Page 29 of Voracious

My breathing is already laboured from the drugs, but knowing she’s so close, with Bernadette within walking distance? I think I’m about to have another panic attack. “Get her out of here,” I tell him in a strained voice. “That’s an order. Get. Her. Out.”

“I’m trying,” he replies. “She’s been stuck to her boyfriend’s lap all night.”

The world freezes – or maybe it’s the beats of my heart that stall. “Boyfriend?”

Barry is about to speak again when the song changes.

“Spiracle” by Flower Face plays, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise. The need to look for her wins, and I let my eyes roam the room.

The whisky gets caught in my throat. Am I fucking hallucinating right now? I must be – I better be.

In a tight dress, hair down her back, Stacey sits on some guy’s lap. I can’t see his face properly from this angle, but he’s surrounded by three other guys. All of them are drinking, and the one Stacey is sitting on has his hand low on her back, her arm across his shoulders.

She has her back to me, but I fucking know it’s her.

All of them start chanting her name, and the guy’s hand leaves her back and gestures to the pole in the middle of the mini stage. The same as the booths in the other room.

Stacey stands – staggers.

When she starts to dance, she throws her head over her shoulder, and our eyes meet. A silent pleading – I can feel it. That’s why she put this song on. It’s the same one she told me to listen to when we were younger to describe how she felt about me.

I know every lyric by heart.

She knows I’m here – she wants me to save her.

My feet move before I can think, but a hard force yanks me back.

Barry’s hand is on my shoulder. To outsiders, it’s a friendly hold, but his fingers dig into me. “You can’t go to her.”

“Get your fucking paws off me, Barry.” I swipe at his arm, forcing him to release his grip, and he steps back. “She needs my help. Don’t you dare try to stop me.”

“Shut up,” he snaps, surprising me. “You were about to make a diabolical mistake. I told you – I’m watching her. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but it doesn’t feel good. You marching over there will only make it worse.”

I rein in the need to punch him for talking to me like that. “Every reason to go over there and grab her. She needs me.”

“Do that and you risk exposing her to Bernadette. She’s in the next fucking room, sir.” He blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Emmerson is missing – presumed dead. He was on her guard and vanished. I tried to find out what happened, even went to talk to Stacey after she finished dancing – which she wasn’t at for weeks, by the way – then that bastard she’s sitting with said she was his girlfriend and that I was to fuck off. I think he has something to do with Emmerson’s disappearance.”

I glance at her again, but we’re too far away to see any of their faces. Thankfully, Stacey isn’t dancing on the pole anymore; she’s just standing there, rubbing her arm – she’s nervous as the guy she was sitting on talks to her. I want to wrap her in my arms and run away with her.

Maybe I could do it now. Put a bullet in each one of the guys’ heads, throw Stacey over my shoulder and get the fuck out – leave Bernadette and her daughter here and disappear.

Bernadette is drunk – she’ll want to leave soon.

I can’t leave.

Before we can make an elaborate plan to try to get Stacey away from the group of assholes, three of the men stand, and the one she was sitting on whispers something in her ear, kisses her cheek and slips something into her hand – a small blade.

Wait, a blade?

“I know that fucker’s face,” I say, fisting my hands – needing to go over there and smash his face into every wall in this place. “Remember when I asked you to run checks on the guy who was standing at the manor gates talking to Stacey? That’s him.”

“The records were blank,” Barry replies. “I couldn’t find a single piece of information on him.”

“He might be the same person who called her at the hotel in Edinburgh.” When she rode my face and dry-humped me while on the phone to him – fucking bastard.

“You armed?”

“Yes, sir,” he replies, nodding as we watch the three guys walk with Stacey. She’s heading to the door that leads to all the hotel rooms – the rooms where everyone fucks.

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