Page 11 of Inception

“He’s trouble.”

“He’strouble? What does that even mean?” I half-laughed, my eyes darting back to Dominic who was gliding through the crowd.

“It means, he’s trouble,” he repeated impatiently as he locked eyes with mine, making no attempts to explain his warning. “If you were smart, you’d stay away from him.”

“Excuseme?”

He didn’t answer.

I had no clue what this was about. Was he alluding to the supposed school troubles? Or maybe the age difference? Or was it something entirely different and potentially serious?

Whatever it was, he wasn’t saying, and I was fast not giving a crap because the truth was, it was none of his damn business. Besides, I didn’twantto stay away from Dominic. I wanted to do the exact opposite of that.

My eyes raced back into the crowd in search of him, but he had already disappeared from the herd, leaving me with this unsettling feeling that I had just missed out on something big, something new and exciting, though I wasn’t even sure what that was.

“You shouldn’t even be here,” Trace went on, barely audible.

My eyes slipped back to him easily.

“And why is that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes as he stared back at me intensely. It was as though he were trying to read me—to speak to me with his eyes. I didn’t understand them but I desperately wanted to know their language.

Before I had a chance to get an answer, I felt someone pluck me off the pillar and shove me backwards, landing me hard on my backside a couple of feet away.

“What do you think you’re doing?” screeched Nikki, advancing on me as though she were going to kick me while I was already down. “Stay the hell away from my boyfriend!”

What the frig just happened? “Are you nuts? I didn’t do anything!” I defended myself, scooting backwards on the floor as I scrambled to widen the gap between me and the crazy.

“Did you really think you could just show up here out of nowhere and move in on him?”

“What?” I shook my head, completely stunned. This chick was certifiable. “That’s not what I’m doing, I—”

“Listen to me carefully because I’m only going to tell you this once, Jem-ma.” She reached over and grabbed someone’s drink off a nearby table. “Trace ismine, you got that? Stay the hell away from him or I swear to the heavens, I will make you regret the day you were born!” She turned the glass over and dumped its contents in my lap.

“Shit, Nikki, what the hell are you doing?” yelled Trace as he pulled her back by her waist, drawing her away from me.

Her boreal, aquamarine eyes diced into me before she turned her insanity on him, the vein in her forehead bulging as she assaulted him with a barrage of words I couldn’t make out.

Holy freaking shit.

The stench of alcohol stung my nostrils as I sat there with my mouth agape, soaked and shell-shocked. Taylor ran to my side and helped me up to my feet while the other girls lingered around in the vicinity looking wholly uncomfortable.

“Oh my God,” cried Taylor, grabbing napkins off the table and handing them to me. “I can’t believe she just did that.”

Neither could I. I couldn’t even speak.

I took the napkins from her and started patting down my wet pants, trying to dry them as fast as I could as though that might erase what just happened. Itsowasn’t working.

“Let me get some more napkins,” she said and ran off in the direction of the bar.

Still in a state of shock, I looked up around the room and realized how many people had just witnessed that. Half the room was still staring at me with wide eyes, o-shaped mouths, and slanted smiles. It was amusing to them.Iwas amusing. Suddenly, I knew the pain of a carnival side-show freak.

My eyes welled up with humiliation, though the idea of crying in front of all these people after what just happened was just too much to take. I threw the wet napkins on the table and bolted for the nearest exit.

The wind bit at my cheeks as I pushed through the doors and started down the empty street, leaving All Saints and all of itsunsaintlinessbehind me. The crowd from earlier had all but disappeared with most of the people already inside now, probably having just bore witness to one of the worst nights of my life.

A tear trickled down my cheek as I walked, and then a dozen more fell, and before I knew it my cheeks were soaked with the hurt and frustration of a really bad couple of months. The loss of my father, the hospital, the move, the new school—the newenemies—it was just too much to take. Something had to give.

I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and crossed over to the other side of the street, desperate to find a main road or boulevard I could call a taxi from. I needed to put this place in a rear-view mirror. Shivering in my damp clothes, I searched up and down the stretch of barren avenue for some kind of street sign or saving grace amidst all the darkened buildings and empty warehouses. And then I sawhimagain.

---