^ not how I picture the McNamaras' café, but you get the general mood

-

The fairy-like chime of the bell resounds throughout the café as I wander in. My keys slip from my fingers above a table. They clatter against the wooden surface when they land.

Lattie is at the front counter like she isn't allowed to be; but there are no customers and it's one minute until closing, so it doesn't much matter. She looks at me with her big brown eyes as warm as coffee, and I let them warm me as well, like that coffee is pouring over me, because I know them. They're familiar. Safe. I don't have to dig familiarity out of the strangeness, or discern one from the other because they're so intertwined. Lattie is all one: she is entirely familiar. There are no tricks about her, nothing to muddle my brain between stranger and friend.

"Leila," she tries, concern and fear stitched into every fabric of her voice. It doesn't slip my mind who is responsible for doing that to her: the stalker with a peeping hole in her grandmother's garden; the maniac who killed her best friend; me, the idiot who took her to see that friend's desecrated body. "Are you okay?"

I fall back into a chair at one of the tables, plopping down and releasing a heavy breath. There's so much I've been keeping from Lattie lately, all of it to try to protect her from the very fear that has already burrowed into her voice. But this? This I have to let go. There's only so much one can hold at one time, and I've reached capacity.

"I saw an old friend," I admit. It's even more surreal, now that it's out in the open in my new world, created so far away from my old.

Lattie's countenance falls blank. She's across the café and at my side in an instant, bending down and lugging my shoulders into her embrace. She may not know the specifics of my past, but she knows that 'old' is not good.

At her delicate touch, and the sweet, airily light scent of her perfume, I crack. I return her hug, and curse at myself as I feel the wetness gathering in my eyes.

"He's here," I murmur flatly against the soft wool of her sweater, a daze still gripping me. "He's in Heisenbühl."

She leans back to search my eyes, her hands still poised on my shoulders. "Who?"

I hesitate, thinking carefully about my next words. Is there a word to describe what he is to me? We were inseparable, years ago before being separated for five. We were partners in crime. Allies. Comrades. We had sleepovers and prank wars. We shared secrets and belongings. From the day his family arrived at my family's pack to the moment we were pried apart when they left, Zakai and I were best friends.

So I tell Lattie that, though I bend the truth to fit a human's narrative. I tell her that Zakai and I were neighbors rather than pack members, that his family moved to follow his father's job and that mine wouldn't allow me a phone to keep in contact with him.

"It's fate," Lattie concludes, except I don't particularly like that word.

"No," I say, "it's a freak coincidence."

"Well I'm happy for you. You were reunited with your long lost best friend and met your boyfriend the same day."

I blink at her, catching her wrist lightning fast as she goes to move away.

"What did you just say?"

A paleness falls over her porcelain face. She's slow to form a response. "I said..."

"I don't have a boyfriend," I state firmly. Then I distinctly remember Nanni taking my apron before I was ready to leave and my eyes narrow to a glare. "You snooped!"

"I did not! Nanni did!"

"Like you weren't looking over her shoulder!"

Her wrist slips from my grasp and I bolt to my feet in pursuit. Before I can catch her again, she twirls around a table so that it's a barrier between us.

"When are you going to call him?" She asks, faking going right until I mirror her and she returns to the safety of the center.

"Never!" I make a grab across the table. She twists out of reach.

"Was he nice?" She asks, faking left and being matched once again. "I bet you had a meet cute and I missed it because you locked me in the back all day!"

I pull out a chair from the table and fling it so that it stands blocking one of Lattie's two escape routes. Realizing this, she makes a beeline for the one she has left. I do, too.

She squeals when we collide, bodies thudding together, my arms pinning hers in a bear hug.

"Stop going through my things!" I shout, hanging on for dear life as she writhes to break free.

"I didn't!" She defends through fits of ragged laughter.

Lattie's fingers may look clean and polished, but they're sticky. She was bound to sniff out that shred of paper in my apron pocket sooner rather than later. If there's something she isn't supposed to find, she will. It's like some kind of Lattie-sense that she has, unknown to her but overpowering to her subconscious.

"Unhand me!" Lattie shouts, breathless and laughing and tickling my sides in an attempt to make me let go.

"GIRLS!" An aged voice, sharp as a whip, cracks across the café. We flinch as though it really were. The laughing and shrieking ceases and we freeze. Lattie's arms are braced against me, pushing. Mine are locked around her, pulling.

Nanni stands behind the counter across the room. She holds a small piece of paper in her hand: a sheet from the tablet we use for orders.

My stomach plummets.

"I don't think I recall a Konrad Fürst. You'll have to invite him for dinner, Leila dear. I'll make schnitzel."

~

The drive home is quiet. Nanni elected to ride in the back, Lattie in the passenger seat beside me. There's a tired, sleepy aura in the vehicle with the hum of the engine, the glow of the dash, and the warmth of the heater.

In the periphery, I even saw Lattie nod off once despite the short ride.

When we crossed the bridge, I tensed up against my own will. I scanned the woods on either side and pressed the door 'lock' button despite the locks already being engaged. When we parked in the drive, I jumped out before Lattie or Nanni could. If the stalker was looking for someone to take, he could take me before them.

But there was no predator lying in wait, and so we entered the house without issue and I locked the door behind us. If either Lattie or Nanni noticed my recent mania with locks, neither of them mentioned it.

I helped Nanni up the stairs, and once she was safe in her room and had shooed us out, Lattie and I went to hers.

Lattie's bedroom, like many of her clothes, is styled with pastels. The walls are a very light shade of tan, the floor covered by a massive, fluffy white rug. Various delicate blues, greens, and pinks are presented in the decor, and white string lights hang around the seam of wall and ceiling.

After changing into her mismatched pajamas in the bathroom, she throws herself crossways onto her bed. I huff and plop down beside her, each of us exhaling very different problems.

"Did you have fun running the back today?" I ask, staring at the ceiling.

"Did you have fun running errands?" She reverberates.

I recall all the errands I ran today, and all the nightmares they've birthed. No, is the answer in my head, No I most definitely did not.

I give Lattie a pointed glare. She smiles sleepily before dropping her head back down.

"You're not going to sleep on the couch again, are you?" She asks.

Scenes of the previous night play through my mind, of the dark first story of the house and a face peering in the windows... the sound of the locked doorknobs jiggling. What would have happened if I hadn't been down there? Exactly how far will this man's sick determination take him?

"I was planning to," I say.

"Why don't you just share my room?" Would I be able to hear everything downstairs from here? If I pass the night in the same vicinity as Lattie's softly snoring form, will I know if someone is trying to break in below? Both Lattie and Nanni heard things last night, but neither heard enough to fully wake them, it seems.

"Leila," Lattie pokes me in the side when I don't answer, "Come on. Let's have a sleepover."

"I always sleep over."

"No, like a sleepover party."

"A slumber party?" I offer with a quirked eyebrow.

"Yes!" She springs up from the bed, sliding slightly when her sock feet hit the floor. "I'll go make snacks!"

I sit up after her. "No, Lattie, I--"

She zooms through the bedroom doorway, leaving me to catch nothing but the glimpse of her vanilla blonde hair whipping around the corner and the lingering whiff of her rosy light perfume.

"Damn it." Even as I whisper the profanity under my breath, I can't help but to smile. I get up and follow in her path, where a blatant ruckus of pots and pans and bowls being thrown across the kitchen can be heard below. Right as I reach the top of the stairs, that aged, snapping voice bellows from down the hall.

"LEILA! Is that damn badger in the kitchen again?" A slew of curses decorates her ranting. "Fetch me the broom!"