“Yeah…” Double blinking back to reality, I pat the sweat already forming on my forehead, taking the rest of the stairs and leaving Xene to… be Xene.
“What?! You didn’t like it?!” Xene hollers after me.
“It was, uh…” Rolling my lips over my shoulder at him, I lose all interest in ego stroking, going back to my thing without finishing my sentence.
I know I shouldn’t, it’s probably a waste of time, but the idea of checking if the office door is locked has me biting my nails and pushing into a mission through the tunneled trees.
“I shouldn’t,” I huff, stopping and spinning around on the trail, almost taking the initiative to head back to the house. But I’m pivoting back toward the park, crunching grass and twigs that seem so loud over the sounds of a busy afternoon. “I have to. I need to. It’s, like, the only thing that makes sense to do… Or I could go back to Odder Than an Oddity.”
Getting through the gate, I step out onto the pavement, into the weaving streams of mechanical bodies going in opposite directions, and start oscillating over my options, murmuring, “The office is closer. I could go there, check the door, and if it’s locked, I’ll go see what the spines are about.”
Now that I’ve made up my mind for what seems to be the first time ever, I wait for a decent opening and then fly past Admission, entering thechime of the gift shop and hiking up the stairs. Not expecting the doorknob to turn, the rush of adrenaline has me exerting too much force I predicted the mechanisms to resist against.
Climbing the last step at the same time as my aggressive twist, gravity projects my body forward, following the swing of the door that was supposed to be locked.
My stomach plummets, flailing quick enough to break my fall with my hands, my shin banging off the edge of the doorway. I’m too embarrassed to let out the yelp of pain squeezing my throat. Even if it was just the ghost that haunts this room that saw, it’s still pretty debilitating to even think about hobbling out of here with a big, giant knot protruding from my leg bone.
“Bunny?”
Razor’s voice introducing the hustle of shoes across the floor locks me up in a state of panic, my eyes rounding into saucers.
His hands hook underneath my arms, lifting me up to my feet.
Oh, my God, he saw that.
Trapping a whine on the back of my tongue, I steady myself, looking up at him with a flaming face. “Thought that was locked.”
Worriedly searching me, he rubs down my arm, shooting his narrow eyes up. “If you thought it was locked, why were you tryin’ to get in here?”
The faint squeak of the chair splits my focus, stuttering out my answer while taking in a familiar kid playing on the computer. “I just… I-I… I want-”
“Your file,” he assumes.
Hearing him say my answer distracts me from the kid, and the aggravation in my shin becomes a blip in the sea drowning me. I can’t reallysay anything. I mean, I don’t try to. I just look at him like a deer blinded by headlights.
Skating his fingers along mine, he sighs, patting his thigh before nodding curtly and stepping back. “You know what? Fine.” Leaning back onto the desk, catching the attention of the kid, he folds his arms up to watch the confusion blanch my face. “Get in the Globe with us tonight, show me you’re capable of handling something you know is hard, then give me the rest of night to have your undivided attention… and I’ll sit and go through all that shit with you in the morning. Bright and early.”
“Wait, really?”
“Yeah.”
Entering a staring contest that seems to be thickening tension opposed to drumming my heart with excitement, the aquamarine haze filtering over him pulls my attention to the empty tank.
“Sounded like they were haulin’ a body.”
What the fu…
They… They wouldn’t. Where would they put him in the trailer? Surely, he would stink rather quickly since there’s nothing preserving him there. Or would they continue to preserve him? Did they cut him up?
Bacon crackles in my head, twisting my stomach with a repulsive thought ofthatbeing the breakfast Duse and Gwen cooked for everyone this morning.
“Don’t worry about that, little bunny,” Razor drawls lazily, shooting me a killer smirk. “Thefishare safe in another tank so I can clean this one.”
Because the tempting lift of his lip isn’t enough for my brain to remember. He has to add in a wink to engrave the visual of him being in control.
“What kind of fish?” the kid asks, curiously looking back and forth between us, his hand frozen in a claw by the PC like he’s waiting for a disc to eject.
He’s quite literally a child, but the question is convincing my nervous system that I’m being interrogated and it’s kicking the heat back up into my face. I look at Razor, widening my eyes just enough to get him to pull something out of his butt.
