"Logan, what's taking you so long? The one time I actually need you, I can't count on you for anything."
I didn't rush to smooth her over the way I always did. I just asked her, flat and cold, "What's wrong?"
She dragged me to the hotel front desk. "You explain it to him."
Then she stepped behind me, folding her arms like a bored spectator, as if none of this had anything to do with her.
Nothing at all like the woman in Fred's social media feed.
The clerk gave me a polite smile. "I'm so sorry, sir. The room type was overbooked. Right now your only options are to check out, or downgrade the suite to a double."
I heard him out and gave a small nod. "Either way's fine with me. Ask them."
Monica and Fred froze. Even the clerk looked thrown, like that wasn't the reaction he'd braced for.
Monica lost it. She grabbed my arm, a vein standing out on her forehead. "Is now really the time to be sulking?"
"We booked through a legitimate platform. Who do they think they are, just—"
I pulled my arm free and looked at her, unmoved. "Forget it. It's not easy for them either."
Her fair face went ashen in an instant, like she'd swallowed a fly.
She knew. I was paying her back.
Paying her back for the thing she'd said at lunch.
So Monica didn't say a word. She just bit her lip and let out a furious little laugh, saying "Fine" three times over.
Without another word, she took the new key card.
Fred's eyes were red-rimmed. "Logan, even if you're mad at Monica, you shouldn't take an outsider's side."
Monica said nothing. She grabbed Fred by the wrist and swept off.
Fred was still muttering complaints when I caught Monica's voice, light as air. "Let him do what he wants. He'll regret it anyway."
I got my luggage out of the old room and went to enter the new one, only to find the door bolted from the inside.
And suddenly I understood exactly what she'd meant. He'll regret it.
I knocked, my voice tired and worn thin. "Monica, stop it, okay? I haven't eaten all day, I'm exhausted, I'm starving. Just let me in first."
But there was no answer from inside. Instead, one burst of laughter after another came through the door, as though staged for me to hear.
My eyes went hot. I knocked harder, but the door didn't so much as budge.
The laughing inside grew louder, and whatever anger I'd been holding down finally caught fire.
I pounded on the door, again and again, and inside they acted like they heard nothing.
I hit it harder and harder, and a door opened.
It was the one next to it. A big man in a bathrobe, his face all thick coarse flesh, yanked it open and glared at me like a demon. "Screaming your head off this late at night. You calling back the dead or what?"
That froze me. I didn't dare move.
The laughter inside cut off. They'd clearly heard, and still they did nothing.
The man pulled out a machete and tapped it against the door frame, grinning. "Little brother, disturbing the neighbors at this hour, huh? Come on. Come into my room. Let's have a nice long talk."
Panic took me. I slammed my palms against the door. "Monica, open up, help me!"
I heard Fred say, "Monica, don't you dare open it for him. He deserves this. Just leave him."
"Right. We're not opening it. He brought this on himself."
Everything in me went cold. I clung to the door frame with everything I had and screamed.
But the man behind me seemed set on hauling me into his room. His grin turned vicious. "Scared now? Weren't scared when you were making all that noise. If I don't hack you into eighteen pieces tonight, you can have my name."
The blade cut through the air, grazing past my scalp and biting into the door frame above my head.
The raw terror of it, life and death that close, ripped the cry out of me. "Monica, I'm begging you, open the door."
The man behind me had brute strength, and just as he was about to drag me all the way in, the door opened.
