“Isla! Wake up! Wake up, Isla.”
Jonna’s hands gripped her shoulders, fingers pressing hard.
Isla’s brain struggled to process the urgency bleeding through the darkness.
Her eyes fluttered open slightly.
The sunlight coming from the window cast Jonna’s silhouette above her face.
She closed her eyes.
“Isla! You need to wake up.”
The weight of sleep still clung to Isla as the shaking continued.
“Five more minutes,” she mumbled, pulling the covers over her head, her voice thick with exhaustion.
She’d finally drifted off to sleep around four, after hours of staring at the ceiling, her mind replaying the moment with Liam, especially what she had said to him.
“Isla, now.” Jonna ripped the covers away.
Isla’s eyes snapped open, her body jolting upright as adrenaline cut through the fog.
“What is it, Jonna?” She blinked, trying to focus on Jonna’s face.
Jonna was still in her pajamas, a worn pink flannel set.
She was pacing now.
Back and forth, back and forth, her bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor.
“Red Wolf got robbed.”
Isla stared at her.
“What?” The word came out as barely a whisper.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet finding the cold floor and her heart hammering against her ribs.
“Jeremy’s been blowing up my phone,” Jonna said, and her voice cracked on Jeremy’s name.
“He’s been calling for long minutes now. Asking about you. If you were okay. If you’d come home last night.” She stopped pacing long enough to meet Isla’s eyes.
“I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know what happened. I just kept saying you were here, you were sleeping, you were fine.”
Isla’s hand shot out to the nightstand, fumbling for her phone.
The screen glowed to life, and her stomach dropped.
Seventeen missed calls.
Eleven text messages.
“Oh no…”
She scrolled through them, her eyes skipping across words that blurred together.
“Isla, please call me.”
“Isla, where are you?”
“Isla, please tell me you’re safe.”
“Isla, call me the second you get this.”
“Jonna, what—” She looked up, her fingers trembling against the screen of her phone.
“He told me some guy named John orchestrated it.”
The name hit her like a physical blow in her gut.
John.
Like John Mercer?
No. No, that couldn’t be right.
“John?” Isla’s mouth dropped open.
“Like John John? From last night? The guy I worked with?”
Jonna’s eyes narrowed.
“You know him?”
“I—” Isla’s hand went to her forehead, pressing against her temple as she could physically push the confusion out of her brain.
“He was there. Last night. He was supposed to help me because Jeremy had an emergency. Jeremy said John was his friend.”
“Wow.” Jonna mouthed.
“What the hell? How could—” Isla paused, her mind replaying back to last night.
John’s easy smile.
The way he’d shown her how to work the register, his voice patient and warm.
“Like what the hell?” The words came out ragged.
“I only just met him last night. He was so—he was nice, Jonna. He was cool. He made me feel like I actually belonged there.”
Jonna stopped pacing and crossed her arms, her jaw tight.
“It’s always the closest ones,” she said.
“The ones who seem the nicest. They’re the ones you never see coming.”
Isla was on her feet now, pacing the same path Jonna had worn into the floor.
Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t make them stop.
“I can’t believe this. I can’t—” She pressed her palms against her eyes, hard, like she could press the memory out of her mind.
“God, I’m so stupid.”
“Hey.” Jonna’s voice was sharp.
“Don’t do that. Don’t start blaming yourself.”
But Isla was already spiraling, the words tumbling out of her in a rush.
“He had the cash box key, Jonna. I didn’t even bother to ask why. And when we closed up, ready to leave, he offered me a ride, then said he’d left his own keys inside. He told me to go ahead.”
“Isla—”
“You want to know what’s worse? He was fucking worried about the dorm gate being locked. And offered to get me a taxi, which I declined. And I just went ahead to leave.”
“You need to—”
“And I didn’t—I didn’t even think twice.” She laughed, but it was hollow and bitter.
“I was just so relieved my first shift was over, so happy to get out of there, that I just—” She stopped pacing, her hands clenching at her sides.
“The signs. They were all right there. Clear as day. And I just passed them off.”
Jonna crossed the room in three quick strides and grabbed Isla’s shoulders, forcing her to stop moving.
Isla’s eyes met hers.
“John is the bad guy here. Not you. Do you hear me? He’s the one who robbed the place. He’s the one who betrayed Jeremy’s trust. Not you.”
“But I should have been more careful—”
“You should have been trusting,” Jonna cut her off.
“That’s what normal people do. They trust their coworkers. They don’t expect them to steal from the people who employ them.” Her grip on Isla’s shoulders tightened.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Isla wanted to believe her.
She really did.
But the guilt was already there, a cold knot in her stomach that she couldn’t untangle.
She should have insisted on helping him find the keys.
“Did they—did they apprehend him?” Her voice was small.
“Is he in custody?”
Jonna shook her head.
“No. Jeremy said he got away. They’re still looking for him, but…”
Isla ran a hand through her tangled hair, tugging at the ends in frustration.
“I need to go see him. I need to go to the pub. I have to—”
“What about your class?” Jonna interrupted.
“You have that seminar at ten.”
“I can skip it.” The words came out faster than Isla expected.
“I can’t just sit through a seminar when Jeremy’s there, dealing with all of this. And I was the last person with John. I should have known. I should have been careful. He trusted me to manage the pub, and I failed him.”
Jonna opened her mouth to argue, but before she could, her phone buzzed from the bed, the screen lighting up with Jeremy’s name.
They both froze.
Jonna crossed to the bed and picked it up, her thumb hovering over the screen.
“Hello, J,” She listened for a moment, her expression shifting from concern to something more focused.
“Okay. Okay. Okay, yeah. She’s right here. I’ll tell her.”
She ended the call and turned to Isla.
“Jeremy needs you at the pub. They have cops there. He said they need you to give a statement.”
Isla was already moving toward the bathroom.
“Tell him I’ll be there soon. Tell him—” She paused, her hand on the doorframe.
“Tell him I’m sorry.”
Jonna’s eyes softened.
“He doesn’t blame you, Isla. I can tell. He’s just worried.”
“Still.”
Isla closed the bathroom door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, her head pressed against the wood.