Page 30 of Shatter

Except my apron's gone, and so are my shoes.

My hand slides off the window sash.

"I don't know." It comes out barely louder than the fan. "I don't know."

"Okay." He nods slowly. "Then maybe stay one more night. Figure it out in the daylight."

I stand at the window with the pink light on my face and my ribs on fire.

My eyes start burning, a slow hot sting behind the lids climbing until my vision swims.

I blink it back.

I'm not crying in front of him, not over a window.

"What does it mean?" I turn to face him fully. "What that man said last night. About your jacket."

He doesn't pretend not to understand.

His eyes go to the leather on the dresser, then back to me.

"It's a cut, not a jacket." He takes his time. "And it means nobody in this club touches you."

His eyes hold steady on mine, no flicker, no glance at the floor.

But his thumb rubs back and forth over his swollen knuckles, like he's working at a stain he can't get out.

I walk back to the bed one careful step at a time and lower myself down onto it inch by inch.

He doesn't get up to help me.

I pull the blanket up to my chin.

It smells like him.

"Hakon." I say it to the ceiling.

"Yeah?" The chair creaks.

"Thank you." I stare at the water stain on the ceiling. "For the window."

He doesn't answer for so long I think he's fallen asleep again.

"Anytime." The word comes out soft, half asleep.

When I wake again, sunlight is pouring in through the half-open window, bright and hot, and the chair by the door is empty.

The door is open wider than it was.

Voices murmur in the hall.

Then the door swings the rest of the way open, and a man fills it.

He's big, bigger than Hakon, with a thick dark beard shot through with gray at the chin and shoulders nearly touching both sides of the frame.

His cut hangs open over a black T-shirt, and the patch on the front reads President.

The back of my neck prickles before he says a word.