Kate awoke to the sound of a drum pounding against her skull.
She tried to open her eyes but immediately felt a cruel sunlight scorch her corneas. She tried to lick her lips but her mouth felt like it had spent forty days and nights in the neighbouring Nevada desert. The smell of alcohol and sweat attacked her nostrils with unforgiving force.
What the hell had happened?
Kate tried to raise her eyelids once again, this time more gradually. When she finally got them fully open, she realized she wasn’t in her hotel room. The bed she was in was twice as big as the one she remembered from check-in, and the room was easily five times the size. She was still in last night’s white dress but her sash was gone. She looked around in complete and utter confusion. The drum in her head seemed to be getting louder and her mouth was somehow getting drier.
It was easily the worst hangover of Kate’s life.
She had never experienced ‘the fear’ quite like this. She had absolutely no recollection of how she ended up here. Her memory was shattered into elusive fragments. Something about Omnia. The sound of champagne popping. And, for some reason, the name Trevor Rush. But that didn’t make any sense.
Kate turned to her right to try and survey her surroundings. In the bed beside her was a large inflatable sex doll.
That’s why Trevor Rush’s name was in her mind. She remembered confronting the inflatable man and feeling afterwards that she was finally free from Trevor after nine years.
Phew. That was one mystery solved.
But what had happened after that? And where the hell was she? Whose bed was she in? Sweet Jesus, had she gone home with someone? She suddenly felt like throwing up, but it was just a dry heave. It seemed like there were no solids in her stomach that were going to rise.
She needed answers. Fast.
Kate began searching frantically for her phone, her only lifeline in this situation. She eventually found it inside her handbag in the corner of the room, thankfully without any kind of damage. She had drunkenly broken a few phone screens over the years but, by some miracle, this wasn’t one of those instances. When she looked at her screen, she was horrified at what she saw.
43 missed calls. All from Norman.
Dozens of texts too. She could see the three most recent ones on her home screen.
Norman: Kate, I’ve been calling for hours!!! WHERE ARE YOU?
What is going on, why won’t you answer me??? I’m worried sick!!!!
KATE PLEASE ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!!!
Kate felt completely smothered. She had promised Norman she would text him every hour to check in, and as she looked at the time, she realized she had ignored him for almost twelve hours. She knew she had to call him back, but she needed to stop her head from spinning first.
One thing at a time.
She looked in the mirror and barely recognized the hot mess staring back at her. Her foundation was destroyed, her lipstick smudged, and her auburn hair looked like it had been backcombed with a toilet brush.
It was clear just by looking at herself that it had been a rough night, even by Vegas standards.
But what had happened?
The girls.
The girls would have the answers.
She needed to find them.
Kate opened the bedroom door and was immediately blown away by what she saw. She was in some kind of penthouse suite. It was easily the most luxurious room Kate had ever seen, let alone spent a night in. It looked like it cost at least $10,000 a night.
There was just one problem.
The room was completely trashed. It looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle of it and the debris of the night before was everywhere. Glasses were smashed, furniture was upside down and the putrid stench of alcohol seeped through the air.
‘Hello?’ Kate said softly. But the room was so huge that her whisper bounced off the walls and echoed throughout the suite.
Natalie suddenly popped her head up from where she’d been passed out on the couch. ‘Kate?’ she groaned as she sat up. ‘Is that you?’ She was a complete mess too. But Natalie seemed to have it worse than Kate. By the looks of things, her hangover was going to last a few weeks.
Because Natalie had no eyebrows.
Shaved or burned off, Kate couldn’t tell.
But, either way, they were gone.
‘Oh my God, Natalie. Are you okay?’ Kate said.
‘Where the hell are we?’ Natalie asked, trying to open her eyes.
Kate decided not to tell her about her eyebrows, or lack thereof. Best to let her wake up first. ‘I have no idea, Nat,’ she said. ‘And where are the rest of the girls?’
A sudden noise came from under a large pile of party debris. Siobhan appeared from underneath it, like a zombie rising from the dead.
‘HELP!’ she groaned as she began flailing around. ‘HELLLPPP!’
‘Siobhan, what’s wrong?’ Kate said, running over to her.
‘I can’t move my arms!’
Sweet Jesus, was Siobhan paralysed? Would she ever use her arms again? But when she rolled over, Kate could see why Siobhan couldn’t move them.
She was in handcuffs.
‘Siobhan, you’re in handcuffs!’ Kate said, horrified. ‘Oh my God, did you get arrested last night?’
‘That’s what I was about to ask you!’ Siobhan said, every bit as clueless as Kate. ‘Help me up!’
Kate helped Siobhan get on her feet. As soon as she stood up straight, she looked directly at Natalie.
‘NAT! YOUR EYEBROWS!’ Siobhan said, laughing hysterically.
‘What about my eyebrows?’ When her fingers touched her bare brow ridge, however, Natalie knew exactly what was wrong. ‘Oh no, this can’t be happening!’ she cried as she stormed towards the bathroom. But as she was running, she tripped over something that let out a large grunt.
‘Ow!’ Chloe said, waking up on the floor.
Natalie went flying over her and the two fell to the ground.
Kate couldn’t quite believe her eyes when she saw what Chloe looked like. ‘CHLOE, YOUR SKIN!’ she gasped.
‘What’s wrong with my skin?’ Chloe said. But when she looked at her arms she got her answer.
She was completely and utterly orange. The brightest shade of tangerine she had ever been in her life – and for Chloe, that was really saying something.
‘Oh my God,’ Chloe cried as she got off the floor. ‘The tan developed too much!’
‘You look like you slept in a pack of Cheetos!’ Natalie said.
‘Well, at least I have eyebrows!’
‘No, no, no,’ Natalie said, remembering her own situation. She ran into the bathroom, and all the girls could hear was a loud continuous scream for about five seconds.
Siobhan was in stitches laughing. ‘I can’t breathe,’ she wheezed.
‘WHICH ONE OF YOU SHAVED MY EYEBROWS?’ Natalie said, storming back in.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Siobhan said. ‘My hands are tied!’
‘Girls, my back is burning,’ Chloe said. ‘It feels like it’s on fire.’
‘The tan is probably burning from being on so long,’ Natalie said. ‘Your skin looks like orange peel.’
‘No, it feels worse than that. It’s my lower back.’
‘Show us,’ Kate said.
Chloe lifted up the back of her dress and the girls all gasped in horror. On her lower back was a massive tattoo that read ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ in terrible calligraphy.
‘What the hell is it?’ Chloe cried.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Kate said, trying to cushion the blow.
‘YES IT IS!’ Siobhan said, dying laughing. ‘You have a tramp stamp that says Live, Laugh, Love.’
‘I’m not stupid, Siobhan,’ Chloe said, convinced she was winding her up.
‘For once, she’s telling the truth,’ Natalie winced.
Chloe looked like her life was flashing before her eyes. She walked towards a mirror on the wall and turned to look at her lower back. As soon as she saw it, she let out an almighty scream.
‘Who the hell let me get a tattoo?’ she screeched. ‘I HATE TATTOOS!’
‘Chloe, I think your tramp stamp looks good!’ Natalie said.
‘DON’T CALL IT A TRAMP STAMP!’
‘Fine . . . your whore’s watermark then.’
‘Oh my God, girls, my stomach is sore from the laughing,’ Siobhan said. But when she looked down, she realized the pain was specifically coming from her navel. To her shock, she saw her belly button was pierced and had a little dangly jewel hanging from it.
‘No way!’ Natalie roared laughing.
‘WHERE THE HELL DID I GET MY BELLY BUTTON PIERCED?’ Siobhan snapped.
‘Claire’s, maybe?’ Chloe suggested.
‘Belly button piercings haven’t been in fashion for YEARS!’
‘Maybe they’ll make a comeback and you’ll be ahead of the curve,’ Kate said, trying to make her feel better.
‘Oh my God,’ Natalie said, looking at her phone. ‘I just checked my bank account. It’s practically empty. I’m broke!’
‘I told you to start letting men buy you drinks,’ Siobhan shrugged.
The girls all looked at each other with no clue what to say.
Natalie, with an empty bank account and not an eyebrow to her name. Siobhan, in handcuffs with a belly button piercing. And Chloe, with bright orange skin and the world’s worst tattoo.
The next question was obvious.
‘Girls, what the hell happened last night?’ Kate said, in disbelief.
‘Yeah, this is the worst case of hangxiety I’ve ever had,’ Natalie said. ‘Where even are we? This isn’t our room.’
‘Maybe Chloe managed to get us an upgrade,’ Siobhan laughed.
‘I don’t know why you’re laughing, Siobhan!’ Chloe snapped. ‘You’re in handcuffs! You could be a wanted criminal!’
‘And God knows how many men you slept with!’ Natalie added.
‘Shit, I never thought about that,’ Siobhan panicked. ‘Where’s my handbag? I’m supposed to take the pill at 8 a.m. every day!’
‘Your bag’s here on the couch,’ Kate said, grabbing it.
‘Siobhan, why are you on the pill? I thought you had the coil?’ Chloe asked.
‘The coil is only 99 per cent effective. Do you really want there to be a 1 per cent chance of me becoming a mother?’
‘Good point.’
Kate opened Siobhan’s bag and began rooting around. ‘I don’t see a pill box. Just a Miss Piggy Pez dispenser.’
‘That’s it! Hand it over to me!’
‘You keep your contraceptive pills in a Pez dispenser?’ Natalie said, shocked.
‘It’s easy to carry around. Kate, put one in my mouth, quick! I’ve heard horror stories about girls who missed a day and got pregnant.’
Kate popped a pill out and put it in Siobhan’s mouth. She swallowed it whole in one gulp.
‘Don’t you need some water?’ Kate asked.
‘Do you honestly think Siobhan has a gag reflex?’ Natalie said, rolling her eyes.
Kate began to look around the room, searching for some idea of what happened the night before. She felt her stomach drop when she looked down at the floor. There were pieces of pink paper and glitter everywhere.
Her itinerary.
It was ripped into pieces. Her perfect plan, torn to shreds.
She walked over to where it lay and cradled what was left of it in her arms. ‘Which one of you did this?’ she said, fury in her eyes.
‘Kate, none of us can remember anything,’ Chloe said, still fanning her back to cool it down.
‘Maybe we were spiked!’ Natalie said. ‘Oh my God, what if we’ve been trafficked? What if they want to harvest our organs? I’ve seen documentaries about this where people wake up without a kidney or a liver!’
‘I don’t think our livers are worth much on the black market after last night,’ Siobhan laughed.
‘Girls, this is a complete trainwreck!’ Kate sighed. ‘But we can figure this out. We’ve blacked out together before. This is just like the J-1 days. All we have to do is start stitching together what happened.’
‘The last thing I remember is going to Omnia,’ Siobhan said.
‘I remember being in a booth and taking a Polaroid,’ Chloe added.
‘Kate look, on the floor. There’s a Polaroid,’ Natalie said, pointing at it. ‘It might give us an idea of what happened!’
Kate picked it up. It was the photo of the girls holding their cans of Four Loko in the VIP booth at Omnia. She vaguely remembered the waitress bringing them to the table and Siobhan being the one who ordered them.
‘Well, girls, at least we know we weren’t spiked. We literally drank a liquid blackout!’ she snapped.
‘Then we need to find more photos from after we blacked out,’ Natalie said.
‘There’s one over there by the bar!’ Chloe said.
Kate rushed over to the suite’s bar, which appeared to be drunk dry from the night before. On the counter was a photo of the girls sitting in a vintage pink convertible. ‘Okay, I have no memory of this,’ she said, holding it up to the girls.
‘Where was it taken?’ Chloe asked.
Kate scanned the photo for clues but couldn’t see anything. ‘Hmm, I don’t know. Can anyone remember where this was?’
‘No idea. Chloe probably saw a pink convertible and wanted a Barbie moment,’ Siobhan deduced.
‘Very possible,’ Chloe agreed.
‘Okay, everyone keep looking!’ Kate said. She walked down one of the suite’s hallways in search of some inkling of what had happened the night before. The room was still spinning. She could barely walk with dizziness. Christ, was she still drunk?
She suddenly saw another Polaroid right in front of the penthouse door. She bent down and picked it up, hoping to find some more info.
But when Kate turned the photo around, she was thunderstruck with shock.
It was so much worse than anything she could have ever imagined.
In the photo, there was a man dressed as Elvis with a sign above him that said ‘The Little White Wedding Chapel’. Kate was standing in front of Elvis, holding her hand out as the man she hated more than anyone in the world was slipping a gold ring on her finger.
It was only then that Kate noticed it.
The gold ring was still on her finger. She held her hand up in horror as her brain realized what her gut already knew.
It was a wedding ring.
She felt her stomach drop. She had all of the information in front of her, but she couldn’t quite connect the dots. Fragments of the night that she couldn’t seem to piece together. She knew what she was seeing but her mind wouldn’t let her believe it. She refused to believe it.
But then, she saw him.
The penthouse door swung open and there he was.
His sleek black hair, his tanned Italian American skin and his piercing brown eyes that were currently staring right into her soul.
‘Honey, I’m home,’ Trevor Rush smirked.