"I don't want to see you again." Keira had said it with such dislike in her voice. A heavy snap.
Nate, ever the defiant, didn't spare a second to think before he let the words spill from his mouth. "You can't just go. You're mine and I will not let you–"
A resounding slap shut him up.
That was three days ago.
Three whole days Keira Hawkins spent without the presence of one Nathaniel Wolfe, and she was glad of it.
She was, honestly.
Despite the unfamiliar ache, she felt as her chest contracted, and her mind kept running back to him. She couldn't deny that her guilty conscience was screaming at her. Perhaps slapping him in public was not the best action she could take in response. She had to say, she was already high-strung about him at that time.
Now. With a clearer head and her fear of Nate reduced, she at least wanted to apologize to him. Even if that was because she wanted to see him too.
"Keira!"
She snapped back to reality, hand clutching at the front of her shirt as her heartbeat in crazy. "Don't startle me, Hyde."
The demoted assistant library rolled his eyes. "I've called you for five minutes already but you never blink."
"You're exaggerating," Keira sighed and brushed her bang a little, managing to keep her reddish birthmark hidden from her fellow coworker. "What do you want?"
"Party at Pass the Bar after work."
"What's with the sudden?"
Because the library staff here were more accustomed to going home right away or just hanging out by themselves at nearby coffee shops rather than partying at a bar. By the shrug Hyde delivered, he also thought so. It was pretty unusual.
"Sam won a lottery," the demoted assistant library told her. "Treating us to get drunk on a bar is probably the wildest thing our dear coworker would ever do before he purchase that Last Bookstore downtown just because he can now."
"Seriously?" Keira frowned. "That's the most random thing I heard in my life."
"Not as random as a mafia lord visiting a library and asking you for a date, though?"
She cringed at that, having no need of a charming smile that Nathaniel's projection in her mind flashed to her. "Please, don't remind me of him. I don't ever want to see him again."
"I'm not. You sure? I don't know what happened the last time, but you look like you already think of him all the time."
"Ugh. But don't say things like that out loud. I don't know for sure whether he's a mafia lord or not."
That was the truth.
She didn't want to see Nate again. Her life would be better if he didn't appear again in front of her face. No matter what a sounding argument he had the last time they talked. Besides, compared to what he did with Wilhem back there, the thing bothering Keira the most was that he had dared to call her 'his'.
"I don't care. Anyway, cancel whatever mundane plan you got and go out with us tonight."
"I have to do my laundry, else, I'll have no clean clothes tomorrow."
"Just buy a new one," Hyde shuffled his feet, showing his new shirt and sweater with not-so-subtlety. If Keira didn't know any better, she'd say that their boss was buying him nice clothes.
"Easy for you to say, Mr No-One-Read-Those-Ancient-Book-So-I-Sold-It."
"Hey, that was so last year!"
"Still. I can't go out tonight."
"Well," Hyde drawled out and grabbed her hand, pulling her along to the side of the room where a brand new photocopier sat innocently on the corner. "Not even after this?"
Frowning at the machine, Keira felt that she wouldn't like this. "The boss bought this?"
Hyde merely chuckled and pushed on the start button.
The photocopier beeped softly before it printed something. Keira blinked in confusion, reaching the first printout. It was a report. On Wilhem Carter.
Wait.
"What's this?" Keira narrowed her eyes at her closest coworker, then took another paper, still with the report on the man who made a scene at the pizza parlor and later almost got killed by Nate. "Did he send this?"
Hyde didn't even need to ask whom she referred to. "He said it's for you."
"And you don't think to tell me that first?"
He grimaced, saying nothing else.
Clicking her tongue in distaste, she went back to take more printout papers from the photocopier. Same as the first two, all of this was the police report on Wilhem Carter. She didn't know how Nate got this, as it looked official and confidential.
All the alleged and proven crimes that Wilhem committed were in Keira's hands. It was the proof, the excuse Nate used to defend himself from her accusation three days ago. With this, Nate declared that he had a right to maim – and kill – a human being.
But still, Nate also called her his own.
She resented that. Hated that.
Keira was her own being. Not her parents. Not her friends. And definitely not Nate's to own.
It unnerved her that she was more concerned about being called Nate's own instead of the high probability that Nate would kill someone for their crimes – when he had no jurisdiction over it.
Damn it.
Looking at the photocopier again, now it printed out words. Bold, written in capital, and decidedly couldn't be mistaken as anything other than an apology.
I.
AM.
VERY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
SORRY.
It went on. Again. And again. And again. Until Keira couldn't stand it and was about to unplug the power. Then, the last paper came out. She gapped.
A photo of the most annoying patron ever.
Nate's picture – still looking handsome, but Keira couldn't care about that now – was looking at her with big puppy eyes and a pout. If he did that right in front of her, she might do something to him. Either slap him again or coo at him; she hasn't decided.
However, it didn't erase the fact that Nate had called her his. A thing which she hated.
"You know what," she turned to Hyde, "I think I'll drink myself to death tonight."
"I know you'll come around."
And that was how Keira found herself in a cop bar about twenty blocks away from her apartment on a Friday night.