And everyone who might threaten that now knew exactly what would happen if they tried.
Chapter 12
Lena
Something was wrong with Randall.
I noticed it the second I walked into the gallery the next morning. He was at his desk, staring at his computer screen, but his hands were shaking as they hovered over the keyboard.
"Morning, Randall," I called out, heading toward the break room to make coffee.
He flinched.
I watched his shoulders jump a little and his coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug, while his eyes grew extremely wide.
"Morning," he muttered without looking up, his eyes fixed firmly on his screen like it held the secrets of the universe.
I paused, frowning. "You okay?"
"Fine. Just busy." His voice was clipped, tight, nothing like his usual friendly demeanor.
"Okay..." I drew out the word, waiting for him to look at me, to smile, to do anything that resembled normal Randall behavior.
He didn't.
As I went to make my morning coffee in the small break room, my fingers fumbled with the scoop and acid crawled upthe back of my throat like a centipede. Suddenly, everything felt too bright and the break room itself felt as if it were closing in on me. Even when I finally sat down at my desk, and took a sip of coffee, the sick feeling remained. Something was certainly off and I just couldn’t figure out what.
Throughout the rest of the day, Randall avoided me like I carried the plague. It was around ten when I went to make copies of pamphlets for the Tinker Mountain exhibit that we were hosting in three months, that Randall physically flattened himself against a wall to avoid brushing against me.
I tried to ask him about a client meeting, he delegated it to Sarah, the office manager, without explanation. When I came to ask him he grabbed his usual last coffee of the day and left so fast he nearly spilled it. When I needed his signature on a purchase order that came in just as I was about to walk out, he told me to leave it on his desk and he'd get to it later.
By lunch, even Sarah had noticed.
"What's going on with you and Randall?" she asked, leaning against my desk with her arms crossed.
"I have no idea," I said honestly. "He's been weird all day."
"Weird is an understatement. He looks like he's about to have a panic attack every time you get near him." She lowered her voice. "Did something happen between you two?"
"No! Nothing. We were fine at the art show last night." I thought back to the gallery event, trying to remember if I'd said or done anything that might have offended him.
Nothing stood out.
He'd been his usual touchy, friendly self, making jokes, complimenting my work with clients. And then Killian had appeared at my side, and we'd left early.
Killian.
The sick feeling in my stomach intensified.
"Maybe he's just having a bad day," I said weakly.
Sarah didn't look convinced, but she dropped it and went back to her desk.
I tried to focus on work, but I couldn't shake the image of Randall's face when I'd approached him that morning. The fear in his eyes. The way his hands had trembled.
That wasn't just having a bad day.
That was terror.
