Phoebe had no idea what to make of the situation. An old bitterness blossomed in her chest, sleepless nights and endless questions flooding back as if someone had twisted a Time Turner back nearly a decade. She was seventeen all over again, her world shattering like so much glass. He’d left, practically [i]disappeared[/i]. He’d severed everything between them without batting an eyelash, without deigning to explain anything to her. He’d dropped her as if she were an old plaything he had simply tired of. Phoebe had refused to accept it. She’d tried to hunt him down, to demand answers of him, but it had proven futile.

Someone approached, but Phoebe could barely keep her thoughts clear enough to process the impossibility that was Justin. He met her gaze and the curve of his mouth made her stomach drop. His words were so hard to follow, drowning in the bass and the pull of Heat. Even now, her body demanded she burn, and it took a conscious effort to access her faculties. 

His words sunk in. Phoebe opened her mouth to tell him off, but he was turning his back on her, leaving her behind for a second time. He left her so easily. Her pride stung, demanded recompense, demanded answers. No—he didn’t get to just pop into her life and disappear again. Phoebe swore viciously, shaking her head in a mad bid to clear it, pushing her way through the crowd. Each touch sent a haze of pleasure through her brain and Merlin, it would be so [i]easy[/i] to forget it. She could just turn around and let it be. 

She grit her teeth, escaping the dance floor. The air was colder here, but she scarcely noticed. Hazel eyes scanned the club, dizzied by the lights. Distantly, she could hear Rhiannon flagging her down, but she caught sight of the bastard. He was leaving. Unbelievable.

 If he went through that door, she knew she would never get answers, would never get the chance to rip him apart for what he had done to her, and Phoebe Lockwood couldn’t stand the thought. He didn’t get to shatter her world so easily.

Everything was a blur as she moved, but she had always been a singularly determined woman. Her target sighted, she stalked him down. Her knuckles whitened, the curve of her nails biting into her palms.

The door opened; the storm had somehow worsened, and the through the fog a part of her brain wondered if it was weather or magic. She was practically running, determined to catch him before he could apparate. There—she reached out, grasping for his arm, pulled.

“Who the hell do you think you are, Ackerman?” She snarled, privately impressed at the coherence of her words. The rain felt like needles, driving into her, crushing the Heat in her veins. But where the golden powder failed, her anger sustained her. “Ten years—ten fucking [i]years[/i] and now you decide to show your face? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Phoebe gripped as tightly as she could. No way was she letting him slip away. She needed answers and she was going to have them, come hell or high water.