Page 55 of Ravage
I don’t even wait for him to answer me, jogging down the line and pushing through the drunk customers to get a closer look. Portia straightens and slides shots across the bar to her current customers with a smile. Her skirt and bra look more like a purple swimsuit with a layer of dangling silver scales. She looks like a mermaid between her outfit and makeup, and I can clearly see that she’s uninjured with the amount of exposed, unmarked skin she has on display.
“Portia!” I call out above the music and the crowd.
She turns and beams at me, flouncing over while spinning a wink at someone as she passes them. “Rae! I’m glad you’re okay. But should you really be here right now?”
“You’re glad I’m okay?! What happened? I came to make sure you were okay.”
“Oh.” She shrugs and starts making a drink. For who, I’m not sure, but it seems more like a defense mechanism to keep herself busy. Like she can’t sit still for a second to talk about something as serious as what almost happened. “I just asked them to leave.”
I stare at her in disbelief. When she doesn’t elaborate, I take a deep breath. “And they, what? Just did as you asked and left?”
She hums under her breath, adding something else to her concoction, and then shakes it and pours out two glasses of neon green liquid. “I asked nicely,” she finally concedes, as if that makes all the sense in the world.
They knew she knew me. They’d heard her talking to me while they were trying to find me. And she just…asked them to leave, and they did without a fight? Without kidnapping her?
Wait.
I reach over the counter and grab her wrist to get her full attention. “Porsh. Are you…?” I don’t say it aloud.
There’s a flash of something real in her expression, and then like the flick of a switch, she’s smiling and innocent again. “That’s all it was, Rae. I’m glad you’re okay, but you may not want to hang around here for a bit. I can tell everyone you quit, so if they come asking again, that’s all they’ll hear.”
She’s gentle but firm when she pulls away from me. I don’t fight her, even though I could have held on. I’m not looking to back her into a corner to talk to me. I’m trying to look out for her, and yet she’s somehow the one looking after me. How the hell did that happen?
Portia turns away and serves up the drinks to a couple of girls at the bar. I watch her in silence as I stew over what she told me. I have to be right. I know she’s sweet, but there is no way she talked herself out of that situation. And I see no sign of injury to indicate that she somehow fought them.
But they are gone like she said.
And she doesn’t look the least bit ruffled.
I narrow my eyes at her and try to look past the show of innocence. Now that I’m looking hard enough, I can see it. It’s exactly that. A show.
All of her expressions, the way she moves, it’s an act. I have to be paying attention and looking for it, but I can see it for a split second here and there where her mask slips.
I move around the bar and take her hand when she finishes closing out someone’s tab. “We need to talk,” I tell her, giving her a look that shows I mean business. She blinks at me and nods, letting me guide her by the hand into the back hallway until we’re in Elias’s office.
I close and lock the door behind her.
She watches me quietly. Her face is calm and otherwise blank, so I have no idea what she thinks I’m bringing her back here for.
“Tell me what actually happened.” She opens her mouth, and I hold up my hand to stop her. “Not that bullshit line about being nice and just asking. I know who sent them, and they wouldn’t have left just like that. I appreciate you looking out for me, but I need to look out for you too, in case those guys come back.” I pause and then cock my head the slightest amount. “Will they come back?”
She smiles and turns away from me to the chairs in front of the desk, then spins and drops back over the nearest armchair. Her silver stiletto heels bounce over the edge as she stretches her arms over her head.
“I didn’t lie to you. I did ask them nicely to leave. My requests just carry a bit more…oomph…to them.”
I knew it.
I raise an eyebrow. “Oomph. As in, an extra special ability to what? Tell people what to do?”
She hums and picks at the scales over her skirt. “Something like that.” Her forest green eyes slide back up to my face. “I’m sure you already know all about things like that. Elias wouldn’t have let you stay or work here otherwise.”
“Are you saying everyone who works at Hype has a gift?”
Portia shrugs. “Almost everyone. Those who don’t, know about it, though.”
I didn’t realize Elias kept his staff and tenants exclusively to other gifted people or those who know about us. So, nearly everyone working here has a gift? That gives me a whole new perspective of the club.
Portia smiles and nods at my sudden realization, then flips her legs over the arm to bounce back onto her feet. “Right. So, what can you do?”
