Page 37 of Quiet
“Isa, can I get your digits? I want to ask you about modeling this summer. I have a project I’m working on I think you’ll be perfect for.” Tor was perched at Isa’s side with an eager expression.
Wordlessly, Isa unlocked his phone and held it out, barely noticing when Tor took it. Ninety percent of his attention was on ignoring Briar now. The girl looked up from Briar’s work and glanced at Isa, letting out a peal of laughter.
“I’ll text you later, okay?”
“Sure . . .” Isa said without actually understanding what he was agreeing to. What was so funny about Isa that a stranger needed to laugh about it?
“Great!”
The girl slid her arms around Briar’s shoulders, and the large studio became too narrow and constricting. Isa needed to get out of there. Now, before he threw up.
“I have to go,” he managed to say before racing for the door. He only kept from breaking into a run until he cleared the door. Once he was in the empty hallway, he sprinted for the stairwell.
Chapter15
Briar
He noticed the second Isa bolted from the room. Of course, he had. He’d been so painfully aware of Isa, how could he not notice everything the boy did?
“Hey, you forgot your phone!”
What was Tor doing with Isa’s phone? Apparently,somethinghad escaped him while he was busy dealing with Molly. She’d decided to come over and torment him for some reason. Once she realized he’d done nothing but draw Isa all evening, there was no shaking her.
“Was Isa crying?” Kit asked Bea quietly, but not quiet enough to escape Briar’s sensitive hearing. “Do you think he’s okay?”
Briar was on his feet before he realized, shrugging Molly off and storming over to snatch Isa’s phone out of Tor’s hand. He dashed out of the studio, only to find the hallway empty.
He heard the door to the stairwell slam, and Briar took off down the hallway. What had made Isa cry? Nothing should make Isa cry. Briar would find and obliterate whatever—or whoever—had made Isa cry.
Alex told him to play it cool, to stop being so heavy-handed with his pursuit and let Isa come to him. Clearly Alex had no idea what he was talking about. Letting Isa come to him had only resulted in Briar not noticing when something made him cry.
Once he was in the stairwell, he stopped, expecting to hear the clattering of footsteps as Isa ran down the stairs, but there was only silence. Had he’d been mistaken? Maybe Isa had gone into an empty classroom and not the stairwell. He turned around, intent on checking every room, but paused when he heard a sad, tiny gasping noise come from down the stairs.
It sounded a bit like someone trying to muffle the sound of crying.
“Isa?”
The sound cut off abruptly, and the stairwell was filled with silence.
Hesitantly, Briar went down the steps, taking them slower than usual in case he scared Isa away. If it was Isa.
When he rounded the landing, he saw Isa sitting in the middle of the stairs wiping his eyes hastily. When he saw Briar, he shot to his feet and started to run down the stairs. Briar reached the next landing seconds after Isa and crowded him against the corner, planting an arm against the wall so he couldn’t escape.
“Who did this?” Briar asked. He tried to see Isa’s face, but the boy ducked his head and refused to look at him.
A tear trailed down one cheek, and Briar wiped it away with his thumb, smudging the glittering pink blush Alice had applied earlier.
“What’s wrong?” Briar turned Isa’s face, forcing him to look up. Isa’s starlight eyes shimmered with tears. Briar was going to kill someone. It was good his brother was a lawyer.
At first, he thought Isa would refuse to answer. His shoulders were hunched, and he looked a lot like Briar had felt when he was younger and forced into social situations he didn’t know how to deal with.
But then something in the depths of Isa’s eyes hardened, and a transformation came over him. He straightened his spine, squared his shoulders, and looked Briar dead in the eyes.
“Nothing. Nothing happened to me, no one did anything to me. I’m tired and I want to go home.”
Briar narrowed his eyes. Isa was lying to him. Again.
Isa tried to squeeze through the space between the wall and Briar. He slammed his other hand against the wall, trapping Isa and making the boy flinch.
