Page 123 of Stop and Seek
“Who’re you talking to?”
“Noah.”
One word, and Alyssa snatched the phone from his hand. “Are we inviting Golden Boy?”
The heat crawled up Theo’s neck. He glanced at the line, back to Alyssa.
“Do you… would you mind?”
“You are literally like, the cutest.” Alyssa shot him a grin, long nails clicking against his phone screen. After a minute, she handed it back. “Say, thank you, Lyssa. I love you. You’re my favorite friend.”
Theo laughed, real and hard, and it felt like part of him relaxed a little. “Yeah, yeah. I love you and everything else.”
Everything after that blurred—cars, his phone, bodies pressing in. Alyssa kept pulling him forward, guiding him through the chaos until they finally got past the bouncer.
The second they stepped inside, the panic started. The deafening music, vibrating through his bones. Air thick with sweat and cologne. All of it was fuckingoverwhelming, and Theo wasn’t high enough to shut it out.
Squinting against the flashing strobe lights, he scanned the inside, hoping to find the bar before his senses overloaded and he dropped dead from heart failure.
“Dance with me!” Alyssa shrieked, already tugging him toward the floor.
Theo groaned but let her pull him along, praying he wouldn’t pass out from the pressure building in his chest.
This was what he wanted, right? He was being an adult, trying to be happy. Hell, Noah was even meeting them. This should’ve been one of the best nights of his life.
Pills would help. They fixed everything.
Alyssa didn’t have pills.
She had stamps. Lickable, glue-tasting pieces of shit that tried to be grape flavored and failed miserably. She told him to take one. That he owed her a hundred bucks.
Theo took two.
All he wanted to do was feel better faster.Normal.Stable.
Instead, his brain was peeling open.
At first it was subtle. The bass stopped sounding like music and more likesomething elsebreathing. Something massive, maybe asleep just under the floorboards, exhaling with every pulse of the speaker. Theo flinched when it dropped again.
The lights strobed too fast and too slow all at once. They smeared behind his eyes—neon blue bled into pink bled into yellow. Every face turned into a melted wax mask if he looked too long. He couldn’t tell if people were moving toward him or away. Couldn’t tell if Alyssa was still talking, or if she’d been swallowed by the sea of bodies.
Where the hellwasAlyssa?
Everything was fuckingalive—too many limbs, too much heat.
He tried to breathe. One inhale. Two. The air tasted fake; plastic and old copper coins.
When someone else—someone blond and grinning—tugged him onto the dance floor again, he wasn’t sure what he should do.
It took him a minute too long to figure out it wasn’t Noah.
His skin didn’t feel like skin anymore. Every nerve was turned up to eleven—his jacket itched, his jeans itched, even the sweat under his arms feltloud. When thatsomeonehe was dancing with put their hands on his hips, it felt like fingers went through him. Like they’d tugged something out on accident.
He blinked hard. Tried to find Alyssa. Tried to find a bar. A bathroom. Noah.
Nothing.
There weretoo many hands.
