Page 12 of Out of My Flocking Mind

Huh. When I thought about it, I had no idea when I’d eaten anything beyond liquor. It had to have been the toast that morning with Galen.

After the time I’d spent here, seeing what I had, there was no chance I’d eat here. Food poisoning was the sort of trouble even I didn’t want to screw with.

So I slid the black card once more through the jukebox and selected the same song to play on repeat. If that guy hated me now, I had a feeling when the song played for the next—I tried to read the screen despite the way everything spun—four days or so, he’d like me even less.

And that sure put a hop in my step as I exited the bar.

I tried to glance at the time on my phone, but everything seemed far too blurry to make sense. I blamed that on my phone rather than the alcohol, figuring from the empty streets that it must have been around one in the morning.

I reached for the wall as I stumbled down the sidewalk, using my fingertips to maintain my balance as I went. The sound of cars and the cool air against my drunken, flushed skin felt amazing, and they all felt a bit like a music of their own.

The wonderful numbness in my head, the cloudy thoughts, they all helped erase…well…everything.

It made my uncertain future fade away, made the memories of the attack cloudy and helped me ignore the footsteps that followed me.

Wait, that last one might be important…

I tripped, stumbling against the trunk of a tree planted in the sidewalk, the sort of thing supposed to make it look less like a concrete jungle. I had to force my brain to focus on that last thing.

Footsteps.

Right, there were ones, that had been following me since I’d left the bar. Was it the man I’d flipped off? The idea made me laugh. It shouldn’t have, but something about it just seemed so fucking funny.

Though that was probably due to the liquor more than anything else.

The streets weren’t empty, but neither were they exactly bustling. On the weekends, it would have been busy, but at this time of night during the week, few people remained outside.

Not that I was the type to go to others for help. It reminded me of what Ignis had said earlier, the same thing Galen said, the same thing everyone said. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, though. I just knew better than to reach out.

Drowning alone was far preferable to knowing someone I trusted and reached out for didn’t try to save me.

So, nope. The idea of running to anyone else didn’t even occur to me.

My phone vibrated in my hand, so I hit the green icon on the screen after three failed attempts. “Hello?”

“You ran away from Ignis.”

I smiled at Harrison’s voice that somehow managed to sound both annoyed and yet flat at the same time. “She isn’t a big drinker. Did you know that?”

“Alcohol makes it harder to filter our powers,” he said. “Few Minds drink because of that.”

“Boooooring.” I drew out the word to drive home my point. “Why don’t you take her place? I bet you’d make a fun drinking buddy.”

“As I just said, Minds don’t drink. That includes me.”

“Fine, you could be the designated driver. Take me place to place! With a face as pretty as yours, I bet we’d get into every club.” I tripped over an uneven paver on the sidewalk, but this time there was no tree to stop my downward path. I groaned at a pain in my knee, not entirely sure what happened, but fairly sure I’d scraped it.

“What happened?” Harrison asked.

“Stupid sidewalk moved.”

“I doubt that happened. It seems more likely that you simply have no idea about your own limits. Where are you?”

I rolled over so I sat, the idea of getting back to my feet about as daunting as climbing Everest. A glance around me at the few still lit signs told me I’d only made it down about a block from the bar. “I’m on the strip, just past that old piercing place. Oh, come down here! We’ll get matching piercings!”

“I don’t want a piercing.”

“But we could match. Or we’ll go opposites. I’ll get the left nipple done, you get the right. No! Wait, I’ll get the right done. My left is more sensitive.”

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