Page 35 of Blood Lust

Fang950: We can’t. But do they deserve our truth?

MoonDance77: Doesn’t matter now. They’re gone.

She logs off suddenly.

Just like that.

No goodbye. No sign-off. Just a blinking message:

MoonDance77 has signed off.

I sit there staring at the screen, feeling the void she leaves behind like a hole punched in a wall.

I type anyway. Even though I know she won’t see it.

Fang950: I would stay for you.

Chapter Thirty

Finally, she walks into Heroes again.

I’m working behind the bar again. Shirt pressed. Hair damp. Fresh shave.

She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t have to. She’s aware of me and seemingly everyone else, all at once.

I pour her white wine before she asks.

The wine meets her stool at the same moment she does. Third from the end, strategically positioned, clear sight-lines to every exit, no mirrors to betray her in the liquor cabinet’s glass.

Always thinking, this one.

“You know my order?” she asks, surprised. The first words she’d ever spoken to me directly.

“I stood and watched, did my best to remember.”

“Security, right? By the door?”

“For a few weeks, yeah. I’d rather tend bar.”

We don’t talk much after that. She seemed a little freaked out that I knew her order; in the very least, it got her attention. So much for staying in the shadows.

Once or twice, when she raised the glass to her lips, her eyes flicked to mine. Just for a second. Then she drinks.

I feel it like an earthquake in my ribs.

***

Later that night, I log on immediately when I get home. She’s there, waiting.

MoonDance77: My bartender was quiet tonight.

I damn near hyperventilate. She’s talking aboutme!

Fang950: Maybe he was nervous.

MoonDance77: Why?

Fang950: Maybe he felt seen.

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