Page 160 of Antihero

She kept on with that blank stare. She’d pulled her sweater over her knees, stretching it thin since it was a crop-top cut.

“You don’t have to be such a bitch about it.” He was getting aggravated, wasn’t sure why. Maybe how she was just looking at him. At least when they fought back you were fighting and you didn’t have to pay attention to them guilting you.

“You can just relax and enjoy it,” he said. “It’s not like you’ve never done it before.”

Where the fuck were the boys? What was taking so long? He’d done his part. He’d reeled her in and set up the cameras and the pillory. Foreplay was over. It was time to go. Not to sit around staring at each other. It was so uncomfortable.

“Don’t act like you didn’t know,” he said, getting angrier. “You flirted right back with me. You knew. You knew what it meant to come over and hang out.”

She just glared at him. Man, did she look angry.

At last there came a knock at the door.

“About fucking time,” B-Roll called out, backing up, groping behind him for the dead bolt. He didn’t trust her enough to take his eyes off her.

He fumbled and turned the doorknob, heard the creak of hinges as it swung in behind him.

Something rippled across Blanca’s face. Surprise? Relief?

When he turned there weren’t three forms standing in the doorway.

There was one.

The man stepped inside. He wasn’t particularly big but he was coiled tight, menacing and calm, and his presence was unsettling as fuck.

“I’m here to help you,” the man said to Blanca. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head.

He said, “Perhaps you’d like to wait for me outside?”

She nodded.

The man stepped aside, made a slight gesture toward the door with his hand, inviting her to leave. “I’ll just be a moment.”

B-Roll was between them. He felt frozen, helpless to respond. He couldn’t catch up to what was happening.

Blanca walked right past him. He let her.

He didn’t know what the man would do.

He didn’t know how to react.

She walked past the man and out into the hall.

The man closed the door behind her.

He threw the dead bolt.

B-Roll felt the thud deep in his chest.

He tried to speak, to reason, to talk his way out of things, but he couldn’t find words. He never couldn’t find words. But his throat was knotted up and he was having trouble breathing.

The man stepped forward. Shark eyes.

B-Roll took a step back.

The guy stepped toward him again. Cold and steady, nearly void of life.