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“Do you have a wig?” Brigit asked, interrupting my moment with Desmond.
“A wig?”
“Yeah, we can make a disguise for you. Some sunglasses, a wig. ”
Desmond and I both stared at her. “I don’t think I need a disguise, Bri. ”
She blew a raspberry at me, her bangs tufting out with her forced breath. “You’re no fun. ”
Chapter Forty-Three
Kellen had barricaded herself into her apartment.
“Kel…hon, can you open the door?” I didn’t want to make Desmond break it down unless we had no other choice, but at the moment it didn’t seem like she was leaving us one.
Brigit said she could hear crying on the other side, so we knew Kellen was in there, but why she wasn’t opening up was another story. I worried barging in would upset her more, especially if she’d been hurt, but I didn’t want to wait too long in case she was upset enough to do something drastic to herself.
Kellen had never struck me as the type to commit suicide or hurt herself, but sometimes people did unexpected things when they were pushed to the breaking point.
“Kellen, please. We’re here to help. ”
“Go away,” came the reply.
Well, at least she was talking to us.
“We aren’t leaving until you open the door,” Desmond said. “Come on. ” After a silence that didn’t sound promising, his voice dropped into a more serious—almost mean—register. “Kellen, open the door or I will break it down. ”
I didn’t want to admit it, but hearing the tone of command in his voice made me think dirty, nasty things. Things that didn’t mesh well with what we were trying to accomplish here. I forced the ideas out of my mind and refocused my attention on the door.
After some dramatic foot stomping, the locks rattled and the door popped open. My first reaction was to ask the human-raccoon hybrid standing in the frame what it had done with my friend. Then I slowly processed that the mascara-smeared creature clutching a bottle of Moët was, unfortunately, Kellen Rain.
She didn’t look like someone who had walked out of a living hell, though. She looked like…well, exactly like I had when I’d been dumped. Like a crushed teenage girl who caught her football-star boyfriend making out with a cheerleader under the bleachers.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked, momentarily forgetting I was here to be supportive of her.
“What’s going on with me?” she parroted, swinging the bottle outwards at us and losing her balance. Desmond grabbed her by the armpits and kept her on both feet while she tried to get upright again. “What’s going on with you?” Her words were slurred, which told me it probably wasn’t her first bottle for the night.
“We’re here because we’re worried about you. ”
“Fuck off. ” She jerked free of Desmond’s grip and teetered back into the apartment. “I don’t want your…worry, or pity, or fucking whatever. ”
She nearly tripped over a glass end table but managed to sidestep it at the last moment, and wove her way towards the living room. Brigit and I exchanged wary glances, but Desmond followed right behind Kellen, shadowing her steps while she charged through her apartment.
“Kel, can you talk to us?” he asked.
“So you can ruin something else for me?”
Ruin something? I was so shocked by her words I stopped hanging around the door and tracked the pair of them into the kitchen. Even though Kellen’s current bottle of champagne still had liquid in it, she was rifling through the fridge for another. I couldn’t fault her on that since I’d double fisted whiskey last time I tried to drink my problems away.
I also knew if she was drinking this much fermented alcohol, she was in for a doozy of a headache tomorrow.
“Maybe you should take a break from the—”
Kellen didn’t let me finish my sentence. “Did I tell you to lay off the booze when Lucas shafted you? No. Did I tell you to stop being a mopey, whiney bitch when you were dumped? No. Because I’m your friend. ” She was waving the bottle at me again, and I was genuinely worried she might clobber me in the face with it.
“What is she talking about?” Brigit asked, tapping me on the shoulder. “I thought you rescued her. ”
“We did rescue her. ”
