Part Twenty Three of You Will Find Your Way
Look, Dallas isn’t trying to be vague on purpose.
“Hey! That hot guy you picked up at that bar is here to see you!”
Bent over the sink in the powder room, Dallas splashes water over her face when Giselle yells—whatever it is she just yelled—and misses most of it over sounds of water landing on the drain.
She frowns, tilts her head and—what kind of bar is she yelling about and what does it have to do with whoever’s at the door?
“What?” She snaps and tilts her chin to one side, glowers at the streak of mud still staining her jaw below her right ear.
Dallas dunks her head again as Giselle yells something about picking up a bar, again, and this is not helping at all.
She grabs a pile of paper towels and dabs at her face, favors her reflection with a dubious look because her she’s pasty in some places and splotchy in others, and her hair falls in inky strings around her shoulders, “Well,” she mutters. “This is going to be an adventure.”
One that she does not have time for.
Her hand is on the door when she realizes she’s still armed and that’s probably not the greatest idea—and really, how was it so easy for her and her addled brain to get past an entire squad of campus security rent-a-cops?
How parents can think this place is a legitimate, safe place to send their children to learn is completely beyond her.
She strips her weapons and stashes them under the sink, finally leaves the powder room where she finds—
Oh, she was talking about the GUY from the bar.
That makes a lot more sense than picking up bars.
And he is so much better looking with adequate lighting.
Go me.
Of course, Giselle is standing to the side, grinning like an idiot, which Dallas is going to make a point to ignore, because neither of them have been teenagers for a long time.
But when he looks at her, he frowns, which Dallas definitely understands because she knows she looks like she spent the night in an industrial-sized washing machine, but then he goes pale and then—angry?
What?
He is definitely glaring at her when he asks, no, when he demands, “Who the hell are you?”
Frowning back, because yes, not exchanging names before they has sex is kind of awkward, but it wasn’t like that, so Dallas just crosses her arms over her chest, “The name’s Dallas.”
“McKinnon?”
She blinks at the use of her old surname, tilts her head, but—
“Yeah,” she says, draws the word out because this is the weirdest conversation she’s ever had.
She’s about to ask him how he knows that when he cuts her off, blurting, “That’s impossible. You can’t be Dallas McKinnon.”
“Why the hell not?” She demands.
Because she can be, and is.
He shifts from foot to foot, rakes a hand through his hair, sending the short spikes in all directions, “Because the only thing they ever found of the real Dallas McKinnon was her right arm, so I don’t know who you are or what you’re trying to get at looking like her, but-”
Dallas looks down at the limb in question where it’s crossed over her chest and tucked under her left arm, “Well shit,” she mutters, mostly to herself as pieces of a very old puzzle sort of click together. “So that’s where the damn thing ended up! What-ouch!”
She turns her glare to Giselle, who somehow moved across the room and smacked her upside the head like that guy from the show about the navy criminalists who get blown up every three and a half episodes, “Seriously Dallas?”
“What? I wondered what happened to it.”
Giselle flaps a hand in the guy’s direction, “He’s kind of freaking out, you know.”
And he is, but is nice enough to do it quietly.
It’s definitely both warranted and awkward, but he seems so upset that she insists she’s Dallas McKinnon—because she is—so she has to ask, “Am I supposed to have known you?”
His draw drops, “Yes,” he’s incredulous. “If you’re really Dallas, you’d know that I dated your big. I saw you all the time.”
She frowns, tilts her head and racks through her shaky memories, tries to place him, “I vaguely remember,” she says, but it still sounds like a question.
“Do you,” his brows furrow. “How do you not remember?”
Dallas sighs, uncrosses her arms so she can dig her fingers into her right shoulder, “I’m afraid it’s a little complicated. And I still can’t really place you. Sorry,” she shrugs, sounds actually apologetic, because it’s not like she ever prepared for something like this to happen.
Though, she maybe should have.
“My name’s Luke. Michelle’s ex. I was a Sigma.”
She tilts her head, and a couple more memories slip together into something that sort of makes sense, “Oh,” she manages through the confusion. “So you do know me. Well that’s weird.”
Giselle snorts, and Dallas looks at her, shrugs, “Well it is,” she looks back at Luke. “I think I can explain but,” she looks around the office, sees the shadows of movement through the frosted glass on the door. “But not here.”
“Well, I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”
Dallas looks at Giselle, and she shrugs, “We can figure it out at the house. I’ll cancel the rest of my afternoon.”
“Great,” Dallas looks at Luke, squints. “How long has it been? Since you last saw me?”
“Twelve years.”
“Oh, okay.”
He throws his hands up in frustration, “What does that even mean?”
“That you’re not going to like any of what I’m about to tell you.”
You Will Find Your Way continues with Part Twenty Four on Monday, February 27
Start You Will Find Your Way from the beginning.
Like what you read? Want to see more?
-Kathryn, the Fake Redhead
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