Chapter 88: ORIN
KEISHA’S POV
I stood there for another second after Dane looked past me toward Vanessa.
Then I turned around, walked back to Nadia at the checkout counter, stood beside her and looked at the receipt the cashier was printing and felt the heat in my face refuse to leave.
He wasn’t there for me.
He had been watching Vanessa the entire time and I had marched across the store and accused him of following me and stood there with my arms folded being furious about something that had nothing to do with me while he had just looked at me with that expression that was somehow worse than if he had laughed.
He was genuinely confused.
Not mocking nor amused really. He just seemed confused about how I had gotten there.
Which was the most humiliating possible response.
"Ready?" Nadia asked, taking her bags from the cashier.
"Yes." I nodded.
We left.
The mall was still full and loud around us and Nadia was talking about the matching dresses and how good we were going to look while I was making the right sounds at the right moments and thinking about nothing except the look on Dane’s face when he said I wasn’t here for you.
The car was waiting outside. We got in and the driver pulled out into the afternoon traffic and Nadia was still talking, something about the shoes she had seen in the second store and whether she should go back for them, and I was looking out the window and nodding and then—
I stopped.
There was a figure on the pavement standing still in the moving crowd, not walking, just standing, looking directly at the car.
My heart stopped.
Orin.
I blinked.
He was still there. Same build, same face, watching the car move past with an expression I couldn’t read through the glass.
"Stop the car." I whispered.
The driver looked in the mirror. "Miss?"
"Stop. Right here. Stop."
The car pulled over and I was out before it had fully stopped, door swinging behind me, stepping onto the pavement and turning back to where I had seen him.
Nothing.
Just people moving with shopping bags and conversations and a woman with a stroller and two teenagers on their phones and no Orin anywhere.
I walked back three steps. Four. Looked down the pavement in both directions.
Gone.
Like he had never been there.
Nadia appeared beside me. "What happened? What did you see?"
"Orin." I sounded confused. "He was right there. Standing on the pavement looking at the car."
Nadia looked where I was pointing. "Where?"
"He was there." I said. "Right there. Standing still while everyone else was moving."
She looked carefully. Then she looked at me. "Keisha." She said carefully. "There’s nobody there."
"I saw him." I ran a hand through my hair. "He was looking directly at the car."
She was quiet for a moment. "You’ve been thinking about him a lot lately." She said gently. "With everything that happened at his apartment. It’s understandable that—"
"I know what I saw." I cut her off, exasperation bleeding into my tone.
"I believe that you saw something." She said. "I just—" She looked at the pavement again. At the moving crowd. At the complete absence of anyone standing still. "Maybe your brain is—"
"Processing." I said flatly.
"I was going to say working through it." She said. "Which isn’t the same as making things up. It’s just—" She touched my arm. "He’s gone, Keisha. He was exiled. Dane walked him to the border himself."
I stood there and looked at the pavement one more time.
Then I turned and got back in the car.
Nadia got in beside me and the driver pulled out and nobody said anything for a while. I sat there looking out the window and told myself I knew what I had seen was true and also told myself that Nadia wasn’t wrong about Dane walking him to the border and both of those things sat next to each other uncomfortably.
"You’re not going crazy." Nadia said eventually.
"How do you know?" I looked at her.
"Because you’re one of the most level headed people I’ve ever met." She said. "And level headed people don’t go crazy. They just—" She paused. "Have moments."
"Is that what that was?" I asked. "A moment."
"A very understandable one." She said. "Given what he did."
I looked out the window.
The street moved past and I watched it.
We got home and Nadia still refused to go back to the mansion.
"I’m staying." She said. "At least until tomorrow."
"The party is tomorrow." I reminded her.
"Exactly." She said. "So I’m staying tonight and we’ll go together tomorrow." She dropped onto my sofa and reached for the remote. "Also Becca is going to send food over. I asked her when we were leaving."
I looked at her. "You asked Becca to send food to my house."
"Our house." She corrected.
"My house." I said.
"For now." She said pleasantly.
I sat beside her and didn’t argue because Becca’s food was objectively the right call and I was tired and the Orin thing was still sitting at the back of my mind and having Nadia here was better than not having her here.
Becca sent a container over an hour later, carried by one of the junior kitchen staff who handed it over with a note from Becca that said — Nadia told me you’ve both been out all day. Eat properly. Don’t make me come over there.
I showed the note to Nadia.
She read it and looked genuinely touched. "She’s the best person in this pack." She said.
"She sent the note specifically because she doesn’t trust you to eat properly." I laughed.
"I know." She smiled. "That’s what makes it sweet."
We ate at the kitchen table and the food was good, genuinely good, and we talked about the party tomorrow and what time to leave and whether Nadia needed to borrow shoes and at some point the Orin thing receded to somewhere manageable in the back of my head.
When Nadia finally went to bed I stayed up a while longer, sat in the quiet of my sitting room and looked at the wall as I thought about a figure standing still on a pavement.
I thought about Dane walking him to the border. The warning he had given. If he ever came back, he’d be killed. So, was it possible that he still came back?
A knock at my door made me jerk.
I looked at it.
It was late. Too late for most people.
I opened it slowly .
Dane was there in his patrol jacket with his hands in his pockets and an expression that said he had been deciding whether to knock for a moment before he did.
"I wanted to clear something up." He muttered.
"Come in." I said.
He came inside and I closed the door and we stood in my hallway as I looked at him and felt the embarrassment from the store resurface immediately.
"The store." I said before he could. "I know. I jumped to a conclusion."
"You did." He nodded, but not unkindly.
"I thought—" I stopped. "You’ve been following me before. Around the estate. I thought—"
"That was different." He said. "That was after Orin. I was watching out for you." He looked at me. "Today I was watching Vanessa. She’s been moving around the pack more than she should be and I wanted to know where."
"Did you find out anything?" I asked.
"Some things." He said.
"Like what?" I said.
He looked at me. "Pack business." He said. "I’ll tell you what’s relevant to you."
I looked at him.
"I’m sorry." I said. "For assuming. For marching over there like that."
"You’ve done worse." He shrugged.
I looked at him. "Have I?"
"You chased an intruder in your pajamas at midnight." He said. "Marching across a store is relatively measured by comparison."
I pressed my lips together.
Something almost like amusement moved through his face. "It was a reasonable conclusion given the context." He said. "Don’t apologise too hard."
"I’m not apologising too hard." I said. "I’m apologising the exact right amount."
He looked at me for a moment. "Okay." He nodded.
"Okay." I said.
We stood there in my hallway quietly. "Is she meeting with Rhett?" I said.
He went very still. "What?"
"The unknown man." I said. "The one from the boundary gate. Is that who she was meeting?"
He looked at me for a long moment. "How do you know that name?"
"I don’t." I looked away. "I’m asking."
He studied me. "Get some sleep." He grunted and turned toward the door.
"Dane." I called out.
He stopped.
"Is she?" I said.
He looked at me over his shoulder. "Get some sleep, Keisha." He said again.
He let himself out.
I stood in my hallway alone for a while before I went to bed.