Allison grabbed the last shake and started slurping it down. She pointed at Dona, again, and said, “Okay. Tell me where you are from if not from this beautiful hellhole.”
Dona asked, “Why are you being friendly with me?”
“Uh, maybe because I want to kinda know who I’m bringing home.”
“I didn’t say that I was going to come back with you.”
“Sure,” Allison drawled, “just refuse this giant, literally lifesaving opportunity to have a place to weather this storm. Great idea.”
“Maybe I don’t like how this feels. Too neat.”
“Fated?”
“I don’t believe in fate.”
“Listen, you’re going to have to change that mindset fast. Now that you’ve met Key, your life is going to get way too predestined to handle if you don’t just accept it all.”
“I don’t think I’ll meet him again either.”
“Oh, you will. Key doesn’t take note of anyone that doesn’t fit into his long term goals. The fact that he even acknowledged your presence means that you mean something to his future.”
Key’s knee twitched into Allison’s back. She looked down at him and said, “Look who graced the life of the living,” Allison said.
“You need to move. I need to get up.”
“Why?”
“Charlotte.”
It seemed to be enough for Allison because she slid off the bench and right into Dona’s side. Dona’s brain stuttered to a stop before supplying all the things that Allison could do to hurt Dona right at the moment. That was definitely not the type of thoughts she needed, so instead she tried to focus her attention forward.
Key poked at the last drink with a straw. It looked like he barely had the energy for that seeing how every few seconds he threatened to nod off. That’s why she almost had the death scared out of her with the simple “Hello.” She would take that version of events to the grave.
Or wherever else she could go after she finally dropped down for good.
Clearly the women who had appeared beside them had a very wrong idea of what just happened because she huffed out a little laugh. “Sorry.” The women literally sounded like one of those cartoon princesses. She almost looked it too in her too stylish to be truly warm jacket and soft curling hair framing her face. The only thing that took away from the image were the pink poodle pajama bottoms sticking out from under the jacket hem. “I’m here for Key. Ready to head back?”
He hummed something to her then turned to face Dona. “We’ll run into each other again.”
“Doubt it,” she said.
“You came here for a reason, Dona. You’ll realize that soon enough.”
“I never told you my name.”
“Didn’t have to.” He gave a two finger salute, and then he was gone, just walked out with Charlotte without giving more explanation.
Allison said, “Yeah, he’s totally going to use you for something. Have fun with that.” Allison patted at Dona’s shoulder. “Well, now that he’s gone, the weather should clear up a bit. I’ll dig out your car, and we can drive your car back to the Haus, and then we can work out everything else out there. Gotta tell my supervisors that I’m closing up early, though.”
“Are they going to be mad about that?”
“What are they going to do? Fire the only person who actually came into their shift? Yeah, if they do, they better fire everyone else that just played straight hooky.” She knocked at the table as she stood up. “Seriously, I will track you down if you try to leave, so stay here.”
Allison walked back to her station. The threat still lingered in the air, just real enough that Dona didn’t want to risk it. She did switch on her phone because it would probably be best to have something on in case she had to call a case of kidnapping. Though, that would end just as badly for her, but, hey, it would mean that Allison wouldn’t have the satisfaction of getting away scots free.
The phone gave a long unfamiliar beep. Dona looked down at the notification saying that she had a voicemail. She tried to pull it up. As soon as Irisa’s voice came through, though, Dona practically slammed down the phone. Irisa’s voice still played just loud enough to make out most of the words. When it reached the part where she said, “This is Irisa by the way,” Dona lifted the phone back to her ear. She replayed the message and listened to the voicemail from the start. Then again just for good measures.
Dona banged her head on the table. “Fuck.”
She stayed like that until Allison came back. She dropped a fuzzy, white monstrosity on Dona’s back.
Allison said, “You better wear this. It will take a hot minute to unbury your car.”
“Don’t you need a coat? Also, how are we going to dig my car out?”
Allison grinned at her, shook her hair, and somehow, in that little bit of movement, she melted into a tawny wolf.
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