man. Thunderous rage as he looked over from behind the wheel. His mouth was moving fast and nasty, spit fanning out, his flat front teeth on display as his upper lip curled in a sneer—
A hand slammed on the woman’s thigh, gripping and torquing the flesh through the short blue skirt.
I’m sorry, Eddie. I won’t do it again—
You’re fucking right you won’t.
I didn’t mean to be late—
What I tell you. Another shaft of light passed over the fury in the man’s face. What did I fucking tell you! I don’t wait for no woman.
Frail hands covered the bear claw locked on her leg. Eddie, you’re hurting me—
And so it went, the same thing over and over.
Before Denne pulled out of the woman’s mind, she inserted one powerful instinct: Leave.
The woman winced and rubbed her forehead. When she dropped her hand, tears trembled on her false lashes.
“I can help you.” Denne stretched an arm over her desk and offered a Kleenex box. “I can take care of this. Do you understand what I’m saying.”
Shit, she was already way over her skis, except maybe the woman would solve this problem by refusing, even with that little cognitive adjustment.
She’d be getting herself killed, of course.
Maybe not tonight, maybe not next week, but eventually good ol’ Eddie with the grabby hands and the temper was going to put her on life support.
“How,” came the whisper.
“I’ll make sure he can’t hurt you anymore. That’s all you need to know.”
“Who are you.”
The demand was presented in a flat tone, as if there had been a lot of out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire’s for her.
“Just a friend,” Denne lied.
Those frightened eyes went up and down, clearly measuring her savior, and Denne considered herself from an outsider’s POV.
She was on the tall side, with skin the same tone as the woman’s own.
As always, she was dressed in black slacks and a black button-down, with black Nikes.
She’d never given a crap about clothes, and the midnight wardrobe was so she could easily step in and waitress if things got too busy or they needed a sub.
Her hair was in thirty-four braids back from her face, following the tradition of one per year of life, and the length was left to flow down her back in a profusion of waves that she straightened every couple of months.
No makeup because who had time for slopping chemicals on the face.
No jewelry even though there was a vault of the shit back in the palace.
Nothing special. Nothing unusual. And the lie had worked for the last ten years, ever since she’d started coming to Sal’s right after her transition.
None of the people here knew what she was.
And those who thought they knew the “who” of her were elderly humans remembering her dad when he took over the place from the original Sal’s descendants some thirty-five years ago: She was the daughter taking over the running of the joint.
At least that was the truth, not deception.
Not because she particularly cared about the restaurant, though. She’d just had to do it. After all, how could a man not age, at all, in three and a half decades? iAm had to take a break for a generation, and in another twenty-five years, he could come back and pretend to be her son.
Humans had such short lives.
“He’s very strong.” The woman cleared her throat. “Eddie… is so strong.”
Denne lowered her chin and stared out from under her brows. “So am I.”