Page 13 of Blood Secret

I backed away, into the shadows which I hoped covered me. I shouldn’t have watched. What was I thinking? What would happen if she challenged me, freaked out because I was looking at her boyfriend or whoever he was? Or thought I was watching because I was into her?

My eyes darted around the room. I had backed myself into a corner, literally, and I could see the entire dance floor and bar area where I stood. I could also see the metal staircase leading up to a second level which I had never seen.

In the dozen or so times I’d been there, I had only watched a handful of people climb those stairs. Usually, half-naked women led by men in black leather pants.

Did I ever see them come back? I searched my memory as hard as I could for those girls. I had never even seen them on any other night, either. What happened…?

I had to get out of there. What was I thinking? It wasn’t fun anymore.

I elbowed my way through the crowd.

All of a sudden, it was impossible to breathe. All I saw around me was dark eyes, bright eyes, eyes that bore holes into me as I tried to slip through and get outside where the air might have been just plain old Manhattan smog, but was cleaner than what I was struggling to breathe in just then.

Why wouldn’t they let me through?

My heart was about to burst through my chest and sweat ran down my chest, between my breasts. Blood rushed in my ears and drowned out the pounding, driving music. I would never get out of there. I would die there, crushed in between all those bodies. It was like a nightmare. I would never wake up.

When I burst outside, gasping for air, it was like getting my life back again. That feeling after waking up from the worst nightmare imaginable and knowing it was all just a dream.

I was never so relieved. And, just like that feeling of knowing the fear came from something playing inside the mind and nowhere else, I questioned myself right away.

I must’ve had an anxiety attack. That was all. I had imagined all of it. I was such an idiot, freaking myself out like that.

“Janna.”

I looked up at the tall, muscular man standing in front of me. That was the only way to describe him, at least at the first glance. Somebody who lived at the gym. But not overly bulky, just really muscular.

The surprise of him dissolved when I realized he’d just called me by my first name.

“Do I know you?” My right hand slipped inside my satchel so my fingers could close around the can of mace I kept near the top.

“No. But you will.”

I blinked rapidly. My brain couldn’t make sense of what he’d just say.

“I… what?” I looked around, hoping to find help.

Why the hell did I ever leave home? Was it a full moon? Was that why there was so much insanity everywhere I went?

“I said, you will.” He looked toward the door I had just stumbled through. “What happened to you in there?”

“N—nothing. Nothing happened. What is this?” I was starting to feel more like myself and less like I was on some hidden camera reality show.

I backed away from him as I pulled out the mace—I didn’t hold it up, but kept it at my side. Just in case.

“I can tell you everything, but I need you to come with me.” He held out one impossibly large hand.

I looked down at it and laughed in disbelief.

“You think I’m going to come with you? Yeah. Right.” I turned and ran.

I didn’t know why I was running. I only knew that I needed to get away from him, by any means necessary. It wasn’t easy, moving that way in the clunky boots I wore, but panic went a long way toward helping.

I heard his heavy footfalls inside my head as I turned the corner and ducked between two buildings. Fell between them was more like it, really, since I had intended to lean against the wall but fell through empty space, instead.

I caught myself before falling on the dirty, littered concrete, which was a relief—I didn’t love the thought of landing on broken glass, even if it sparkled like diamonds in the light from the bulb mounted on one of the brick walls.

I pressed myself against that wall, cursing the light but, hoping he’d run past without noticing me. It was a narrow alley, easy to miss.

---