At least until Roman had appeared. Then it was all about that beastly specimen.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish the thoughts. I couldn’t get some stupid, girly crush on a guest, especially not when I’d been working so hard at keeping to myself. I’d moved to Sea Isle three years ago, after the incident, and ever since then, I hadn’t done much dating or really much of anything at all.
I touched my belly where the scar tore me in half, hip to hip.
Winter said I was antisocial and wallowed too much. I said she was right, but I didn’t tell her why. Before the incident, I was an outgoing girl—I had lots of friends, liked big parties, always had a big smile on my face.
The world was great. Sunshine and flowers. Rainbows, ponies, unicorns, and all that crap.
But afterward, things changed.
“Get the fuck off me, pendejo. Vete a la verga, stupid asshole.” It was the Latina girl again, and she sounded pissed. Her voice echoed off the pier and the club walls, and I caught her shadow projected along the wooden slats.
Another voice, this one male. It was Manzi, but I couldn’t make out the words. He sounded angry, though, and I drifted toward them, heart racing.
What would he do to that poor girl, out here alone? Should I run inside and get Roman?
The girl let out a violent, pained gasp, like she’d been hit. I walked closer, one hand on my scar, the other at my throat like I needed to keep myself from screaming. I peered around the corner and saw them, backlit by streetlights beyond the parking lot.
The girl was down on her knees in front of a hulking shape. She stared up with a sneer and dabbed at her mouth with the back of her hand, then spit blood onto the wood.
Manzi stood over her, breathing hard.
“I told you not to embarrass me and this is what you do.”
“Fuck your mother, you weak little man. I told you the truth because you needed to know.”
He slapped her across the face. She gasped and clutched at her cheek but didn’t cry out.
I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t scream.
“You should’ve kept it to yourself then, you dumb bitch.” He pulled a gun from his waistband and held it against her head.
The girl went very, very still.
The rage drained from her face and her eyes went wide. Her lips dropped open—god, she was really pretty—and she put her hands up in the air.
“Okay, Manzi, let’s be careful, okay? I know I shouldn’t have slept with him. It was a very stupid mistake. I agree. You can slap me around. I deserve it. We both know that. But why bring out a gun? Why would you want to kill me?”
“You keep doing this, Dia. We keep playing this little fucking game, and you don’t seem to get it. Now maybe you’ll learn.” He sounded on the verge of losing his mind, his rage barely controlled. I didn’t know what to do, and as he stepped forward and pressed the gun against Dia’s head, I couldn’t move, couldn’t lift my limbs, couldn’t open my jaw.
My lips were stuck to my teeth.
My tongue was heavy and swollen.
My mouth was bone dry like chalk on a gravestone, and a buzzing pulse ran through my legs, an ice-cold sheen of fear that kept me frozen in place.
Just like that night, all over again. My fingers dug into the scar on my belly. The slash of pain. All that blood.
“Nobody has to know, baby,” Dia said softly, and her hands reached out like she wanted to pull him against her. “Come on, Manzi. You know how this goes. You fuck around, I fuck around, but I still love you, mi cielo. I always come back to you, mi rey, my king.”
“Why the fuck do you have to be like this, huh? Why the fuck do you always have to be like this?”
“Manzi, please—”
He pulled the trigger.
Her head jerked back and exploded outward in a cloud of red mist and skull shards and brain matter. She slumped down in a tangle of limbs, more blood pooling all around her gorgeous body, and I kept thinking, oh my god, oh my god, she was so pretty, my mind like a VCR on loop, like a rope thrown over a cliff. I took a single step forward, staring at Dia’s body as Manzi cursed and waved the gun around and stood over her grabbing at his hair like even he was shocked that he’d shot her—
I didn’t know what made him turn.
Maybe he felt me there, maybe he heard something.
But Manzi looked over his shoulder, and for one throat-clenching moment his eyes stuck to mine like daggers, and there was fear in his expression, definitely fear, but that quickly turned to anger as he leveled the gun right at my chest.