I stopped a couple of blocks before the club. He would have to make it the rest of the way himself. Looking so fragile and lost in thought, I hoped he would make it. I wanted to ask him not to go, but all I could do was lean closer for a moment, lay a hand on his knee, and say "Pleasebe careful."
He nodded, looking me over with a large-eyed, thoughtful expression. His eyes were so very expressive, even when I didn't know what they meant. "I will," he said quietly, and briefly squeezed his hand on top of mine.
Then he hopped out of the car and was gone, walking fast, holding the ragged collar of his shirt tightly close. I watched him go, feeling a tightness in my chest, wondering if it would always hurt this much to say goodbye.
#
Two hours later it was all over. I'd had to nurse several drinks in a seedy room while watching shifters "dance" awkwardly on a stage. (Most of them were awkward. A few were really good, though none were as hot as Wallace, of course.)
It made me itchy and uncomfortable being there, partly because so much was at stake...but also because the shifters looked so damned young and uncomfortable to me. Younger than Wallace.
At least the waitress looked like she wanted to be there, bright-eyed and wriggly-hipped. She hung around me a lot, and I tried to look interested, maybe cultivate some rapport so I could pump her for info later.
With her bikini top and short-short denim cutoffs, she showed most of her skin. I've never minded that, but I wasn't getting a kick out of it, either. With Wallace in danger, it was hard to think of anything else, even perky boobs.
I really was all about Wallace now. It would be a fucking shame if he was done with me.
It would be even worse if he was in danger. I felt itchy inside, desperate to go back there after him, but there was nothing I could do. He'd gone in for an interview, and I was here, watching the dancing and trying to make drinks last so I wouldn't be drunk on the job.
I couldn't tell if the waitress was a shifter or not. The people dancing...well, the management made it fucking clear they were. Some of them shifted at the end of their performances. All of them were announced not by name, but by what kind of shifter they were, which seemed fucking degrading to me.
Eventually, Wallace left, his shoulders hunched and his head down. He hurried when he walked out. It was all I could do not to bolt after him and demand to know what was wrong — then go back there and punch someone for him. Fucking losers, taking advantage of shifters...and making Wallace feel like shit.
My waitress was giving me curious and interested looks, and one of the shifters on stage actually looked down directly at me during his awkward shuffling disrobing. He looked barely old enough to be out of high school. I wanted to tell him to put it away and ask him if his parents knew what he was doing. It made me feel damned old.
The curious looks were getting a bit much for me. Was I expected to try to buy sex at this point? Probably. The whole "creepy guy in the exotic club in the morning" act had to look like it. Well, I wasn't doing it. I'd been here for Wallace's backup if he got desperate and had to break cover; now I was done. I paid up and tipped decently and gave the squirrel shifter some money for his dancing. He'd tried, poor kid.
And then I got out of there.
Wallace had gotten a lift back to the precinct with another officer, and I met him there, in the captain's office.
The first thing I noticed was that his flannel shirt was ripped. An extra couple of buttons were missing, and he hadn't even tried to close the shirt again. Someone had ripped his shirt open. I felt hot and then cold...and then Iburned.
"You all right?" I searched his gaze hard, trying to find out just what had happened, and if I needed to kill anyone. Nobody was allowed to touch Wallace. Nobody. Hell, I didn't even like them looking at him longingly. But if he'd been sexually assaulted somebody was going to fucking pay.
"I'm fine," said Wallace, his voice a little hoarse. He wrapped his arms around his middle and dropped his gaze. "It's just a little humiliating, okay? You don't have to look at me like that."
How the fuck was I looking at him? Like I wanted to kill whoever had hurt him? I was fine with looking at him like that.
"Why don't we all sit down?" suggested the captain in a surprisingly conciliatory voice.
We sat. I steamed. I wanted to demand to know every single thing at once, but apparently Wallace hadn't been raped, just embarrassed. That was bad enough, but I didn't need to go out and commit homicide immediately on that basis alone.
Although I still kind of wanted to.
"Wallace?" I probed.
"It didn't work," he said, his voice holding anger and resentment. He hugged himself tighter, and hunched in the chair, frowning. "There was no interview — not really. He read the situation as me desperate for a job, so he r-ripped my shirt open and wanted to see how my chest looked. Then he told me to try a few poses, and I was really bad at it, really fucking bad." He scowled harder. "There was no chance to act nervous and hesitant about taking the job, no chance to say I'd really like to talk to the current people working there. No chance to question a-anybody!" He looked up at me then, and his eyes sparked anger and defiance. "I start tomorrow. Night shift."
"You don't have to go."
"I do if I want to talk to any of them. Oh, damn him to hell! I don't want to get up on that fucking stage and feel like a piece of meat." He gave a whole-body shudder and clamped his mouth shut. A little twitch had started at the edge of his lips, and his eyes were hard and intense...and filled with a galaxy of despair.
I wanted to fix it. I wanted to wrap him up and keep him safe from prying eyes and pain of all kinds. But he was still so very far away from me.
The captain cleared his throat. "You don't have to go back tomorrow," he said awkwardly. "Perhaps there's another way to handle this situation that doesn't involve you being at risk."
"Oh?" said Wallace, fixing him with a savage glare that was startling in its scorn and rage. He hopped up and glared down at the captain. "And who? Who's going to do that? No, they're stuck there, and nobody else gives a shit,but I do. So I'll go back and suffer through. But I hope McCann burns in hell."
