He navigated through Kent, past local restaurants and grocery shops to a set of streets that felt more industrial, with parking lots of eighteen-wheelers, a tall contraption that might have been a concrete mixer, and short, wide warehouses with no windows. But as he approached the address Grayson had given him, cars began to line the curb again, and Reece had to park two streets over.
The address turned out to be a warehouse, which looked like every other windowless and unadorned warehouse in the area. But as he approached the door, it was opened before he could knock by a white man with a goatee, almost as tall as Diesel with a thick, strong build, like a teddy bear who could plow through a brick wall. He was wearing black slacks, a black T-shirt, and, inexplicably, a pair of black bunny ears on his bald head. “You Reece?”
Reece nodded warily.
The bouncer held the door open and muffled bass spilled out. “Diesel told me to keep an eye out for you. Come on in.”
Reece stepped through the doors into a different world—warm and inviting, with colorful lights set into the ceiling above a carpeted hall and a roped-off line of well-dressed people chattering excitedly with each other. The bass grew louder as Reece followed the bouncer toward the pair of double doors at the far end of the hall.
The doors suddenly swung open, letting the music out into the hall. “Hey, kiddo, you made it.”
Reece found himself breaking into a real smile to match Diesel’s. He didn’t meet many friendly faces these days; it was as welcome as a warm house on a winter day. “Hey yourself,” he said to Diesel, raising his voice over the music. “Do you know why Agent Grayson wanted me to come here?”
“Does he ever explain himself to anyone?” Diesel said wryly.
He was also wearing a pair of bunny ears. Reece furrowed his brow, but before he could ask, Diesel was pointing to the crates that had been stacked to form a makeshift bar on the other side of the room. “Ben’s on tonight too, if you want to say hi.”
Reece carefully threaded his way through the crowd, dodging to avoid any contact with the tipsy people dancing and gesturing. Ben Castillo, the bartender Reece had met in November, was mixing something in shiny cups while a woman with pink hair and tattoos covering her bare shoulders worked the cash register. They were both in gloves—and also bunny ears.
Reece leaned on the bar, which seemed to be made of spare wood, like someone had been about to build a deck and topped off the crates to form a bar instead. “Ben!”
Ben glanced his way and broke into a smile, waving.
And for all that Reece hated this entire business model, this was apparently the one place in Seattle he could go right now and be welcomed so easily and genuinely it made his throat tight. No, the people here weren’t empaths in the paranormal way, but you didn’t need paranormal abilities to be kind and empathetic, and in that way, people like Ben and Diesel were more exceptional than Reece was. No wonder business was booming.
Ben set the drink on the bar in front of a man in a suit and tie, and then he was making his way to Reece. He put his arms on the bar in a mirror of Reece and then leaned forward, his complicated hair falling over his brown eyes. “Hey, stranger. You want your Shirley Temple?”
Reece really did.
A few minutes later, Ben was putting Reece’s drink in front of him. “Is your hot and scary boyfriend here too?”
“Mywhat?” Reece said incredulously. “Are you talking about Agent Grayson?”
“How many hot and scary boyfriends do you have?”
Ben had dark circles under his eyes like Grayson, like Reece himself, and there was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there the last time they talked. But then, on that terrible night back in November, Ben had been the one to find the body of Stone Solutions’ head of IT dead in the McFeely’s server room, and Reece knew now it had been an empath behind everything, who’d put this sweet, friendly bartender through something like that.
“What’s with the ears?” Reece asked, instead of fighting Ben about Grayson.
Ben touched the headband with bunny ears. “We’re all wearing them the first week in the new place, as a tribute. It’s heartbreaking, what happened to Bunny; she was a sweetheart and we miss her.”
Not a lie. Reece bit his lip. Jamey had told him there’d been more casualties when Cora’s thralls attacked the club, but she hadn’t given him details about who had died. Bunny must have been one of the employees. She wasn’t just a part of the death toll to people who cared about her; Ben’s pain was real.
“I’m sorry,” Reece said. “That whole night—I’m just really sorry.” He leaned forward on the bar. “Are you okay? You found a body—I can’t, I can’t even—I’m so sorry.”
“It was bad,” Ben admitted. “But I’ll get through it. Therapy, sleep meds, that kind of thing. That night shook the whole place up, but we’re a pretty tight-knit group and we’re helping each other.”
An empath could have helped too. Could have helped sort through the overwhelming jumble of feelings that accompanied tragedies, or help them through the darkness of grief to find the light, to unbury the good feelings they couldn’t find on their own anymore.
Or at least, an empath who wasn’t Reece could have helped. Because the last person Reece had touched had almost died and he had no right to get his empathy anywhere near anyone. Possibly ever again.
“Good,” Reece said, throat tight again. “I’m glad you have each other.”
Ben reached down under the bar and then came back up a moment later. “You want a pair? All the empaths have them—you should too.”
He held out a black headband with bunny ears.
And Reece could have protested that everyone in here was faking it for tips. That he was the only actual empath now, in Seattle.
