AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was on the train before I could think about what I was really doing, shoving through the crowd of people trying to find seats. “Fawn!” I yelled, voice hoarse, drawing eyes my way. But I didn’t care. I pushed past a guy about my age who grumbled at me. Hope grew with every step. It was her. It had to be her. It didn’t matter that her hair was dark. I was sure Fawn’s blond had been out of a bottle. She could have so easily gone back to brunette. Or been forced to. Heads turned my way, all except the woman who sat with headphones in her ears. My heart thumped.
I stopped at her seat. “Fawn.” The word came out a choked plea.
The woman took the earbud from her ear and turned to face me. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”
My heart sank.
It wasn’t her.
I sat down hard in the empty seat beside her as the train pulled away, and doubled over, head in my hands so no one would see the agony I was sure I had plastered all over my face. “Never mind,” I said to the woman. “I thought you were someone else.”
Fawn’s photo was still clenched in my hand, and the woman peered at it, then paused. “This is the woman you’re searching for?”
I glanced over at her, and this time, instead of being struck by how much she resembled Fawn, I was struck by how pretty she was. Long, smooth dark hair was styled in loose curls around her face. Her eyes were the same shape and color as Fawn’s, but while Fawn’s held a naïvety that came from being so young, this woman’s held a wealth of experience. There were tiny lines at the sides of her eyes, and I guessed her to be around my age.
She indicated the photo crinkling in my fingers.
I smoothed it out before handing it over to her. “Her name is Fawn. Have you seen her?”
The woman shook her head slowly, then her gaze returned to mine, wandering all over my face curiously. “Why are you looking for her? She your girlfriend?”
I shook my head. “No. A friend from work. She went missing a few weeks ago. We believe she’s being held against her will by her ex.”
The woman’s eyes sharpened. “That’s horrible. Where do you work?”
“Saint View Strip Club.”
The woman raised one of her perfect, dark eyebrows. “You’re a stripper?”
I wondered how I’d thought she was like Fawn. Her expressions were all wrong. Too full of confidence and curiosity. Fawn was just as beautiful but innocent and often unsure of herself. I would have never been able to tell her about my past or the things I’d done. She was too sweet to understand why. Her name suited her in that regard. She was as innocent as a baby deer.
“Yeah, a stripper. Among other things.”
The woman crossed her long legs and twisted to gaze at me. “Like what?”
I wasn’t in the mood to come up with a lie. Why bother? I didn’t know this woman. She could judge me all she wanted. “I sleep with women—men too, sometimes actually—for money.”
I waited for it. The judgment.
It didn’t come.
But the train driver’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Next station is Providence.”
The woman glanced out the window, then back at me. “That’s my stop.”
I stood to let her pass.
She cocked her head to one side, studying me while she waited for the train to slow. “Nice to meet you…”
“Augie,” I supplied.
“Augie,” she repeated back. “I hope you find your friend.”
Our gazes held for a moment, and something flickered inside me. Something that felt a whole lot like attraction, but it had been so long since I’d felt that in any real way, I couldn’t be sure. By the time I recovered, she was moving toward the doors.
“What’s your name?” I called to her.
But she didn’t answer. She already had her phone to her ear as the doors whooshed open. She’d clearly already forgotten all about me. “Vincent?” Her side of the conversation floated back to me. She paused, then her eyebrows furrowed together. “Scythe, then. Even better. We’ve got a problem, brother. A big one.”
