Chapter 6Arik
Arik shoved himself into the last stall of the restroom, the announcer’s words still circling in his head, and slammed the door with more force than he’d intended. The cheap aluminum barked its disapproval and Arik turned to growl back at it. He lifted a fist, reconsidered, and lowered it back to his side, still clenched, still ready to go in case Arik changed his mind.
Instead, he forced himself to breathe; to lift his left hand, and press his palm over his eye and fingers over his forehead in a soothe so very contrary to its balled-up, furious brother. “Coincidence,” Arik murmured. “Heat. I should have been drinking water. Should have eaten breakfast.”
The scent of cheap pine cleaner masked, but did not hide, the underlying presence of stale urine. Something ill-fated ha
