Page 172 of Meet Me at the Metro

I’m standing in the middle of an empty nightclub. Its bright, colorful lights shift around me, but my uneasiness lingers in the silence still fixed around me. The only sound I can discern is my heartbeat—a pounding, steady thrumming in my chest.

“Theo!”

Nora’s voice has my eyes darting toward the opposite end of what would be the dance floor, though it’s abandoned by any occupants tonight other than the two of us. I make to move toward her, but my feet are fastened to the floor, unwilling to budge even an inch.

“Come here,” I call to her, but she just bemusedly cocks her head like she can’t make out what I’m saying. She’s oblivious to the dark silhouette of a man who appears behind her, and my urgency grows. “Nora, baby, come here!”

I fight to break free of the invisible force tethering me to the ground, but it refuses to let me go. I’m stuck, watching helplessly as the man’s arms ensnare her. Her shrill cry of terror rings through the air as he tightens his hold around her, forcing her restless and thrashing limbs still.

“Let go of her!”

My muscles strain to reach her, but she’s too far. My body is refusing to move, rejecting every desperate impulse inside itself to act—to help her.

I can’t do anything, not even as John’s face appears out of the shadows. He’s wearing a sickening grin as he removes something from his pocket and slowly brings it to the temple of her head. Nora’s eyes are filled with terror as she looks at me, pleading with me to do something.

Anything.

“You promised me,” she murmurs, her voice trembling with despair. “You promised me you wouldn’t let him hurt me again.”

“He’s not going to hurt you!”

John laughs, and it’s the sound of undiluted depravity. “Haven’t you learned not to make promises you can’t keep?”

He presses the barrel of the pistol more firmly against her head, tormenting me.

“Let her go! Please, just fucking let her go!”

John’s face grows stoic, void of any discernible emotion. “You don’t deserve her.”

The safety switch of the gun clicks, and Nora whimpers, “Please, John. Please stop.”

John glares at me and growls, “This is your fault.”

The club’s lights grow darker around us, painting everything in deep, unforgiving shades of scarlet and crimson. The change is a sickening representation of the panic boiling inside of me. It sets every hair on my body upright and sends a cutting chill up my spine.

“Please,” I say, desperate and broken. I hardly understand how I’m able to get the words out. “Please, don’t hurt her.”

“I’m not,” he says, eerily calm.

I go to scream, but the sound of my voice is stifled, suffocated in a terrifying silence. I’m rendered powerless—stolen of speech.

John draws a finger to the trigger before he gravely informs, “I’m hurting you.”

I’m startled awake at the deafening bang of the gun, my pulse still thundering as I battle to distinguish the dream from reality.

“Fucking hell!” Evie exclaims, pulling me back down to earth. I straighten in the lounge chair inside the hospital room, forcing my senses to awaken as the steady hum of an IV machine reminds me of my surroundings.

Harvey’s giving me a bewildered look from the hospital bed, the crisp white linen of his sheets ruffling as he situates himself to sit up. As he assesses me from across the room, I’m embarrassed as equally as I am relieved.

“All good over there?” he asks carefully, granting me the faintest smile.

I clear my throat. “All good.”

There’s more color in Harvey’s cheeks today, absent of the clamminess and pallor I’ve been getting accustomed to seeing these past few weeks. He’s also got less fluids running at his bedside now, which I conclude is good considering all the medications they had him on only days ago. Just a glance at him, and I can see how significantly he’s recovering from the aftermath of that night. I’m so damn grateful forit, too.

Evie paces the bleak space of the room, peeping into unmarked beige-colored drawers and cabinets as she expresses, “If that’s your good, remind me never to be around for your bad.”

“Noted,” I grumpily mumble, crossing my arms along my chest.

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