17. Mira

17

MIRA

"We're really cranking it up to eleven." I barely resist chaining myself to the bumper of Evan's SUV as I watch hordes of people stream into the many, many exits of the outdoor mall in front of us. "Maybe we should quit while we're ahead. Lunch was a success."

"Success" might be a stretch, considering I spent ten minutes crying on the floor of what turned out to be the men's restroom. But, after that, I sat, I ate, I didn't hyperventilate.

So, yeah. Success.

"Nuh-uh." Taylor squeezes my cheek. "Say it with me: Vitamin D. This counts as our walk today."

"Bit public for a walk. Ever heard of a park?" I ask.

I'm not sure I'd trust any place with too many trees, though. I also don't want to be completely exposed.

Okay, maybe Zane should just rent out a gym with a walking track and I'll become a mole person who doesn't require sunlight.

"Have you ever heard of Lululemon?" Jemma bumps my hip. "I need new yoga pants. All of mine are worn out in the bum. It looks like I have a saggy diaper."

I doubt it. Jemma has never looked anything other than photo ready and she knows it. She's just being nice.

"While you shop for leggings, I need some of those juice glasses from Anthropologie." Rachelle is studying the mall map on her phone, creating a game plan. "Their website says they have some in stock. Who wants to come with me to scope things out? I want the bumblebee print, but I'll settle for cherries."

"No splitting up!" I yelp.

"But—" Rachelle holds out her phone to show me a picture of a drinking glass with little bumblebees pressed around the sides. "—I need a full set of these."

"No, we need to stick together. Right, Evan?" I snap my fingers for Evan to jump in and support me.

His silence is deafening.

I spin around to scowl at him and he shrugs. "You are my primary objective. I'm not being paid to watch anyone else."

So, if something goes sideways inside, Evan will protect me at the expense of my friends? "Then I'm not going."

"Vitamin D!" Taylor bellows.

At the same time, Rachelle loops her arm through mine and hands me her phone. "Look, Lululemon and Anthropologie are right across from each other. We don't even need to split up."

Jemma takes my other arm and the two of them together manage to propel me towards the building. "We stick together and we shop together. Then we eat giant pretzels together."

I can't imagine eating a thing. My stomach is in enough of a pretzel knot as it is.

"Whose arm do I get to hold?" Taylor complains from behind us. "You interested in being my escort, Mr. Bodyguard?"

"I should keep both hands free." Evan doesn't sound the least bit persuaded, even though Taylor brought out her sultry voice. He's in full business mode right now.

It makes me feel a little better about the hornet's nest we're walking into.

"Do I need to remind you that you have a boyfriend?" I call back.

Taylor laughs. "I wasn't asking for him to be that kind of an escort. Besides, my boyfriend made himself very memorable this morning. Twice ."

I wrinkle my nose. "Gross."

"It's about time Daniel found himself a good girl," Rachelle cheers. "He's too nice to be single."

Taylor leans between our heads, her voice low. "Between the four of us, I'm not a good girl and Daniel isn't all that nice, if you know what I mean. "

I stick out my tongue. "I repeat: gross."

Deep down—actually, not deep at all; it's pretty close to the surface—I'm happy for Taylor and Daniel. I want them both to be happy.

I just don't want to hear about it. Ever.

"Zane and Daniel are finally paired off. Now, it's time for Davis and Nathan." Jemma taps her chin. "Do either of you have any cute friends?"

"Half of my friends have already slept with Davis. The other half have slept with Nathan." Taylor shakes her head. "Those boys get around."

"And all of my friends are here," I admit sheepishly. "I'm pathetic."

"Or," Taylor offers, "spin team: you're selective and demand quality from your relationships. Hence, the top-tier selection of women you see before you."

"I second that," Rachelle pipes up.

Jemma lays her head on my shoulder as we walk. "Third. Nothing pathetic about us."

Jemma spoke too soon.

Thanks to the open air setup of the shopping plaza, I manage to make it through the doors and past the first few storefronts just fine. The wide walkways keep traffic flow light and there are narrow openings between buildings that work like little alleys to cut across to the other side of the circle or get back to the parking lot. I clock each and every potential exit as we walk, and I know Evan is three steps behind me doing the same thing.

Then someone screams.

I jolt so hard my knees almost buckle before I realize the woman at the sunglasses hut isn't screaming; she's laughing at something the man at the perfume cart said.

Jemma and Rachelle are a few paces ahead, so they don't notice. But Taylor grabs my elbow. "All good there, Mimi? You've got your newborn baby deer face on again."

"Fine," I squeak out. "Just jumpy."

Which is true.

I'm also jumpy when one of the teenagers next to us drops their phone on the concrete.

I'm jumpy when a bird caws in the ornamental trees separating the sidewalk into right and left.

And I'm jumpy when anyone decides to dare exit through a door I happen to be walking past.

By the time we make it to the other side of the plaza where the shops we want are, I'm not sure my nerves can handle the long walk back. I'm like one of those fainting goats: one more scare and I'm going to go stiff-legged and hit the ground.

"Pathetic" might have been an understatement.

"Leggings or glasses first?" Jemma asks, holding out her two hands like she's Morpheus in The Matrix .

I want to ask for a third pill—one that poofs me back to the condo and dresses me in Zane's boxers.

Rachelle chews on the corner of her lip. "The bumblebee glasses are really hard to find…"

"Weirdly specific juice glasses, it is," Taylor decides, leading the charge and dragging me along with her.

I cast a quick look over my shoulder and Evan gives me a wave as he follows us through the door.

He's watching over us. We're fine.

Until we walk inside and into the middle of what has to be a mosh pit.

People are jammed in shoulder to shoulder. There's a line from the registers at the back of the store all the way to the front doors. And people are still shopping, cutting back and forth through the line and winding around intricate displays.

"Oh, no!" Rachelle groans. "It's the house and home sale."

"What's the house and home sale?" I ask as a woman reaches past my face without so much as a glance in my direction to grab a set of dish towels with dogs printed on them. "Is it a cult?"

"No, but it means my juice glasses are probably gone."

Taylor whispers in my ear, "Definitely a cult."

I manage a laugh, but then a new wave of people pushes through the doors and we're washed into the crowd. I can see Jemma above the crowd because she is a walking, talking goddess amongst us mortals, but Rachelle and Taylor are nowhere to be seen.

"Hey! That's my teapot." A woman lunges around me to snatch a floral teapot from the shelf behind me. She only avoids elbowing me in the ribs because I dodge out of the way.

"This has got to be against fire code," I mutter.

There's a loud whistle, and I spin around to see Evan waving an arm over his head. He has eyes on me, and he points towards the back of the store.

The last thing I want is to go deeper into this chaos, but there's no way to tell him that without crowd surfing over the heads of people willing to maim for home goods. So I duck my chin and head towards the back corner.

But with every step, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I feel like someone is watching me.

It's absurd, because I'm surrounded by people on every side. Of course someone is watching me. Evan, for one. My friends are in the crowd somewhere, too. They could be watching me.

But the sensation trickling down my spine is specific and unrelenting.

I scan the faces around me, but I don't recognize anyone. They also don't seem to be paying any attention to me. What am I compared to overpriced vases and golden snail bookends?

But I glance over my shoulder, anyway.

And immediately face forward again.

My heart is pounding and I don't even know what I saw. Not really. It was just a flash of someone behind me. A figure that ducked behind a shelf of coffee mugs before I could see any identifying features.

If it was Dante, I'd know…

Unless he's working with someone else. Unless he, God forbid, has a girlfriend. Maybe he's told her lies about me and she wants to help him.

I just need to get to the back corner of the store. Evan will meet me there and I can tell him what's going on.

But I can't stop myself from looking back again.

As soon as I turn around, the same person in a dark jacket squats down behind a rack of floral bath towels.

"Shit," I hiss.

An older woman scowls at me and turns in the opposite direction, a squirrel-shaped vase clutched to her chest. I ignore her. It's easy because all I can hear is my blood thrumming through my veins and the distant Psycho -style music screeching ominously in the back of my head.

Dante is here.

He found me.

I look around, but I can't see Evan, so I have no idea if he can see me.

Will Dante make this fast and stab me in the middle of this crowd? Or will he manage to drag me away from my friends and my bodyguard so he can take his time with this revenge? Will I disappear without a trace?

I start shoving people out of the way, ignoring their protests and grumblings. I can see the "Fitting Room" sign hanging from the ceiling, but a wall of women sifting through bed linens are in the way. I divert through a room full of drawer knobs and puzzles. What is this place?

Just as I duck around the knobs and cut back over towards the fitting rooms, a dark-clad figure blocks the doorway in front of me.

This is the end.

A scream lodges in my throat and I stumble back into a small pyramid of puzzles just as I realize my stalker isn't Dante.

The puzzles crash to the floor, but the store is so loud that almost no one notices. I barely even notice.

I'm too busy staring at the woman in front of me.

"Hanna?" I breathe.

I used to dread every time she made an appearance. This time, I'm almost relieved.

"Mira," she sneers. "I thought that was you. It wasn't hard to pick you out. I just looked for the person barreling through the crowd like she thought she was better than everyone else."

My brain is having a hard time keeping up with the situation. Are we in danger or not?

It's hard to tell, but the deep scowl lines around Zane's ex-assistant's mouth can't be a good sign.

"Listen, I don't know what this is about, but I don't want?—"

"Don't act like you're innocent," she fumes, stalking towards me. "You know exactly what you did. I worked with Zane for years before you showed up."

"Would you like a medal?" I drawl.

Her eyes blaze. "No, I want my job!"

She lunges towards me, and I just barely manage to hop over the mess of puzzle boxes at my feet and get out of her reach. "What the hell is wrong with you? I'm not the one who got you fired."

Even if Evan is close by, he's probably on the other side of the wall. He might have lost me in the crowd and not know where I am. It's not ideal, but at least Dante isn't here. I can manage Hanna on my own just fine.

"It's not a coincidence that you show up and I'm out of a job. You were threatened by me," she spits. "You turned Zane against me because you were jealous."

"Zane and I almost never talked about you." I have to bite back a laugh. "Why would I talk about you? I barely even know you."

"But I know Zane." Hanna's face is as red as her hair. Her eyes are tiny pinpricks locked on mine as she reaches into the nearest bin and pulls out a hefty glass doorknob.

Okay, red alert. Crazy woman with a makeshift weapon.

"I've been there for him for years ," she hisses through clenched teeth, as if she hadn't made that point abundantly clear already. "I was waiting for him to realize how perfect we'd be together. I was loyal to him."

"Is that why you didn't tell him his son was in the hospital?" I roll my eyes. " I didn't get you fired. You got yourself fired by being a selfish bitch."

Hanna's mouth opens like she's going to scream. If she does, I don't hear it. I'm too focused on the doorknob she's swinging at my head.

Years of kickboxing takes hold of the situation before I can even think.

I swat Hanna's doorknob-wielding arm out of the way with my left and uppercut with my right.

It's a solid hit.

Almost in slow motion, Hanna's teeth clack together. Her head snaps back and she sprawls backward, taking another pyramid of puzzles and two bins of doorknobs down with her.

It's a big enough crash that people take notice.

A woman with an armful of tapered candles bends down next to Hanna to check on her—ignoring me shaking out my fist less than a foot away.

"She hit me," Hanna howls, pointing a trembling finger at me as blood dribbles down her chin. "She attacked me."

"I defended myself!"

"I saw the whole thing. It was self-defense." Taylor plants herself next to me and circles an arm in the air. "We need security over here!"

"Oh, I don't know if?—"

Before I can even get the words out, a severe-looking woman with an earpiece walks over with a security guard already in tow. "I want both of you out of here. Now."

"Bullshit!" Taylor argues. "My best friend was attacked in your store. She's the victim!"

"She hit me first!" Hanna cries, holding her jaw with both hands.

Taylor looms over her. "Open your mouth and I'll hit you again."

Hanna shrinks back and the woman with the candles wanders off to stand with the growing crowd of onlookers.

I grab Taylor's shoulders and pull her back. "Down, girl."

"Was it really self-defense?" she asks under her breath. "Did she swing at you? Are you okay?"

"She tried." I study my right hand. My knuckles are turning purple. "That's the first time I've ever punched anyone. Turns out jawbones are hard."

It also turns out…

I know how to fight.

Which means I have options. I can run, but I can also plant my feet and defend myself. I can fight back.

Something like pride swells in my chest.

The security guard adjusts his belt and then waves for me to follow him. "Our policy is to remove anyone who is being violent. You both need to go before I call the police."

When I don't move, he starts trying to usher me towards the door, even though Hanna is still lying on the floor whimpering for all to hear.

Suddenly, a shadow falls over us. The security guard's eyes flare wide, and I don't need to look behind me to know Evan has entered the fray.

"And you need to keep your hands off of my client if you'd like to keep them attached to your wrists," Evan growls.

The manager frowns. "‘Client'?"

Her eyes dart from me to Evan and back again. I can see the questions mounting. Who is this woman? Why is she so important?

Evan takes the manager aside and explains the situation to her—who I am, who he works for. Within minutes, the guard is asking for security footage and Hanna is being escorted out of the store.

"Finally," Taylor groans. "That bitch needed to be put in her place months ago. Better late than never, I guess." She turns to me, running her hands down my arms. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I grin. "I'm great."