He didn’t look at me, but it didn’t matter.

“On three, let’s lift.” He still didn’t say anything. Okay. “One, two, three,” I called out, before lifting it. Luckily, he didn’t fight with me over that.

I backed out, carrying my part, keeping my attention over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t back into anything. In no time, we had set the hood down on top of old five-gallon buckets covered with old rags. For a second, I thought about reminding him of what I’d asked him to do but decided against it. He was a grown man and there was nothing wrong with his memory.

So I went to the bathroom, took my time a little and decided to stop by the floor and tell Rip that the hood was ready for them to come get. Instead, I found one of the builders crouched by a Hummer and told him. By the time I got back to my room, the sound of a paint can being shaken filled it, but Jason wasn’t in the room.

Where the hell had he gone?

I had originally planned on letting him paint the engine block that was next on the schedule, but after his attitude, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that.

But….

Kindness and patience. Kindness and patience.

I’d wait for him.

And that was what I did. I waited, going through some files, checking my supplies… but when my watch told me it had been half an hour and he still hadn’t come back, my irritation went through the freaking roof again. First he was pushing it with twenty minutes? But now thirty?

Patience, Luna, patience.

But patience didn’t mean I had to wait around.

I was going to look for this turd and tell him to come paint the block. If he got another attitude with me, well then, maybe it would be time to go tell Mr. Cooper what was going on with him. Maybe I’d even tell Rip depending on how ugly he talked to me. At this point, I was over the fact the only person under twenty-one I could trust was Lily.

Sighing, I headed out of my room and down the hallway, stopping at the men’s bathroom to kick it open and call out, “Jason?”

But it wasn’t Jason that responded with, “Luna! I’m taking a shit!”

Even being in a little bit of a bad mood wasn’t enough to keep me from snickering. “Sorry! I’m looking for Jason, Owen!”

“He walked by me when I was going down the hall,” he replied, sounding… strained.

I covered my mouth so he wouldn’t hear me laugh at him. “Okay, thanks!” I backed out of there and made my way toward the main floor. Going up to the tips of my toes, I tried to look around to see if I could spot him… but he wasn’t anywhere.

Where was he?

I jogged up the stairs and looked in the break room, but he wasn’t in there either. I thought for a second about going to ask Mr. Cooper if he’d seen him but decided against it. From the stairs, I still didn’t see him. I had never smelled smoke on him before, but maybe he was outside?

I should just go back to my room and do the work myself. I really should. Or go tell Mr. C first and then do that.

But for some dumb reason, I crossed the main floor, heading toward the door that would lead outside.

“You all right?” Miguel asked, peeking his head out from around the front end of the Malibu he was detailing as I walked by him.

“Have you seen Jason?”

He tipped his chin toward the door. “He was on the phone. He went out that way.” Miguel made a thoughtful face. “That was a while ago though. Right after Mr. C took off.”

This little shit. “Yeah, it’s been over half an hour since I last saw him. Let me go see if he’s out there.”

My coworker shook his head, and I made a face at him before cutting the rest of the distance toward the door. I saw Rip stop where he was, right by the SS he was working on, and I waved at him. He didn’t wave back, but I’d swear his mouth moved and his dimple popped.

Good enough for me.

Three steps later, I shouldered the door open and standing in the doorway, called out, “Jason?”

I could swear I heard voices.

“Jason?” I called out again.

Still, I could hear… something.

I needed to go ahead and tattle. I really did. I let the door shut behind me as I walked across the lot, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from. The lot was filled with employee and customers’ cars. I had probably gotten across half the main lot when I spotted Jason’s head over the top of his Mitsubishi Eclipse.

“Hey,” I called out, stopping in place.

He turned to look at me, and I could see the hesitation on his face before he seemed to nod to himself and start walking toward me.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Jason was busy looking at the ground as he approached, and he didn’t respond.

I said his name again just as he passed by me.

He still didn’t even bother looking over at me.

I stayed where I was and tried again. “Jason.”

Still nothing.

What was going on with him?

I turned around to watch him as he walked toward the door I had just come through and opened my mouth to say something—I wasn’t even sure what—when I heard the pounding footsteps.

But I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. Wasn’t sure why I slowed down so much to look over my shoulder to figure out why it sounded like someone was running up behind me. But the point was, I didn’t turn around. Not fast enough.

I didn’t put the pieces together until way too late.

Until I got shoved forward from behind so hard I went flying. Until my hands stretched out to break my fall, them and my forearms scraping the concrete when I landed what had to be ten feet away. It wasn’t until then that I figured out what the hell was happening.

I wasn’t sure why, I wasn’t sure I would ever know why, but the first thing out of my mouth was a shouted, “RIP!” at the top of my lungs. I yelled it again the second I could get another mouthful of letters into my body.

But it was the second that name was out of my mouth that I heard the grunted, “Fuckin’ bitch” that triggered some part of my brain a second before a hand dug into my hair, my short freaking hair that barely passed my chin when it was wavy, and jerked my head back, giving me a split-second view of a face I recognized.

A face I made a plan for spitting into a second before my cousin backhanded me like the piece of crap he was.

Stars flashed across my eyes just for a moment, just for a second, as that stupid ring he always wore bit into my cheek.

“What the fuck are you doing, Rudy?” a voice I didn’t recognize shouted, panicking. “You said we were going to talk to her!”

“I—” my cousin started to say as the sound of a door being opened filtered across the lot. I opened my eyes against the tiny dots filling my vision, every single thing that had gone wrong in my life lately refueling me in that split second… and I swung my leg out, sweeping my cousin just perfectly… just enough that I heard him hit the ground.

I got up as fast as my hands and feet would let me, adrenaline and fucking anger like I had never felt in my life before burning a hole through me.

The bastard was trying to jump me.

My own fucking cousin was trying to jump me. Why was that surprising? Why did that make me mad? I wondered as I finally stood, looking down at the man blinking up at the sky on the ground, in a daze, groaning.

“LUNA!” Rip’s voice roared from across the lot, the sound of multiple sets of feet hitting pavement telling me he wasn’t alone.

But neither was I.

“Fuck!” the man with the voice I didn’t recognize hissed, forcing me to look at him just as he turned around and started running toward the lot’s gate. The gate that happened to be in the process of closing.

I’d swear on my life that my vision went red.

But the next thing I knew, I reached down and pulled my work boot off—thankful I never tied them too tightly—and I chunked it as hard as I could at the man trying to get away. I watched as my steel-toed boot hit him right between the shoulder blades, heard the “Oh!” escape him as it was his turn to go flying toward the ground, arms stretched in front of him. Heard the “Fuck!” that exploded out of him that told me it wasn’t just my boot that hurt him.