“Wedding Dress Girl, you up?” a soft voice asks on the other side of the door. “Waylon says it’s time to go. He’s waiting for you downstairs.”
“Persy?” I scramble to my feet. “Is that you?”
Her voice sounds different than it did last night. Gentle and more tentative.
A quiet scrape from below answers those questions, and when I look down, a piece of torn-off notepaper appears from underneath the door.
It has one word written on it.
Stephanie.
CHAPTER 24
I pick up the piece of paper Persy slid underneath the door with a single word written on it: Stephanie.
“Is this…” I start to ask.
But then, I snap my mouth close, thinking better of it. There might have been a reason she gave me this information quietly instead of in a conversation.
“Is this regarding what we talked about last night?” I ask instead.
“Yes, it is. You need to listen to your man,” she answers. “You need to learn how to obey him in all things. I don’t want you to be so upset the next time I see you. I want us to both be happy.”
Her words are frightening, but…her voice sounds stilted—flat to the point of comedy.
I read between the lines, translating her advice: Don't talk about this out loud in front of them. It will only get us both in trouble. This is a secret between just the two of us. But I trust you, and you can trust me. Maybe we can help each other get away from these guys.
That translation brings a spark of joy to my miserable heart, and I can only hope she understands me the same way I'm understanding her when I answer, “Yes, you're right. I'll figure out how to be better with Waylon.”
“What are you doing?” Heavy footsteps approach from outside the door, and the Louisiana-accented voice tells me it’s Hades—the other Reapers president from last night asking the question. The name at the bottom of that disgusting PROPERTY OF tattoo. “We sent you to fetch her, not chat.”
“I'm sorry,” Persy—no, Stephanie immediately answers. “I was just giving her some advice about obeying Waylon, so that stuff like yesterday doesn't happen anymore. You heard her last night. She was really upset.”
Hades doesn't answer her. But I can practically hear him staring her down in the thick silence. I imagine him scanning her face with those silver eyes of his and trying to figure out if she's lying to him.
Then the knob turns without warning.
I barely have time to stuff Stephanie's note in the front pocket of Doc's scrubs before the door opens to reveal Hades and the woman I should keep on calling Persy out loud.
He's dressed in head-to-toe black. And she's just the opposite. Powder tangerine booty shorts and a creamsicle orange crochet top—sunshine showing as much skin as a woman can get away with without violating any indecency laws.
After Hades opens the door, she carefully averts her eyes toward the floor, like a dog who’s been told to heel.
“Thanks for the advice,” I say, vowing on the inside that I’ll do whatever it takes to help her get out of this toxic mess she’s in with Hades.
Persy doesn't answer, just nods.
And Hades eyes me up and down with a hard look before telling me, “Waylon's waiting for you outside.”
He doesn’t look or appear anywhere near as friendly as he did last night.
But I don't have any luggage to fetch. So, I edge past him with a murmured, “Bye” for Persy.
When I reach the steps, though, the memory of what happened two days ago flashes across my mind. The tumbling down the stairs and waking up in a world of pain. On the morning I was supposed to get married.
My mind feebly takes a stab at processing everything that's happened since I woke up yesterday morning. Tries and fails.
So I’m pretty much a traumatized, confused mess as I walk down the stairs into the now quiet bar part of the roadhouse.
Not to mention sore as hell.
Too few hours of sleep on a hardwood floor was the worst thing I could've done after getting pushed down a set of stairs and punched by one guy—then roughly taken against the wall and forcibly placed on a motorcycle by another.
“Man, you look like death warmed over!” a cheery voice calls out, interrupting my walk of pain.
I look up to find Doc exactly where she stood last night behind the short end of the bar—just no longer topless. She’s dressed in a T-shirt with her long weave piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She holds up a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and something fisted inside the other.
“Coffee and four ibuprofen to go,” she explains. “I know yesterday had to be rough—I figured you could use an extra dose.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, gratefully accepting the black gold and pills.