Page 25 of Antihero

Devine stumbled closer, kicking over a champagne bucket that held, improbably, an upside-down bowling pin.

“Let’s slow you down some,” Evan said.

Luke blinked five times rapidly. “Whatever for?”

Evan looked past him to Monica.

“You all right?”

“I don’t know,” she breathed. “A bit drunk and my ears are exhausted and … and.…”

“No, she’s not,” Luke said. “She’s off behind the eyes and she witnessed something awful. I can’t deal with this kind of shit so you have to get her to tell you so you can handle—”

“Devine,” Evan said. “Quiet.”

He returned focus to the young woman on the bed. She gulped in air once, twice. Her eyes looked haunted, pupils dilated from whatever she’d been engaging with.

“You saw something,” Evan told her, moving from question to statement. “Something bad.”

“They just, like, set on her,” Monica said, dreamily. “I have a bad feeling about…”

“They?” Evan said. “Who?”

“There was a pack, a pack of guys. It was before … Oh, Jesus.” Covering her mouth, she hurried across the bedroom, her shirt flapping ridiculously, and stumbled through a door that Evan didn’t remember being there a moment ago. The clink of a toilet lid thrown up, sounds of fruitful retching.

Devine had locked on to Joey standing over by the fire, noticing her for the first time. “Who are you?”

Evan said, “With me.”

“I don’t know you.” To Evan: “I don’t know her. And she’s here. Uninvited.”

“I assumed you’d be capable of contending with her,” Evan said.

Devine nibbled at his inner cheek repetitively. Back to Joey: “If you’re going to stay, whoever you are, understand a few things. If you lie or seek to manipulate me one inch, I will dismember your mind. You’re what? Seventeen? Eighteen? Your prefrontal cortex isn’t even fully myelinated. I know, I know—you’re skilled, you’re tough, you’re nobody’s fool. But the way you stand, legs loose, don’t know where to put your arms, like you don’t have a place in the world. And that perky little suit, trying so, so hard. Dressing for the role. But even though it fits, it still doesn’t, not really, am I right?”

Joey looked at Evan, her eyes flared. She sipped in a breath.

He tore his gaze away from her. Leaving her on her own.

“You’re a loner,” Devine told her. “Difficulty making and holding friends, no parents to speak of, at least any worth anything. Unwanted. An Orphan, just like him.”

Evan didn’t defend. He didn’t protect. She’d said she was ready. Now she had to earn it.

“That diamond around your neck, a little rich for your trailer-park blood, isn’t it?” Devine said in a low purr. “A gift? From whom?” His gaze drifted from her to Evan and back once more. “Your shoulders cant toward him submissively. Your eyes search for his help, his approval. You care for him. And him for you. If you fuck with me, here inside my domain, I will use that against you, understand?”

Evan thought, Don’t give anything to him.

He kept staring at Devine. It took everything he had. He couldn’t see Joey’s face. He didn’t know if her lips were trembling or if her cheeks had colored or if she was about to break. Devine’s glare at her was hard, reptilian.

The pause drew out and out. Evan felt his molars grind.

At last Joey’s voice sailed over, cool as a jazz riff. “Understood.”

A half-second pause. And then Devine exhaled through his teeth, the menace evaporating from his face. He came back into another version of himself, bouncing on his feet, eyes darting for the next distraction to take on.

An assistant flew in, toting a bottle, nearly skidding out on a patch of—dog piss? water? champagne? A crash would have cost thousands of dollars of alcohol.

Devine tossed the flute aside—smash, tinkle—and snatched the Macallan out of the young man’s hands.