Page 5 of Fearless

Iwas going to leave half an hour ago. Now I’m glad I stayed. Two drinks in and I can almost trick myself into believing I’m just another one of these kids dancing and getting drunk with their friends.

The perfumed, hair-sprayed, cozy click-clacky sisterhood of the bathroom doesn’t exist out here. It’s like two different worlds. But in this one, I attract way too much-unwanted attention.

Maybe it’s the dress. Maybe it’s my accent. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone seems to know I don’t belong here.

They’re not wrong. But I made a promise to myself, and I’m going to see this through if it kills me.

With my eyes closed, nothing exists but me and the music. The deep, insistent bass thumping through my body moves me like a marionette puppet.

The DJ is killing it. One track shifts to the next so subtly that I just keep going until my throat becomes dry and scratchy with thirst.

Reluctantly, I emerge from my trance to quench my thirst.

Bright purple lights stream into my eyes as I take in my surroundings with a quick squint. Club Asylum is absolutely gorgeous. Violet lighting beautifully accents the sleek furnishings which, since they’re made mostly from glass and chrome, are only visible by the light they reflect.

The group of boys who’d been circling me earlier like a pack of hyenas is still there, and as soon as I make eye contact with one of them, he grins at me. I’m pretty sure everyone in this place is on something. If I wasn’t so shit scared about being here by myself, I might also have swallowed something small, round, and white and let it take me far away.

Ha! Mother would kill me.

I smile, accidentally aiming my grin at the guy watching me. He surges forward and slides an arm around my waist before I have a chance to avoid him.

Shaking my head, I shove him away. But he comes right the fuck back.

I know drugs make you dumb and persistent, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cut him any slack.

“I’m getting a drink,” I yell, hoping he’ll get the message to leave me the fuck alone.

“Aye, let’s get a drink,” he says in a thick Scottish accent.

Fuck. It’s easy enough to pretend I’m just like everyone else until someone opens their mouth.

I shake my head again. “Alone!”

His grin practically splits his face in two.Goddamnit. He grabs my arm and starts drawing me through the crowd.

I dig in my heels—ballerina pumps because I haven’t mastered the art of dancing in stilettos without seriously injuring myself—but I might as well be reigning in a wild horse.

“Listen, guy, I just want a drink!”

My captor doesn’t respond. I glance around, hoping to find a sympathetic face in the crowd, but everyone’s either fucked out of their tree or pretending not to see me being dragged to a hidey-hole by this Neanderthal.

All except one person.

A shiver courses through me when I lock eyes with the tallest man in the room. He’s standing near the entrance to one of the many private upstairs areas littering the club, scanning the crowd as if he’s searching for someone.

It’s ridiculous, but for some reason when his eyes land on me, I get a feeling he’s found who he was looking for.

Grinning Druggie gets sidetracked by a friend. The guy makes some suggestive comment about the fact I’m being led in the opposite direction to the bathrooms, which would be the perfect place to fuck me.

I try to tear my wrist free, but Grinning Druggie is holding on so tight I’m losing feeling in my fingers. I guess he doesn’t want to release his would-be conquest just yet.

True enough, he turns us around. Quite possibly toward the bathrooms.

Fuck this.

When he pauses to let two giggling girls pass us, I drive my elbow into his kidney.

He yells out in surprise, his body contorting as he collapses in on the pain.

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