Carter
“Whereisshe?!”Ibellow as I finally make my way into the hall with Jaxon’s dressing room.
It has been utter chaos since that damn woman started live streaming her attempted break-in.
“The police took her to the precinct two minutes ago,” one of the men guarding Jaxon’s dressing room—I can’t be fucked to remember his name right now—says.
“What?” I ask.
“The police on-site took her to the station,” the man on the left side of the door tries, like maybe saying the same thing with slightly different words will make it clearer.
“Why would they take Kelsey to the police station?”
“Oh. No. She’s in here,” the man on the left—Nash, that’s his name—says, his brows pulled together in confusion. My heartbeat is an erratic mess, the same way it’s been since Kelsey ran out of thesecurity room earlier, leaving me to handle the logistics while she physically confronted the intruder.
I know she can hold her own, but, goddamn it, I explicitly told her not to put herself in danger, and then she goes and apprehends the womanon her own.
My hand on the knob, I force myself to calm down before I enter the room. Finally, I push open the door to Jaxon’s dressing room. My eyes find her instantly. She’s sitting on the makeup chair, her eyes bright as she presses a white tissue of some kind to her head.
Her long blonde hair is starting to come out from the knot she has it captured in at the back of her head. Fiery blue eyes track my movement, a hint of pain flashing through them. It breaks my heart, which in turn brings my rage roaring back to life.
“What the fuck, Kelsey?” I snarl at her, crossing my arms across my chest in the hope of physically restraining myself from pulling her into my arms and inspecting her injury. My eyes can see clearly enough that she’s fine, but my soul needs more reassurance. Reassurance that it is neither entitled to nor likely to get.
“I think the words you’re looking for aregood job,” she says, as if we’re having a fun chat while out at dinner. Not like she just put her life in danger while I sat in a fucking room and made phone calls, watching her sprint through the stadium as her team worked to keep eyes on her from the sky. The sheer dread I felt when the door to the storage room closed and I lost all sight of her will haunt me for a very long time.
“That was stupid. If you were anyone else right now, you’d be fired,” I say from the spot I’ve taken up next to the door. I want to tell her tolie down on the couch, but I’m smart enough to know that will go over poorly.
“Excuse me?” she asks, her voice dripping with venom. “I did exactly what I should’ve. And I did it successfully, might I add.”
“Successful? You call getting injured on the job successful?”
“I call taking down and apprehending an intruder who was attempting to break into our client’s dressing room a success. Taking a paint can to the side of the head is a minor inconvenience. Plus, it’s just a scratch,” Kelsey says, pulling the tissue off her forehead to reveal a half-inch-long cut running parallel to her hairline.
It’s not quite a scratch, but it’s far better than the image Lila had sent through to me of her leaving the storage room minutes ago. Logically, I know head wounds bleed a lot, but knowing it and seeing blood dripping down her face in a grainy image are two different things.
“How did you even know I got hurt?” she asks after a pause.
“Lila sent me an image of you leaving the room.”
“She’s not even supposed to be working on this.”
“Did you really think your team would keep this quiet—at least among themselves?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes, swiveling in her chair to look into the mirror behind her. I watch as she looks around for water and, finding none, spits on the tissue before scrubbing at the dried blood on her temple.
“I’ll get you some water,” I say. “You’ll get an infection that way.”
“I think I’ll manage,” she says. “Why don’t you focus on something actually important, like what the fuck happened out there.”
“She had a security badge,” I tell her, summarizing what little we know. The woman, Juliet Osmond, had flashed a security badge to thestadium security officer to get back here. She came in before the show finished, so the full backstage team wasn’t down here—just the few men guarding the important doors. It’s unclear what she was after, other than the picture she claims she was trying to take in Jaxon’s dressing room. Not even with Jaxon. Just in the room.
“Did you hear what she said when I asked her why?” Kelsey asks, the first she’s interrupted since I started the debrief. Her eyes are filled with a mischief I feel is unwarranted at this specific moment.
“Something about losing a bet,” I say, my eyes still scanning her for signs of any other injury.
“She told me she lost her fantasy football league, and this was her punishment.”
“She’s American?”
