Frozen

Chapter 17)

Brianna

As soon as I walked into Insanity, I knew something was off. I wasn't totally sure what it was, but something was...different. The air was thicker, almost.

The door to Barney's office opened and Hawk stormed out of it, his face hard. He marched angrily over to Hazel, who was sitting at the bar watching him with an anxious expression on her face. As soon as he reached her, he took a long drag of her beer and started talking to her, their faces inches apart. I went over to them, and they stopped talking the second they saw me.

"Brianna, hey," Hazel said in a falsely enthusiastic voice, and one of my eyebrows twitched up in suspicion.

"What's going on?" I asked, my eyes going to Hawk.

He sighed roughly and looked hesitant.

"Bri, you should probably take the day off. I'll explain to Barney, you won't get in any trouble and you'll still get paid," he said, his eyes darting to Barney's office door three times.

"Okay, seriously, what the fuck is going on?" I asked in a harder tone than before.

"Barney is...upset," Hazel said delicately and Hawk snorted, shaking his head before taking another pull of beer.

"Upset about what?" I asked impatiently.

"It doesn't matter. Look, when Barney gets pissed, and I don't mean someone hit on you pissed or he lost his paperwork pissed, I mean really truly beyond reason pissed off, there is not one person on this earth who can reach him. He's...honestly, Brianna, he's dangerous. I almost got my head torn off back there, and that was me, his best friend of over a decade, being careful. He loves you, and he would never forgive himself if he said or did something to you while he was in this state."

"Barney would never hurt me," I said without hesitation.

Hawk and Hazel exchanged a look that said they weren't so sure.

"Barney would never hurt me," I repeated more slowly, enunciating each syllable with certainty.

"I'm going to go talk to him," I muttered, turning around. Hawk stopped me with a light hand on my arm and I spun around with a loud sigh.

"Brianna, please, just go home. For your and Barney's own good," he said softly.

I stared at him for several seconds before turning around and walking again towards Barn's office. When there was a loud crash from inside, I walked faster. I heard Hawk walking behind me, but I didn't pay him any mind as I wrenched the door open and took in the scene. Barney was standing in a half crouched position with his hands pulling violently through his hair, which was sticking up every which way. His suit jacket was on the floor, his tie was hanging loosely around his neck as if he had started to yank it off then decided not to bother, and his shirt was completely untucked. I looked across the room to see a broken vase along with flowers and a large wet spot on the carpet, the wall above it scratched up where I'm assuming the vase had hit.

As soon as I took a step into the room, Barney's head shot up.

He was breathing heavily and his big blue eyes were wild and he just kept staring at me. I heard Hazel come up behind me and then he walked slightly in front of me as if to protect me.

At that, Barney's eyes got even bigger and he took several steps forward until he was right up in Hawk's face.

"Get the fuck away from my girlfriend," he growled.

"I'm just protecting her, Barn, you're not yourself right now," Hawk said calmly, holding up his hand in a placating manner.

"She doesn't need your protection," Barney shot back, his eyes going to me with a darkly possessive gleam in them, "especially not from me, never from me."