Page 90 of Shadowed With Fear

“Well, yeah. She’s paying for school so it’s not really that weird she’s been working a lot lately.”

“Yeah, but it’s like I never see her. I think I seen her more when she was avoiding me than I do now.” His cheeks are red, and his eyes are bloodshot.

“You okay, Issac?” I step forward to place my hand on his arm, but he jerks away, laughing mirthlessly.

“Oh, I’m fucking dandy, D. I’ll be even better when I watch Ethan win this fight tonight.”

What is going on with him?

“Okay. Um, well I think I’m gonna go find, B. Uh, maybe I’ll see you in a little while?”

“Yeah, Dahlia. I’ll see you later.”

I turn, moving quickly through the maze of bodies, feeling his eyes glued to my back, or should I say my ass, the whole time.

I have no fucking idea what just happened, but I don’t like it. At all. Not Issac hanging out with Ethan like they’ve known each other for years and they’re besties, or how he was acting toward me, and what he was saying about Liz.

It was like I was talking to a stranger.

“Hey, there you are. Where did you go?” Adam spins me around.

“I ran into Issac,” I mumbled, looking around trying to see if I can spot him, but it’s like he was never there.

“Issac? Really? Here?” He sounds just as shocked and confused as I was.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. He said he’s here with a guy from school.”

“That’s weird. Come on. We’re gonna go see Grays. Haven’t heard from, Marcus yet, so we’re gonna wait there.”

I nod, following him as he nudges through the people blocking the path to the locker rooms, careful not to hit his leg.

The further down the hall we go, the less the noise permeates the air. It’s even much cooler, which I’m pretty thankful for.

Adam pushes open a large, heavy door and inside the locker room Grayson sits on a bench as Alex tapes up his hand.

Brahm steps out in front of me, face twisted like he’d eaten something sour. “Wanna tell me why you ran off?”

“I told you, B. Looking for clues. Getting my Velma vibes going.”

He stares at me for a moment before looking to the ceiling, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well Sherlock, did you find anything?”

I lift my shoulder in nonchalance. “I found Issac, if that’s anything.”

Grayson snorts from the bench. “What the hell is he doing here?”

“That’s literally what I said.”

“Is Liz here too?” Brahm looks to me, his tone taking on a protective quality he often gets when he’s talking about me and Liz.

“No. He said she was working—well, he kinda shit talked that she was working, which was weird.”

“Then why is he here? Issac is like a middle-aged office worker in an eighteen-year-olds body. Coming here doesn’t seem very like him.”

“I know. I asked him that too. He said— “

The door slams open behind me, and a big burly guy walks through. He towers over me and is even taller than Brahm. The guy’s covered in tattoos, and even has a few on his face weaving between the gnarly looking scars.

“Grayson, you got your opponent. Guy’s a newbie,” the man’s voice is a raspy rattle, like he’s a smoker, but he looks at Grayson with a strange pride.