Glade gets up the next evening when he hears Rachel. Something isn't right. He opens the door before she knocks and she's been crying. He can hear the stress in her heart. G: "What happened?" She starts crying again and he helps her to the sofa to sit down and goes to get some water for her. "Take your time, and tell me when you can." She nods and tries to calm down, but can't yet. He sits next to her and holds her till she's calm enough to speak. R: "Dylan cheated on me. He said we were even because he thought I was already cheating with you." She starts crying again and he holds her again. G: "Why would he think that?"
R: "Because I kept coming to meet you." Glade hears someone smashing a car windscreen and an alarm and knows who it must be. Someone bangs on the door and Rachel panics. G: "Stay here." He goes to the door and asks the man to stay quiet.
"Where is she? I'm going to kill that cheating bitch!"
G: "Rachel has not cheated on you."
"Course she did, with you." He tries to hit Glade but he just pushes him away. "I'll kill you."
G: "I would kill you first if you tried."
"Prove it." He tries to hit Glade, but he avoids it and hits him once, being careful to only bruise his cheek, but uses his ability to knock him out before he can try to fight again. R: "Is he ok?"
G: "Yes. I will call an ambulance anyway because I did hit him and it would be easy to hurt him more than I intended to." He does, and Rachel sits on the sofa. Glade keeps Dylan asleep till the paramedics and police get there. It's not Vincent, so Glade has to appear normal. G: "My name's Joseph Schmidt. That's Dylan, Rachel's ex. She came here crying because he cheated on her, but he said they were even because she thought she was cheating on me. Nothing ever happened between us. She just came round to talk about books."
"Why can't she talk about books with anyone else?"
"I have the same taste in novels as Rachel, of course she'd want to talk to me. Nothing else happened, nothing else could happen if you know what I mean."
"You're gay?"
G: "When do you get off tonight?"
"When I go home to my wife."
G: "Ok. You look good though."
"I don't care what you think. Why did you hit Dylan?"
G: "He tried to come in here after threatening to kill Rachel, so I hit him. He already smashed up her car and I think he was high or something because his eyes were big like on tv."
"We'll get a drug test anyway, thanks for you help."
G: "You mean thanks for not killing him for threatening me and a friend?"
"You didn't say he threatened you."
G: "Course he did. He thought I was sleeping with his girl, of course he did."
"Trouble seems to follow you Joseph. Vincent started talking about you. How you've caught three wanted guys for us."
G: "Yeah, well, I work out, but one of them literally fell across the path when I just happened to be walking there."
"Not the other two. You caught them on their way out of a shop and floored the pair of them one hit each."
G: "Like I said, I work out."
"Yeah." The policeman walks away and Glade sits down with a book. A woman is talking to Rachel and two men are sitting opposite Glade. Keeping up on the act that he's gay he looks over at them and winks at one of them. The guy looks away and moves a bit and the other one laughs. Glade goes back to his book and ignores them for the rest of the evening. They don't bother taking anyone to the station because it was clear what had happened and a neighbour had appeared and told them what they'd seen, that Dylan had smashed the nice girl's car and when he tried to get it, Joseph had pushed him back, and only hit him when Dylan had already tried to hit him. Rachel stays there the rest of the night and only goes out the next morning to go to work. G: "Are you well enough to go?"
R: "I'm not sick, I'm just nervous of going outside. If I stay here I might never want to go outside again and I still have to go to work."
"I understand. There was no time to tell you before, I am going to go visit Raine."
"Ok, when?"
"Tomorrow night."
"That's a bit short notice."
"It always is with Raine."
"That bad?"
"It is not her fault."
"I have go get going or I'll be late for work. Thanks for letting me stay last night."
"You are always welcome here."
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