Page 31 of Stop and Seek
All the cars ahead slowed to a crawl, hazards blinking. The road was a slick blur of reflected taillights and floodwater. He couldn’t go faster than thirty-five without risking his ass in a ditch.
But the lights in his side-view mirror?
Hellasparkly. Candy-colored comets smearing through the rain.
If he kept his eyes on the road, it wasn’t too bad.
Theo wasn’t high.
Not really.
He’d been worse off before—much worse.
Alyssa’s warning about not driving? Overdramatic bullshit.
Still, when he finally turned into The Rat’s Nest’s cratered parking lot, his hands had welded to the steering wheel. His fingers refused to move at first—numb from the pressure, his knuckles pale, bloodless. Peeling them free was like cracking open frozen joints.
No pain. No broken bones. No blood splashing the interior.
Great.
The lot was half-dead. A sleek, completely-out-of-place limo sat at an awkward angle—even it didn’t know what it was doing there. A few other cars dotted the space—one rusted out, one with a missing window. A sedan that looked toonewfor this area.
Probably some kids showing off for their first legal drink. Daddy’s money, big smiles, tiny tolerance.
As long as they hadn’t rented the whole place, let them go wild.
Theo debated the second pill for all of thirty seconds. The kind of thirty seconds that stretched into eternities—thoughts plodding along in a thick, syrupy line.
Should he haveaskedAlyssa what it was?
Yep.
Would it have been smart?
Again, yep.
Instead, he swallowed it. Sent a half-assed text to her.
Then booked it inside.
Shaking off the rain, he blinked against the strobing lights cutting through the hazy air.
His usual table was still there, tucked all the way in the back, right by the dented metal doors of the loading dock.
The music?
Fuckingbomb.
Bass pulsed through the floor, straight into his bones, shaking something loose in his chest. The rhythm drilled into that perfect little spot in his brain—the one that fizzled out all the noise.
This?
Theo could do this.
Spend all of tonight drifting in this pleasant high.
A drink still sounded good, though.
