Chapter Two — The Devil's Eyes
1284 Words
I should leave.
That is the sensible thing to do. Finish the whiskey, walk back out into the rain, find a motel, sleep until the world makes sense again. That is what a smart woman does.
I do not move.
I tell myself it is because of the rain. It is coming down harder now, I can hear it against the roof of the bar, heavy and relentless. I tell myself I am just waiting for it to ease up a little before I go back to my car.
But the truth is simpler than that.
I am scared to be alone right now.
Not scared of the bar. Not scared of the bikers filling every corner of this place, their leather jackets and loud voices and the way they take up space like they own it. I am scared of the silence that is waiting for me inside my own car. The kind of silence where your thoughts get very loud and very honest and you cannot turn them off.
So I stay.
I wrap my hands tighter around my glass and I keep my eyes down and I try to be invisible.
It does not work.
"You lost?"
The voice comes from my left. I turn to find a man settling onto the stool beside me. Not the man from across the bar. This one is younger, lighter in his energy, with a grin that probably works on most people.
"No," I say.
"You sure? Because you have got the look of someone who took a wrong turn about three towns back."
"I meant to come here," I say, which is not entirely true but is not entirely a lie either.
He extends a hand. "Cole. I'm the friendliest person in this bar, which is not saying much but it counts for something."
I look at his hand for a moment. Then I shake it. "Sera."
"Just Sera?"
"For now."
He smiles like that answer amuses him. He signals the bartender for two drinks and pushes one toward me before I can tell him I do not want it.
"You do not have to drink it," he says, reading my face. "Consider it a welcome to Raven Creek gift."
"Is everyone here this friendly to strangers?"
Cole's smile stays in place but something shifts behind his eyes. Just slightly. "Not everyone."
I feel it again before I see it.
That same pressure change. That same stillness spreading through my chest like cold water.
I do not turn around. I do not need to.
"Cole."
One word. That is all. But Cole straightens immediately, the easy grin replaced by something more careful. He picks up his drink and stands from the stool with the unhurried movement of a man who has learned not to make sudden gestures.
"Good night, Sera," he says quietly. And then he is gone.
I stare at my glass.
I hear the stool beside me scrape against the floor as someone sits down.
I still do not turn.
"You are sitting in someone's seat." The voice is low and even, the kind of voice that does not need to rise to make itself heard.
"There was no one in it," I say.
"There was."
"Then they should have left something to mark it."
A pause. Long enough that I wonder if I have said the wrong thing. Long enough that I finally turn to look at him.
Up close he is even more difficult to look at directly. Not because he is unpleasant. The opposite of that, which is its own kind of problem. There is a scar along his jaw, thin and old. His eyes are a shade of dark that does not have a simple name. And he is looking at me with that same expression I caught from across the bar.
Like he knows something I do not.
"You are not from here," he says.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Yes."
I almost smile at that. Almost. "I am just passing through."
"Where are you headed?"
"I have not decided yet."
He is quiet for a moment. He picks up the glass the bartender sets in front of him without looking at it and he watches me the way I imagine he watches everything. Carefully. Completely. Like he is reading words written in a language most people cannot see.
"That ring," he says.
My hand goes to it instantly. I catch myself and force my fingers to stay still on the bar top.
"What about it?"
"Where did you get it?"
The question is casual. His voice is casual. But his eyes are not casual at all and we both know it.
"It was my mother's," I say. "She gave it to me before she died."
Something moves across his face. It is brief and quiet and I almost miss it. Almost.
"What was her name?"
I look at him properly now. This stranger in a bar in a town I found by accident in the middle of the worst night of my life. This man I have never met who is asking about my mother like the answer actually matters to him.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Just making conversation."
"No," I say slowly. "You are not."
He looks at me for a long moment. Then something that is not quite a smile crosses his mouth. Like I have passed a small test he did not announce he was giving.
"Kael," he says. "My name is Kael."
He does not offer a hand. He just says it like he is giving me something he does not give to many people and I should understand that.
"Sera," I say.
"I know."
The air between us goes very still.
"Cole told you," I say carefully.
"Cole tells me everything."
I look down at my glass. My heart is doing something uncomfortable inside my chest and I would very much like it to stop.
"I should find a motel," I say. "It is getting late."
"The only motel in Raven Creek stopped taking guests two years ago."
I look up at him. "You are joking."
"I never joke about motels."
I stare at him. He stares back. And for one strange, unguarded moment I almost laugh. The feeling surprises me so much that it disappears before it can fully form.
"There is a room above the hardware store on Main Street," he says. "Margaret who owns it takes in guests sometimes. I will have someone take you there."
"I do not need your help."
"You need somewhere to sleep."
"I can figure that out myself."
"In a town you have never been to, in the rain, at midnight." He tilts his head slightly. "Can you?"
I want to argue. I want to tell him that I have been figuring things out on my own for a very long time and I do not need a stranger in a biker bar to sort out my sleeping arrangements.
But I am so tired.
Not just tonight tired. Bone tired. The kind of tired that has been building for years and finally has nowhere left to hide.
"Fine," I say quietly.
He nods once. He pulls out his phone and sends a message to someone without looking away from me. Then he puts it back in his pocket and wraps both hands around his glass.
"Finish your drink," he says. "You look like you need it."
I look at him for a moment longer than I mean to. Then I pick up my glass.
Outside the rain keeps falling.
And Kael Draven sits beside me like a man who has been waiting for this exact night for a very long time.
- Writer
