“Do you know those guys?” Clare asks.
“The one in the plaid shirt comes here a lot,” Austin says. “He’s a cop, I think. Wow. Kavita’s really wasted.”
Clare frowns. “Where did Charlotte go?”
“You think Kavita doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Austin says. “But she does. I promise you, she does. She’s a pro at this.”
A pro? This interaction feels like déjà vu to Clare, the way Kavita leans into one man until he rights her and guides her to the next, the men passing her around their tight-knit circle like a ball. When Kavita jerks her arm from the man in plaid, Clare notes the force with which he grabs it again. She watches as the man in the plaid shirt takes Kavita and leads her to the front door. Clare stands to follow.
Outside, Clare detects the man’s laugh before she spots them. She follows the sound to the alley next to the bar. It is rutted and puddled from the rain, the brick wall of the bar lined with garbage bins. The smell strikes Clare. Kavita is against a wall, the man in plaid’s arms lifted to fence her in. Clare can’t quite make out the words between them. Home, she thinks she hears Kavita say. Charlotte. Home.
“Hey,” Clare says on approach. “Kavita?”
The man catches his laugh and cranes to look at Clare without lowering his grip on the wall.
“You should probably let her go,” Clare says, edging closer.
The smile drops from his face.
“Hey,” Clare says, addressing Kavita directly now. “Let’s go back inside. I’m going to take you home.”
“I’m taking her home,” the man says. “We were just about to leave, weren’t we? What’s your name again? Kendall. Fuck no, not Kendall. Not even close. That’s your friend’s name, isn’t it? Kavita. Shit!”
The sound of that name stirs something in Clare. Kendall. Clare can picture the photographs on Douglas Bentley’s wall, his smiling daughter. Kendall. Clare thinks of her friend Grace back home, the two of them at bars not unlike this one, the pacts they would make. We only leave with each other, they would say, snaking their pinkies together to seal the promise. No one else takes us home.
“Kavita?” Clare says. “You’re messed up. Come on. Let’s go.”
The man yanks Kavita across the alley to a back door propped open with an empty beer bottle. Clare tracks them. They pass through a dark hallway, then emerge into the bar. Clare makes eye contact with Austin as he stands up from his stool, smiling. Amused.
Coward, Clare would like to yell at him. You fucking coward.
The man has pulled Kavita back to the group at the bar. She sits on a stool and slumps, eyes glassy. But she’s looking at Clare. What’s that look? Clare wonders. Is that pleading in her eyes? Or anger? Clare can’t tell. She approaches the men.
“Listen,” Clare says. “I don’t want to cause any problems. But this is my friend, and I’m bringing her home.”
“No, really,” the man says. “What is your problem? Because you really are having a hard time minding your own business.”
“Let her go. Now.”
“Oh, fuck off. We’re old friends, Kavita and I. I’ve known her since she was a kid.”
Clare steps forward and takes Kavita by the arm. But Kavita recoils sharply. Before she can react, the man has grabbed Clare and pinned her arm behind her back. Her shoulder screams, the scar tissue from her gunshot wound stretched taut.
“Touch her again and I’ll break your arm,” the man says.
One of the man’s friends is talking now, telling him to let her go. “Come on, man,” he says. “Drop it.”
His words are garbled, the ringing too loud in Clare’s ears. She works to relax her arm to ease the pressure. Across the bar she makes eye contact with Austin again. He’s moving her way now, his phone in his hand ready to take pictures. The voices around Clare grow louder, the man’s breath hot on her neck.
“Let me go!” she says.
“Fuck you,” he replies.
The rage in his tone sets something alight in Clare. She uses her free hand to reach for the gun tucked into her belt. As soon as he spots it, the man drops her arm and takes a stumbling step backwards. There is a collective whoa from the crowd. Clare lifts the gun and aims it at the man’s head.
“Touch me again,” Clare says, motioning to Kavita. “Touch her, and I’ll kill you.”
“Jesus Christ,” he says, hands up. “Okay, wow. Lady. Fuck.”
Someone turns down the music, leaving only a low hum of voices.
“I’m an off-duty cop,” he says. “You’re not going to want to shoot.”
Clare sidesteps until her back is to the wall, the bar stretched out before her like a tableau, faces frozen in fear. But a few of the men around the room smile, wide-eyed, as though Clare pointing a gun at a stranger is a scene in a movie they’re watching and not a danger to them. Clare swallows hard.
“Just leave,” she says, her voice low. “Go.”
“Fuck you,” the man says. “Why don’t you shoot me? Go ahead.”
Now Austin is close. He hovers behind the man, his phone up, filming.
“Look!” the man says, addressing the crowd behind him without taking his gaze off Clare. “We’ve got ourselves a vigilante here! Touch her friend in a way she doesn’t like and she’ll put a bullet in you. Or will she?”
He takes a small step forward. Clare clicks off the gun’s safety. He stops. Clare’s arms ache. A standoff.
“Fuck you,” he says finally.
He crosses the bar in long strides. Clare lowers the gun and keeps it pointed at the ground until he disappears through the front door. Only one friend follows him, the others closing ranks at the bar. Clare feels a deep heat in her cheeks and down the back of her neck. For the life of her she cannot cry
