Chapter 3: Shattered Glass, Silent Warning
The laugh still felt warm in Bunny’s chest as she fumbled with her keys at the apartment door. The memory of the eight ball dropping, her friend’s whoop, Maverick’s mock indignation—it played on a pleasant loop in her mind. And underneath it all, like a bass note, was the steady, unnerving weight of his stare. The tall man with the scars and the quiet intensity, who’d looked at her as if he were seeing a ghost, or a treasure, or both. She’d felt seen, and for a person who spent most of her life feeling like convenient wallpaper, it was as thrilling as it was terrifying.
She pushed the door open, the familiar scent of lavender soap and old books greeting her. She dropped her bag on the wobbly table by the door.And froze.The lavender was there. The old books were there. But woven through it, faint yet unmistakable, was the sharp, peaty tang of good whiskey.Kellan’s whiskey. The one he saved for “special occasions.”
Her eyes scanned the room.Nothing was out of place at first glance. The thrift-store lamp cast its usual yellow glow.Then she saw it. A shard of light, sharp and artificial, glinting from the floorboards near the kitchenette.Not a reflection.A piece of something.
She took a slow step forward, her heart beginning a dull, heavy thud against her ribs. Another step revealed a spiderweb of finer fragments scattered around it. A trail led from the kitchenette tiles onto the worn hardwood of the living area.Her eyes followed it.
There, on the rag rug her grandmother had made, a dark, damp stain spread like a bruise.Amber liquid.Whiskey. And in the center of the stain, the crushed remains of a heavy-bottomed tumbler, the one Kellan used to drink from when he visited.Her breath hitched. She hadn’t left a glass out.She never drank his whiskey.
Her gaze swept upward, and landed on the coffee table.
A single sheet of cream stationery, the kind he kept in his monogrammed leather folio, sat perfectly centered on the stained wood. Neat, precise handwriting she knew too well marked its surface.The air grew thick. The quiet of the apartment wasn’t peaceful anymore; it was a held breath. She could hear the drip of the kitchen tap, the distant groan of a pipe in the walls.Slowly, as if moving through syrup, she crossed the room. The scent of whiskey grew stronger, mixing with the cold, metallic hint of fear now rising in her own throat.She stopped before the table, looking down at the note.Two words.
You forgot something.The writing was calm.Unhurried.A teacher’s notation on a margin.
A whimper, small and animal, escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her head jerked toward her bedroom door, which stood ajar.The pills.Her vitamins. Her monthly supply from Kellan, “to keep you healthy, Brynlee. Your constitution is delicate.” The little orange bottle sat on her nightstand.She’d taken one this morning with breakfast.Routine. Habit.A part of the day as automatic as breathing.He knew she’d gone out. He’d been here. He’d stood in her space, touched her things, drunk from his glass and smashed it on her floor.A performance.A statement.You forgot something.
The message wasn’t about the pills.It was a reminder.She’d forgotten her place. Forgotten that her life, this apartment, the air she breathed, were all on loan from him. Forgotten that his reach didn’t end with a breakup.
A hot, sudden pressure built behind her eyes, but she squeezed them shut.Crying was what he expected. The meek, accommodating Bunny would cry.The Bunny who needed pills to stay calm, to stay gentle.
A new sensation, foreign and molten, uncoiled in her stomach. It cut through the cold fear like a knife.It was rage.Pure, undiluted, shocking in its intensity. It burned up her throat, drying the tears before they could fall.
Her hands, which had been shaking, stilled.She looked from the note to the broken glass. She looked at the stupid, cozy sweater she wore, the one Maverick had mocked.Pom-poms.A costume for a woman playing small.
From deep within, a ripple moved under her skin.It was not a thought. It was a physical stirring, a muscle twitching to life after a long sleep.Her wolf. It didn’t surge forward; it simply opened an eye. A low, internal buzz vibrated in her bones, a frequency she hadn’t felt in years.It was alert.It was pissed off.
It was also awake.The reality of it slammed into her.The suppressants weren’t just for anxiety. They were a cage. Kellan hadn’t been managing a delicate constitution; he’d been doping a predator.
She backed away from the table, her shoulders hitting the front door with a soft thud.She was trapped. Not just by the four walls, but by the entire life built around that little orange bottle.The apartment was contaminated. The scent of his whiskey, his control, his violation, was in every molecule of the air.She wasn’t safe here. He’d proven that.Her eyes darted to the window, to the dark street beyond. The memory of the bar, of the man named Coyle with the war-scarred body and the eyes that held a mirror to a strength she didn’t know she had, flashed before her. He’d seen something.He’d watched her like she was real.She had nowhere else to go.
Pushing off from the door, she moved with a new, grim purpose. She went to the bedroom, grabbed a duffel bag from the closet, and began to throw things into it.Jeans. A few shirts.Boots.She bypassed the sweaters with pom-poms.
Her hand hovered over the orange bottle on the nightstand.You forgot something.
With a swift, violent motion, she swept it into the trash bin beside the bed. The plastic container rattled against the empty cans and crumpled paper.
She zipped the bag, slung it over her shoulder, and took one last look at the shattered glass, the staining rug, the perfectly centered note.
The molten feeling in her gut solidified into a cold, hard resolve. She didn’t know where she was going. But she was finally, irrevocably, leaving.