Page 54 of Roma King
ZARA
THE HUNTER AND THE RABBIT
We check Sarah’s apartment one more time before we leave.
She isn’t there.
When we step outside, the rain has mercifully stopped, and the skies are clear, but it’s frigidly cold. The night air stings as I draw it down into my lungs. Pasha still hasn’t said anything more about the picture I showed him. He hasn’t said anything at all. He remains silent as the grave while we walk the four blocks over to a bar on Jefferson. I decided it wasn’t smart to go to Hitchin’s even though it’s much closer; if Garrett or Waylon saw us in there, drinking together, they would have started hurling punches and asked questions later. A new place, filled with unfamiliar faces, seemed appropriate. When we arrive outside the bar—The Electric Owl—Pasha halts, glaring up at the neon signage, his face unreadable.
“What is it?”
“Owls areprikaza. Bad luck,” he says. “They’re an omen of death.”
“Oh. Well—”
Pasha rips the door open, the action an angry one, and he waves me inside.
“We can go somewhere else if you want,” I say.
He shakes his head. “The Rivins decided to stop letting superstition rule their lives a while back. And besides. It’s not a real owl.”
Inside, the bar is flooded with dim, electric blue lighting, and there are little mechanical owls all over the place, perched on top of the beer taps, on the glass shelves, and roosting on top of the metal rail that runs the whole way around the large room. Pasha doesn’t react. Doesn’t mention the cute little fuckers even once as he heads toward the back and picks out a booth. I slide in opposite him, wrestling my arms out of my coat.
“Aren’t you cold?” I ask. He’s much drier now than he was when he first showed up at my apartment, but there’s no way his leather jacket has dried out. Without giving it much apparent thought, he removes the jacket and tosses it down onto the bench beside him. I nearly gasp when I see the huge, vivid purple bruise on his arm, just below the sleeve of his t-shirt. “What thehelldid you do to yourself?”
He follows my gaze, looking down at his arm. “Someone clipped me.” He stops there, as if that’s explanation enough.
“Clipped you how? In acar? That’s one serious bruise.”
He treats me with a salacious smirk. “You sound concerned, Firefly. I have plenty more bruises, if you want to see them.”
The waitress saves me from having to stutter and stammer out a frustrated response. She arrives at the table with a small tablet in her hand. “What can I get you?”
“Whiskey. And a shot of tequila.”
“I’ll have an apple juice please.”
The waitress doesn’t look impressed. She stalks off to get our drinks, and Pasha leans back in his chair, letting his head rest against the back of the booth. His neck is exposed, and I find myself covertly checking out the strong muscles of his chest and his shoulders. With the blue light washing over him, he looks like some sort of futuristic god. I realize, with no small amount of irony, that he’s no god. He is just a king.
When the waitress returns, she sends an appreciative glance in Pasha’s direction. Not that he notices. He picks up his glass of whiskey and pushes the tequila toward me, sending the shot glass sliding across the table.
“I’m not a big drinker.”
He arches his right eyebrow. “Why not? Don’t wanna be hungover for the job you don’t currently go to?”
Asshole.
“If you don’t want it, that’s fine, Firefly. I’ll happily knock it back. But after the day you’ve had…”
He’s right. I have had a hellish day. I’ve actually had a hellish couple of weeks. I pick up the shot and I dump it into the apple juice that’s sitting in front of me, hoping it will mask the taste. Technically, I should make a point ofnotdrinking anything at all. I don’t like being coerced into anything, least of all loosening the tight grip I hold on my mental faculties, but honestly, I’m hoping the tequila might take the edge off.
I don’t know what to make of this man.
He’s unknowable in the most infuriating way. Quiet and reserved, sarcastic and arrogant, yet with a touch of self-deprecating humor that’s completely at odds with his outward presentation to the world.
He takes a swig of his whiskey, his eyes finding mine in the half light. “You’re looking at me like I was just served up to you on a plate and you’re wondering what I taste like,” he states.
“I amnotwondering what you taste like.”
