Chapter Three

The club was loud, and it smelled as bad as the tattoo parlour. Worse, even. It was crowded, too, and as I watched Blair gyrate on the floor, I wished for my comfy bed. Then I leaned against the cushioned booth bench and winced. My ink stung badly. It was going to be a while before anything was comfy again.

My friend moved effortlessly with the music, and I felt a small pang of envy. I was rarely jealous of her ease in a crowd or her ability with people. Blair was just Blair, and I appreciated her for who she was. But every now and then I wished I could join her in some of her antics. Maybe it would turn out to be exciting rather than terrifying.

But probably not, I admitted to myself as I watched her slide smoothly away from the unwanted attention of a particularly amorous stranger.

The song ended, and I could tell from the pouty face she made that the next one wasn’t one she cared for. She came back to the table and signalled to a server I couldn’t see. Moments later, drinks, shots and mixed, arrived in front of us. The server waved off my friend’s attempt to pay. I shook my head. Only Blair.

“Drink up!” she shouted above the noise.

I couldn’t be bothered to argue. I would’ve lost anyway. I shot back one of the two pink drinks with a grimace, then took a hefty sip of the clear one. My head was already buzzing like the tattoo gun.

“Right?” shouted Blair.

I stared at her, trying to make her face hold still.

“Right,” I agreed half-heartedly.

I know some people drink to forget about their problems, and maybe it works for them. For me, though, it just makes it harder. When I’m drunk, I’m not in control, and when I’m not in control my mind wanders. But if I told Blair, she was going to tell me I was making excuses.

I took another sip and as I looked around the club, I remembered that one of the last times I saw Jeanette was in place like this. She’d been drinking heavily, as she often did in the last months of her life, and she kept pulling me onto the dance floor. I was fifteen, had no ID, and just wanted to go home. Then a bouncer had intervened, tossing us both out. Jeanette was angry at me for ruining her night.

I didn’t understand it then, but her wild behaviour should’ve clued me in. I sighed so hard that the napkin under my drink fluttered..

“Hey!” Blair shouted. “Earth to Cass!”

Two more shots arrived. They were blue instead of pink, but I gulped one back at my friend’s nod. Blair slid along the bench until she was practically in my lap. She still had to raise her voice to be heard, though.

“Feeling good?” she yelled, trying to be heard above the noise.

“No,” I said emphatically.

“Dance?” she asked, ignoring my reply.

“S’kay,” I answered with a head shake that made the room go wobbly. “Brain’s already dancing.”

“You can’t sit here all sulky all night,” Blair told me.

“I’m not sulking,” I sighed. “But I think I might be a bit tipsy.”

“Hopefully more than a bit,” my friend teased.

“This might’ve been a bad idea. I think I’m too old for this,” I said.

Blair gave me a calculatedly dirty look. “If you are old, then I am old. And I am not old.”

“Blair…”

“We are in our prime,” she stated. “We are twenty-three years old. We are in our prime, I tell you!”

I could tell by her repeated emphasis that she wasn’t going to give up. But I’m not a dancer, even when dancing is what everyone else is doing. The movements are complicated and I feel self-conscious and on display when I’m doing it.

“C’mon,” I pleaded

“C’mon!” she said back in a firm voice.

Blair grabbed my hand and yanked me out onto the floor.

At least the club was so packed that it was hard to see where anyone was looking, and therefore easy enough to pretend they weren’t watching me and my awkward moves.

Maybe this is my night. I gave my hips a little wiggle.

I didn’t really feel like me, anyway. I’d left my mocha-coloured sweater at the table, and I was clad in a black (midnight) sleeveless top with a sequined back and a lacy front. It was Blair’s own creation. She told me she’d pieced it together from three old shirts, but when she was done, it turned out to be too small for her.

“It’s perfect for you,” my friend had said with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

I’d put it on, of course, and then she hadn’t wanted me to take it off. It covered my freshly tattooed back, but left little to the imagination in the front. I was wearing her jeans, too, because she’d said no one could get a tattoo in khakis.

I lifted my arms and shimmied with my eyes closed, just this once grateful for my friend and her wicked ways. She put her hands on my shoulders and I giggled as I did an inappropriate rump shake against her hips. It was nice to have her to take care of me in my ongoing broken-hearted state. I was glad she hadn’t just given up on me. I owed it to her to have a good time.

“I love you!” I shouted, trying to be heard over the thumping beat.

Blair didn’t answer.

“I love you!” I yelled louder.

“Chill. It’s only a dance, baby,” growled a thick, male voice in my ear.

My eyes flew open and I realized it wasn’t Blair behind me at all, but a greasy man in a damp, silk shirt. I tried to pull my arm out of his wiry grip, but he held on tight. I gave him a little shove. Someone—one of his friends, I assumed—laughed, and his hold loosened slightly as he turned to mouth off. I wriggled free. He wasn’t much taller than I was, but his shoulders were twice as wide, and I could see a throbbing vein in his neck. He looked mean. And angry. His hostile expression frightened me a little, and I shrank away uncomfortably from his glare.

“Blair!” I called.

I looked around, feeling frantic and more than little drunk. The crowd was full of girls who could be her. Tight jeans and spaghetti strap tanks were the wardrobe choice of the evening.

“Blair!”

There wasn’t a lot of sense in shouting her name, but with my heart thumping the way it was, I couldn’t think straight. The muscly little man grabbed my arm again, and I tried to shake him off.

“Chill,” he said again and laughed. “My name’s Monato. But you can keep calling me Blair if it makes things easier for you. How about I take you somewhere and give you something so you can relax?”

He was smiling, but he still had the angry look in his eyes and I saw that his friends were watching again, too. I looked down at my feet, wondering if the borrowed boots I was wearing had too much of a heel to make run for it.

Why did I let Blair talk me out of wearing my comfy flats?

“Hi, sweetheart.”

I looked up and frowned. A pair of big brown eyes were gleaming down at me with concern.

“I was wondering where you were,” the stranger told me.

“Me?” I squeaked.

“Of course, you,” he replied.

“I’m…here,” I said.

My head only reached his armpit, but his stance was nonthreatening. And he was more than big enough to fend off the ’roid monkey named Monato. The shorter man had already released my arm.

“Didn’t realize she was yours,” he muttered.

“She is,” the brown-eyed man stated coolly.

“Since when?” Monato asked sullenly.

“Since now.”

“All right.” But Monato didn’t back off quite yet.

The tall man slipped his fingers through mine and drew my hand up to his lips. He kissed each of my knuckles slowly while maintaining eye contact with Monato. Then he took my arm and wrapped it around his own waist before draping himself across my shoulders possessively. I was too startled to pull away.

“You need something else from me?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or Monato, and I didn’t trust myself to speak anyway. My hand was resting just above the dark-eyed stranger’s waistband, and I could feel the shape of his well-muscled back through his thin dress shirt. He squeezed me a little bit tighter, and as my hand slipped down, it brushed something cold and hard.

A gun.

My mouth went dry and I willed myself not to gasp.

Don’t be silly. How would he get a gun in here? Why would he have one?

But even as I moved my hand away from the metallic feel of whatever it was, I knew it couldn’t be anything else.

Monato glanced back at his friends. They were all looking away nervously. I closed my eyes and said a little prayer he was just going to walk away. When I opened them again, he was gone, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” I said to the guy with the gun.

The gun!

I disentangled myself quickly hoping he wouldn’t notice I’d felt it there in his waistband.

He assessed me with the same cool look he’d given Monato.

“Stay away from that guy,” he warned, and strode away.

I had to force my mouth closed. I just about jumped out of my skin when a sweaty hand landed on my bare upper arm.

“Sorry, Cass. Did I scare you?” Blair asked with a grin.

“Yes. No.”

“Well, which is it?” she teased.

“I don’t know,” I replied and then burst into tears.

“Hey! I’m sorry,” my friend said. “I didn’t mean to abandon you. Are you okay? What happened?”

I sobbed for a second more, trying to get hold of myself. When I was done, I realized Blair was looking at me expectantly. I hesitated. We share everything, but for some reason I didn’t want to tell her about Monato or the man with the gun.

“It’s been a long time, Cass,” my friend said slowly. “We should be able to go out without…this.”

She so rarely came down on me for my inability to heal. I felt terrible.

“It’s not that,” I told her, and realized it was pretty close to true. “I’m drunk. And I’m tired. And I hate men.”

“That sounds so normal,” she informed me with relieved smile.

“Thank you. I think.”

“So you don’t want one of these?” Blair held a martini glass up.

I took it and downed the drink. Whatever was in it made my throat burn. I hiccoughed and my friend giggled.

“We can go home,” she told me.

“No. I just have to pee,” I said.

“Do you want me to come?” she offered.

I shook my head. “I’ll meet you back here in five.”

I squished through the crowd, trying to make my way toward the flashing pink sign that indicated the location of the restroom. People pressed in on all sides, and for a few panicked seconds, I actually thought I wasn’t going to be able to get there. But I finally reached the edge of the dance floor, and the crowd thinned. I breathed out.

My twenty seconds of inhibition were so not worth this.

I pushed on the swinging door, but it didn’t budge. I pushed harder, but it still didn’t move. I squinted in the dark, trying to see if it was a pull instead of a push, but there was no handle.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

I glanced at the men’s room door. I looked around. It was unlikely it was going to be empty, but I told Blair the truth. I really had to go. And it was becoming urgent. I pushed on the door cautiously and it swung open. It smelled much worse than the ladies room, and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. I danced back and forth for one moment before I decided to just take a chance and make a run for it. With my head down, I raced for a stall. I locked myself in with a sigh. I went as quickly as I could, then peeked out before exiting. I couldn’t see anyone inside so I once more bolted for the door.

“Never again,” I muttered.

I saw them then, but it was too late.

Monato was holding the door while his buddies blocked the way to the dance floor.

“Ladies room out of commission?” he asked.

“Door’s stuck,” was all I managed to stammer out.

Monato reached over and pushed. It swung open easily.

“It’s not a coincidence,” he told me with a smirk.

He took a short step toward me, and I frowned in puzzlement as his hands came up.

What’s the towel for?

But before I could ask, it was around my face, covering my nose, and I could smell something acrid and gasoline-like that reminded me of a high school chemistry lab. I tried to pull the towel away, but someone held my hands against my sides. I shook my head violently and immediately realized my mistake. My struggle increased my need to get some air. Without meaning to, I gulped in the noxious fumes, and the room tilted around me. I had a roller coaster moment, as if my body was spinning and righting itself and then spinning again. I tried to control my inhales, to slow down my decent, but my senses were floaty, and confused, and I was hyperaware of the need to breathe. I gave in, and all the fight went out of my body as I lost consciousness.