Chapter 8: Not Unless You Slap Yourself

Briar's ankle was still bad.

She knew this the moment she put weight on it getting out of bed. She moved slowly getting dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on her shoes because bending down too fast made her eyes water.

She had set an alarm. She had her bag. She had her ID badge.

She was waiting by the front entrance at seven forty-three.

Seven forty-five came and went.

At seven fifty-two she found one of the house staff and asked if Killian had already left.

"Mr. Vane left at seven-fifteen," the woman said, not looking up.

Briar stood in the hallway and absorbed this. Seven-fifteen. She had been awake at seven-fifteen. She had heard movement in the house.

She called a taxi. It took twenty-two minutes to arrive. The driver took the long route.

She arrived at Vane Sterling Tower at nine-fourteen, which was fourteen minutes past the start of her shift.

---

Vane Sterling's corporate canteen occupied the entire third floor. Briar's job was at the end of the serving line, handing out cutlery sets. One rolled napkin per person. Fork, spoon, knife. *Enjoy your lunch.* She was good at this part.

The lunch rush started at noon. The canteen filled up fast, suits and lanyards and the smell of air conditioning and expensive coffee.

The large screen on the east wall usually ran the company's internal highlight reel on loop, quarterly achievements and product launches. Briar had stopped noticing it months ago.

She was handing out the fourth cutlery set of the rush when the canteen went strange.

A ripple of quiet moving from the east wall outward, people turning to look.

Briar did not turn around immediately. She handed out another cutlery set. Then she heard her own voice coming from the speakers.

High and cracked and wrong, the howl that had broken apart in the middle of the ceremonial field last night. It played for about ten seconds and the footage cut back to the quarterly reel.

But ten seconds was enough.

The canteen had already seen it.

Briar stood at the cutlery station with her hands very still and kept her eyes on the stack in front of her. Her face was hot. Although she had firmly believed that her wolf-run would be a celebratory performance, Killian and Linda's reaction last night made her realize that her performance was, in fact, a humiliation.

She reached for the next cutlery set.

That was when someone's tray caught the edge of the sauce dispenser behind her.

The heat of brown gravy sauce moved down her back and up the side of her neck in a sheet. She stood very still.

From two places back in the line, Vivienne Thorne looked up from her phone.

Vivienne was Killian's personal secretary, had been for months. Today she was wearing a cream silk blouse that had, along its left cuff, caught a thin stripe of the same sauce. She looked at her cuff. She looked at Briar.

*Perfect,* Vivienne thought. *Absolutely perfect.*

Her expression said nothing directly.

The canteen noticed Vivienne's blouse before it noticed Briar's uniform.

"Is that silk? Oh no!"

"Vivienne, are you okay?"

Vivienne pressed her lips together. "It's fine," she said softly. "These things happen."

"I didn't touch it!" Briar said. Too loud. She knew it was too loud and she couldn't fix it. "Someone's tray hit the dispenser. I was just standing here. I didn't do anything!"

"She was late this morning too," the man behind her said. "Fourteen minutes."

"Not the first time either."

Briar looked at her sauce-soaked uniform and then at Vivienne's cuff and then at the faces turning toward her.

"I'm sorry about your blouse," she said. "I really am. But I didn't do it on purpose. I was just standing here. Why does nobody believe I was just standing here?"

Vivienne gave her a small, patient smile. "I know you didn't mean to, Briar."

"She never means to!" someone said. Laughter. Real laughter this time, not the small careful kind.

Mabel Finch had been watching from a table near the window.

Mabel worked in the marketing department on the seventh floor. She was small and had bright orange hair and had been Briar's best friend since they were twelve, which meant she had also been watching Vivienne Thorne operate for three years with the particular attention of someone who recognized a pattern and could not get anyone else to see it.

She set down her tray and walked over.

"You were in the control room this morning," Mabel said. She was looking directly at Vivienne. "Before the lunch rush. I saw you go in."

The canteen went a degree quieter.

Vivienne's expression did not change. "I had a technical question for the AV team."

"Right." Mabel said. "And then twenty minutes into the rush, Briar's howl from last night plays on every screen in the canteen. Funny timing!"

A murmur moved through the room.

"That's a serious accusation," someone said.

"I know what I saw," Mabel said.

Vivienne's eyes went slightly wet. One tear, precise. "I don't know why you've always disliked me," she said quietly. "I've never done anything to you."

*There it is,* Kallie said. *Now watch the room move.*

"Stop doing that!" Mabel said.

"Doing what? I'm just standing here."

"You're standing there with that face and letting everyone do the work for you! That's what you always do!" Mabel shouted. "I have watched you do this to Briar for three years and I am done watching!"

Vivienne's wet eyes moved briefly to the crowd. Just briefly. Just enough.

The crowd shifted back toward her.

"She's been kind to me all morning," Vivienne said softly. "Even after everything yesterday. I don't understand why this is happening."

The murmur changed direction entirely.

Mabel looked at the faces around her, read them fast, and slapped Vivienne across the face.

The canteen went completely silent.

Vivienne's head turned sideways. Her hand came up slowly to her cheek.

"Mabel." Killian's voice came from the entrance.

He stood at the canteen doors. His eyes moved from Vivienne's cheek to Mabel to Briar. His jaw was set.

"Apologize," he said to Mabel. "Now."

Mabel crossed her arms. "No."

"That was not a request."

"I know what it was!" Her voice stayed steady. "She put that footage on the canteen screens herself! I saw her go into that control room! She stood there and let everyone pile on Briar and made her sad face for the crowd and I'm not apologizing for any of it!"

Killian looked at her for a long moment. Then he looked at Briar.

Briar's chest felt strange. She and Mabel had not spoken in two months. She had spent those two months being quietly certain that Mabel had been the one to spread those stories.

And Mabel had shown up anyway, standing here getting dressed down by an Alpha on her behalf anyway.

"Briar." Mabel turned to her. "Tell him. Tell him what Vivienne has been doing. You know."

Every face in the canteen turned toward Briar.

Her mouth was dry.  Killian was looking at her with the expression that meant he had already decided and she had not spoken yet.

She took a breath.

"Killian." Her voice came out very small but she kept going. "Mabel is my friend. She was trying to help me. Please don't make her apologize for that."

"If Briar slaps herself," someone called from the back, "Vivienne will forgive Mabel! Right, Vivienne?"

A few people laughed. Then a few more.

Vivienne touched her cheek gently and said, "I would never ask that."

*But I don't have to,* Kallie laughed. *Do I.*

"If Briar slaps herself," someone called from the back, "Vivienne will forgive Mabel! Right, Vivienne?"

A few people laughed. Then a few more.

Vivienne touched her cheek gently and said, "I would never ask that." Her voice was soft and pained and perfectly calibrated.

*But I don't have to,* she thought. *Do I.*

"It's not that hard!" a woman near the condiment station said. "One slap! Done!"

"Mabel hit her pretty hard! Seems fair!"

"Vivienne didn't do anything to deserve that!"

The voices came from different parts of the room, overlapping, building on each other, and Briar stood in the middle of it and tried to find the edges of the conversation and couldn't. It was coming from everywhere now.

"Just do it, Briar!"

"It'll be over in a second!"

"You owe her that much after the blouse!"

"One slap! That's all anyone's asking!"

Someone near the front of the crowd started a slow clap. Two people joined it. Then three. The rhythm of it moved through the canteenh.

Briar looked at Mabel.

Mabel's jaw was set and her arms were still crossed and she was not going to say anything that made this easier.

Briar looked at Vivienne.

Vivienne had her hand pressed lightly to her cheek. Her eyes were wet. Her expression was the soft, patient expression of someone who had already forgiven everything and was simply waiting for the gesture that would let everyone move on.

"Briar!" A voice from somewhere she could not locate. "It's just one slap!"

"Stop making this so complicated!"

"Do you want Mabel to get fired over this? Because that's where this is going!"

The clapping got louder.

Briar looked at Killian.

His arms at his sides and his face completely closed, looking at her with the expression he always had, the one that said she was a problem he was waiting to be finished with

He just watched.

"Killian." Her voice came out very small. "Please say something. Please."

He said nothing.

The clapping filled the room.