She was too messed up.  She had too many of her own issues to deal with, and she couldn’t drag anyone else into it.

Brennan walked right into Jenn’s, the place she hadn’t walked into for three weeks straight.  She followed on his heels to the back of the mostly deserted restaurant.  Some regular customer called out a snide remark to him as he passed, and Brennan flipped the guy off.  The guy laughed through his smoker’s cough.

When they reached the door to the kitchen, Brennan said, “Wait here.”

Devon stood around, twiddling her thumbs.  She wished she knew why he had brought her here.  She didn’t know what had compelled her to follow him, except that it had all been so sudden.  She hadn’t expected to see him any more than he was expecting to see her.

Loud strong language from the back broke her out of her thoughts.  All she could really grasp from the conversation was that he was late for work.  That must have been why he had been running.  She didn’t suspect he was the kind of person who was usually late, but she didn’t really know him all that well.  Maybe it was a regular thing for him to show up late.  Maybe that was why his hair had always been rumpled.

A couple minutes later, Brennan walked back out of the kitchen with a woman in tow.  Devon had never seen her before when she had spent time in Jenn’s, but that didn’t surprise her.  The woman wasn’t wearing the typical uniform.  Instead, she was clad in a form-fitting dress.  She looked well-kept, and Devon wondered what she was doing back in the kitchen.

“Devon,” Brennan said, facing her, “this is Jenn Yarrow.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Devon said, sticking out her hand.

“Brennan said you are looking for a job,” she said with a thick Northern accent.  “You have any waitressing experience?”

“Yes, ma’am.  I worked as a waitress in Nashville for a few summers,” Devon said, her hopes flaring.

“First off, don’t call me ma’am.  That’s my mom or my mother-in-law, God strike her down,” Jenn said, tilting her head to the sky.  “Second, we work with test-runs only.  You make it through today, and I’ll hire you.  Otherwise, you can keep your tips and have a nice day.”

Jenn threw a towel at her, and Devon caught it, feeling shocked.

“So…is this like an interview?”

“What does it look like?” Jenn rolled her eyes and looked at Brennan as if she were asking what kind of person he had brought into the place.  “There’s a change of clothes in the back.  I’ll check on you at closing time.”  With that, she turned and walked away.

“What just happened?”  Devon stood completely still, holding a hand towel.

“The owner just gave you a job as long as you make it through today,” Brennan told her.  “So, make it through today.”

DEVON PEELED OFF her uniform in the women’s restroom at the back of Jenn’s Restaurant.  As she changed back into her street clothes, her arms and feet ached, her mind was whirring, and she felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion coursing throughout her entire body.  The whole thing made her wonder why she hadn’t gotten a job earlier.  She was so busy that she had forgotten everything else, like her reason for being in Chicago, her best friend on drugs, and Brennan’s eyes always finding her in the room.

Okay, she wasn’t busy enough not to notice Brennan, but it felt different now.  She couldn’t react or respond like she normally would have because there were simply too many customers who had kept her occupied.

Jenn had met her at the door when the bar closed.  Apparently, she wasn’t one for long-winded conversations.  She told Devon to keep the towel and the extra uniform if she didn’t have any other clothing that would work.  That was lucky because Devon hadn’t brought anything like it with her.  She would have to use some of her tips to buy new clothes and more comfortable shoes.  Jenn had told her to come in every night for the rest of the week.  She hadn’t bothered to ask if the closing shift was okay for Devon.  Jenn had mentioned that she would give Devon an official schedule the following week, and Devon suspected she would remain on the night shift.

She rolled her shoulders backward and forward a few times, trying to work the kinks out of them, but it was no good.  At the very least, she would be sore for the next week.  The roll of bills in her pocket made up for the stiffness she would surely face in the morning.

Jenn’s was in a nice area, and customers were always floating in and out.  The tourists that managed to find the place tipped like crap, but the regulars tipped bucketloads.  They had tipped way more than the people at the small pasta place she had worked in Nashville.

She stuffed her work clothes in a to-go bag and walked through the kitchen door into the main dining area.  The other waitress had already disappeared, grumbling the whole time about how she didn’t need any help.  Devon suspected it had something to do with sharing tips.  Though, Devon wasn’t sure how the woman had managed working the busy restaurant with just Brennan’s help in the first place.

“You ready to get out of here?” Brennan asked, sliding his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.

Devon hadn’t realized that he was waiting on her.  She owed him big time.  She wished she didn’t feel the wave of awkwardness that ran through her at his nearness.  Then, she might be able to show her gratitude more.

“Uh…yeah,” she said, glancing away from those eyes.

“I’ll just lock up.”  He ducked into the kitchen and then returned a minute later.  “Let’s go.”

Brennan flipped off the bright red open sign in the window, and then they exited through the front doors.  He took the time to lock those doors as well, and then they walked to the L station together.

Devon took in the surprising silence of the city.  As they passed through streets lined with tall skyscrapers, fear seemed to seep into her conscience.  She wasn’t afraid to be alone with Brennan.  In fact, it wasn’t Brennan at all.  It was just that no one else was on the streets.  She knew it was late.  It was well past the hour most people would be awake and walking around the city, but she had thought that the city would still be bustling, like New York.  Apparently, that wasn’t the case in the area where Jenn’s was located.

She swallowed back her fear and tried to remind herself of the good job that she had done today.  She had a new job, a way to stay in Chicago, and a way to escape.  But in this moment, she felt the loss of her escape.  She felt it all closing in on her.  Why were the streets so empty?  Why was it just her and Brennan?

Her breathing hitched, and then she realized that she had suddenly stopped breathing altogether.  Fear poisoned her blood system, starting in her chest and crawling through her veins like a disease.  She felt her chest rising and falling rapidly, and her teeth were chattering as if she were freezing, but she knew these were the sure signs of hyperventilation.

But she couldn’t hyperventilate.  She had to run.  She had to get away.  That was the answer.  Run.

Brennan touched her arm, rocketing her back to the ground, to the city, to his hand resting lightly on her, to the pads of his fingers grazing her soft skin.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

When she could finally see him through her blurred vision, she saw concern etched into every line of his face.

Devon held up her hand as if to silence him, and that only seemed to make him more concerned.  She took a deep breath and bent her knees, crouching there in the middle of the sidewalk.  She held her knees to her chest and tried to let the déjà vu of her dreams sluice off of her.  She knew where she had come from, where she was, and where she was going.  That was all that mattered.  This wasn’t like her nightmares.  No one was chasing her.  No one was grabbing her.  No one was throwing her down.  She took another breath and reminded herself of these things again and again.