Page 20 of Go Back to December

“MELODY!”

His cry ricochets through the night, and I run as fast as my heeled boots will take me away from the main station entrance. The crowd there is too much of an audience. Baz will figure out some trick to mold them to his will to get me to do whatever it is he’s come after me for.

I pause long enough to ask my muddled brain exactly why he’s chasing me. After tonight, I don’t want to hear a single word from his mouth.

The station’s secondary access point is a maze of platforms and concrete stairs, and not particularly well-lit. Which makes it an excellent overnight spot for the indigent population. But it’s still my safest option to get home.

Baz’s dress shoes clop loudly on the pavement as he approaches. When he shouts my name again, his voice cracks. “Will you wait a goddamn minute!”

It’s the impatience, the cockiness in the command that makes me rear up before the ancient high-gate turnstile that I used to think was some medieval jousting weapon.

“Why are you following me?” I shout.

He bends over, palms braced on his thighs while he chokes out, “Let me explain.”

“Your decision to ruin the livelihoods of fifteen people?”

His bicolored eyes widen, and it’s a fitting reminder of his two faces. Gentleman Johnson, who flashed me that true dazzling smile. And the Bad Bastard who ruined everyone’s Christmas.

“That’s not what’s happening.”

I force a laugh. “I may not have a law degree, but I know exactly what’s happening. What I don’t understand is why you’re here. Leave me alone, Baz. Go back to your victory dance.”

I push my way through the turnstile and skip down the set of dark stairs.

His footsteps fall after me. “Wait, just wait a second!”

“Why, because you suddenly grew a conscience?” I yell back as I tear down the steps, gripping the freezing iron railing for support.

“Jesus Christ, MJ, will you stop and listen?”

My boots hit the platform between the staircases with such force it knocks my teeth together.

“What did you call me?”

Baz halts two stairs above the landing.

Other than Lacy, no one’s called me MJ since college. I never liked the nickname then, and I certainly didn’t give my initials to Baz at the Jungle House.

He never asked for my name that night.

It felt mysterious and romantic that we hadn’t bothered to exchange names. And when he invited me to his swim meet the following week, I was enchanted that he was willing to wait that long to find out who I was.

But I never made it to our date. I left campus the day after I met Baz.

I shake my head. He’s heard Lacy call me MJ a thousand times, and I will not let this be the night that he finally remembers. Not when he’s coming after my café.

As I whip around to flee across the landing to the second staircase, a broken laugh echoes in the empty vestibule.

“Fuck, man.” A leather jacket steps out of the shadows. He holds up a glint of something sharp and silver. “At least get her name right.”

Chapter Six

It’s difficult to discern what’s most frightening about the current situation.

There is, of course, the knife. Long and sharp, and I suspect, military grade.

Then there’s the fact that the man wielding it also exhibits the slurred speech, twitchy neck, and dilated pupils of someone high as a kite.