Page 9 of Blind Luck

These girls were shallower than the gene pool at the Promised Land.

“This chat has been lovely, but can you just buzz off? My fries are getting cold.”

I reached for the ketchup, but I accidentally knocked my glass. It teetered for a second, then fell, splashing lemonade over the stack of books. To give the German novel its credit, the pages were great at soaking up the mess.

Cherry and Cotton Candy began shrieking while Plum turned an ugly shade of puce. She threw her fifteen-dollar cocktail in my face, and I felt rather than saw the slice of lemon and part of a kiwifruit slide down my top and settle in my bra.

Felt rather than saw because whatever was in that cocktail stung like hell, and I couldn’t see anything at all. My eyeballs were on fire.Hey, Frodo, I found Sauron and his twin.Heart racing, I tried to wipe away the liquid, but that only made the pain worse. Where was that wailing coming from?

Oh, right. That was me.

Strong arms wrapped around my waist. Someone tipped me backward. More liquid poured over my face, and an ice cube hit my nose, but this time, the stinging began to ease. I reached up gingerly to assess the damage, but fingers grasped my wrist.

“Don’t rub your eyes,” a deep voice said.

A woman added, “That’ll only hurt more.”

I cracked open an eyelid and found Pink Dress watching me, an empty glass in her hand. Her two friends were hovering in the background along with the bartender, and when I twisted my head to the side, I saw Sunglasses Guy holding me. The three BookBuzz bitches were nowhere in sight.

“They scooted on out of here,” Pink Dress said, reading my mind. “Not a single manner between them.”

“I…I…It hurts.”

“Flush it with water. Tap water is fine. Where’s the nearest sink? Or a shower?”

“There’s a sink in the kitchen,” the bartender offered, pointing to a mirrored door.

Sunglasses Guy guided me with a hand on the small of my back as Pink Dress led the way. When we reached the tiny kitchen, he picked me up as if I weighed nothing and held my face under the faucet while Pink Dress smoothed my hair out of the way. The pain lessened, a smoulder compared to the raging inferno, and although it didn’t go away completely, my head cleared enough to realise that Sunglasses Guy’s hand was dangerously close to my ass.

“I’m fine now. All good.” I wriggled free and whacked my elbow on the edge of the sink. A yelp escaped along with several curse words, and I clenched my fists as another wave of pain rolled through me. “Everything’s just fine.”

I blinked furiously, trying to get rid of the itchy, prickly sensation.

“What was in that drink?” Pink Dress asked the bartender.

“Gin, Lillet Blanc, lemon juice, Cointreau, and a dash of absinthe.”

“Lemon juice? Yikes.”

Sunglasses Guy touched me on the shoulder, the lightest brush of his fingers, but it made me shiver.

“How do you really feel?” he asked.

I was too sore to lie. “As if someone poked me in the eye with a cactus. Cacti. I have two eyes, and they both hurt like heck.”

Pink Dress studied me blurrily. “You should probably get checked out at the hospital to make sure there’s no serious damage.”

“Kina was going to be a nurse,” one of her friends said from the other side of the room. “You should listen to her.”

A nurse? And now she was hanging out in a downmarket hotel and doing who-knew-what with men every few hours? I wasn’t in a position to judge—I’d had to take some questionable jobs to keep a roof over my head—but if she’d had to give up a career she wanted for one she didn’t, I did feel sad for her.

“You don’t want to take risks with your eyes,” Sunglasses Guy warned. “I’ll book an Uber.”

“No, no, I’ll call a friend.” I hated Ubers. When I lived in the Promised Land, the elders used to warn us never to get into cars with strangers, and now you could literally order a stranger in a car from your phone. Maybe the eldershad been scaremongering, but enough girls had disappeared from the compound that I had reason to worry. Ari understood my fears. For sure, she’d pick me up as soon as she was done with Digby Rennick. “I need my phone.”

“Where’s it at?”

“On the table.”

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