Page 7 of Glass Wings

My brain stutters. I didn’t see anything before that moment. Easton’s chest is heaving, his jaw set as his mouth forms words I can’t hear. Security is already moving toward him—black shirts, earpieces, practiced calm that looks like violence when they use it. Two of them hit him at once, arms yanking back, knee driving into his spine. He doesn’t fight, and my heart breaks.

“Easton!” My voice rips out of me. I stumble forward, and Kennedy grabs my wrist.

“What happened?” she gasps.

“I don’t—” The world is suddenly too bright. My stomach sours. “I don’t know.”

Ethan appears out of nowhere with. “He threw the first punch,” he says to no one and everyone. “I told you he has a temper.”

I jerk my arm out of his light, controlling grip. “Shut up. You don’t know him.”

Security doesn’t hear any of us. They’re focused on the man on the floor, on the broken glass, on the bouncer already on the radio. People close in with their phones held high like flowers at a parade. I want to slap them all.

“Back up,” one guard barks when I get too close. “Ma’am, back up.”

“He didn’t—” I start, and then stop, because I don’t actually know what he didn’t do. I didn’t see the beginning. I only saw the middle and the end.

Easton’s eyes find me in the chaos. “Stay calm,” he says. His voice is steady and meant for me alone. “Please.”

Someone is talking to the man in the pastel shirt. He’s gesturing at his jaw, at the spilled drink on the floor, at Easton like he’s a show-and-tell item. Another guy I don’t recognize leans into the security chief’s ear and whispers. I hate him instantly.

Blue lights stutter outside the tent. It’s fast. Too fast. Miami PD is suddenly a wall in navy, and Easton’s arms change from being bound in plastic ties to metal. Rights are read. He nods like he’s heard them before, and I want to throw up.

“Wait—” I say, lunging forward, and the guard steps in front of me, hand flat, impersonal. “He’s my—” I don’t know if boyfriend is the word, or if there’s a word big enough. “Please.”

They move him anyway. Through the crowd, through the phones, past the velvet rope like he’s a VIP of a different kind. Kennedy’s hand finds my back and stays there, cold and small.

“Harley, it’s going to be okay, just breathe,” she says into my hair, and it breaks me even further.

“Why did he do that?” I ask, even though I don’t think he did anything. Even though my chest knows him. Anger floats up, hot and stupid. We promised we were done with fights, we promised to choose quiet and go home early. “Why now?”

Kennedy shakes her head, ponytail slicing the air. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.”

Ethan makes a move like he’s going to touch me again. I step away. The car door closes on Easton, and the sound pierces the bass, terrible and final. The squad car pulls away with my heart in the back seat.

“Arraignment should be Monday,” Ethan says, like a man who’s had practice making disasters sound routine. “He’ll get bail. I can call someone.”

I look at him and say nothing; his words are meaningless.

We stand there while the crowd swallows the scene, while a server with a broom sweeps glass into a little silver pan and the DJ turns the volume up, because nothing bad exists if the bass is high enough. My ears ring with sirens that aren’t there anymore.

“I want to go,” I tell Kennedy.

“Of course,” she says simply. “I’m coming with you.”

I shake my head. “Stay. I’m fine.”

She studies my face for one full second, then nods. “Text me when you’re back in the room.” Her hand squeezes my wrist in a promise we learned late and fast. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

I walk out of VIP like a ghost, and the sun feels like a spotlight again, but sharper now, meaner. The Uber driver doesn’t ask why my hands won’t stop shaking. I don’t tell him that there’s a deep-rooted fear of my boyfriend going back to prison still lodged in my bones, and I can’t get it out.

The room smells like Easton and stale air mixed with a hint of fresh linen. I shut the door and press my back to it like I can hold the whole world out with just the square of my shoulder blades. The silence is so sudden it roars.

I toe off my shoes and go straight to the mini fridge to get a bottle of water I don’t want. The first sip is brutally cold and burns its way down my throat. The second sip sits in my mouth, cold and useless, and I set the bottle down before I drop it from my shaking fingers.

I should call someone. My mother, who always opens with I told you so or Easton’s parents. They mean well, his parents, but I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. Instead, I put my phone face down on the dresser and stare at the little blinking notification like it’s a dare.

The first wave of nausea hits so hard. That’s how stress works, I tell myself. The body throws a tantrum, or maybe it’s still due to my lack of sleep. Or food.