I dance to the rhythm of the music, trying to get lost in the sound of this fabulous song they’re playing in Club RIVERA. Lana and Brooke dance alongside me, and we bump our butts and swirl around each other in a sultry manner. Lana’s hair sways from left to right as she dances to the rhythm, her moves attracting so much attention that it’s hard not to get flustered. I’m not used to all the attention being on us, but I can live with it as long as it’s not Tartarus boys glaring at me from a corner.
But I doubt they’d come here to a club owned by the Rivera family, the father of the leader of the Skull & Serpent Society.
Felix, Penelope, Dylan, and Alistair all chat, dance, and drink in the VIP section. I briefly said hi to them before I went to the dance floor with the girls.
Tonight, the club wanted everyone to grab a red mask at the entrance to hide their identity, and I have to say it does make me more outgoing and more willing to let go in the music.
I take some more sips of my alcohol, feeling the buzz rushing through my veins. But suddenly, Lana begins to wobble, and she nearly falls into me.
“Wow,” she murmurs.
“You all right?” I ask.
“Yeah, yeah, just getting a little tipsy,” she says.
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom. You wanna come?” Brooke yells over the music.
Lana shakes her head. “I’m good. You go ahead.”
But my bladder is filling up quickly. “I have to pee.” I adjust my dress as it’s crept up from all the dancing we did. “I’m coming with you.”
Brooke hooks her arm through mine, and I put my drink on the table somewhere, then we head off to the bathroom. The place is filled with girls chatting about the latest drama while doing their makeup. I do my thing in a stall and wait for Brooke to finish too.
“Oh God … I’m gonna be sick.”
I can hear Brooke throwing up in the stall, and I rush inside to hold her hair so it doesn’t get all sticky and filthy.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Crystal,” she says.
“No, no, it’s okay.”
She goes on and on with no end in sight, then begins to cry. “I didn’t wanna ruin the evening.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” I say, comforting her. “We had a good time. We just drank too much.”
I’m feeling dizzy too, but I didn’t drink nearly as much as she did.
“I always get too excited,” she says before throwing up more.
“Just get it out of your system,” I say, rubbing her back. “You’ll feel much better soon.”
After an hour, she’s all done and slumps against the toilet. I grab some paper towels and rinse it under the water so she can dab her face with them.
“God, I’m so glad it’s finished,” she murmurs. “Thanks for helping me.”
I smile. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.”
“You think … we could keep dancing?”
I snort. “If you want to, sure. What’s stopping us?”
She grins, and I help her get up. “Lana’s waiting for us. Better get back in the game before she steals all the hot boys from under our noses.”
I laugh as we exit the bathroom and head back to our spot, but Lana’s nowhere to be found.
“That’s weird. I could’ve sworn we left her here. Right?” Brooke asks.
I nod and look around, but I don’t see her anywhere, not even near the VIP area where her brother is. Where could she be?
We check the bar as well as the top floor and several exclusive rooms, but we can’t find her anywhere.
“This is making me nervous as fuck,” Brooke says. “Felix told me to watch her.”
Brooke pulls out her phone and texts her while I watch.
Brooke: Where R U?
But Lana still doesn’t appear to have read it.
I sigh out loud and open the bathroom door and call out her name, “Lana?”
No response.
Brooke: Hello? Earth to Lana?
Brooke: This isn’t funny.
“Do you think she’s playing hide-and-seek?” she mutters.
“Why would she?” I retort, confused.
“I don’t know.”
“We must’ve missed something,” I say.
“Well, these red masks we’re forced to wear don’t fucking help either,” Brooke says, getting more and more annoyed.
So I grab my phone too and send her a message.
Me: Lana, please RE! Are u OK? You disappeared on us.
“Oh God,” Brooke panics. “What do we do? If Felix finds out she’s missing, he’s gonna kill me.”
“Calm down. No one’s missing,” I say. “We just lost sight of her. She’s gotta be in here.”
“We were gone for so long without an explanation,” Brooke says, shivering. “I should’ve told her I was feeling sick, but I didn’t wanna ruin the evening.”
She grabs her phone and begins texting her again.
Brooke: Tell me ur in the bathroom, or I swear to God I’ll walk over to your brother and tell him you’re missing. I don’t want no fuckin trouble.
She waits and waits, chewing off all her nails while she’s at it.
Lana: Sry, got sick so I got home on my bike. Don’t worry bout me.
We both breathe a sigh of relief.
Brooke: O shit. That sucks.
“Maybe it wasn’t the alcohol after all?” Brooke asks. “I mean, if she got sick too.”
“Maybe,” I respond, then focus on my phone again.
Me: Are you sure? I can come. I don’t want you to be alone.
Lana: Yeah, I’m fine. Go party! But also, pls don’t tell my brother.
Brooke: Don’t want him to worry, huh?
Lana: Yeah. Did he notice something?
Brooke: No, they were still in that exclusive area for a good while. I don’t even wanna know what they were doing in there. TMI.
Lana: Pls just don’t tell him I was gone.
Me: We won’t tell him, don’t worry. As long as you’re safe.
Lana: Thank you.
Me: DM us if you need us, and we’ll be there in a min, OK?
Lana: GO dance. Don’t worry about me.
Me: OK, get better soon!
Brooke: K, feel better!
I tuck my phone away again and smile at Brooke, who’s no longer incessantly chewing her nails. “Thank God. I would’ve died if I had to go talk to her fucking brother.”
I laugh. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Have you ever talked to him?” she asks. “He’s a scary guy.”
“True,” I reply. “Anyway, wanna dance?” I wink.
She grabs my hands and tugs me along. “Thought you’d never ask!”
When the night is over, Brooke’s lost to a guy at the club, and I don’t want to tear her away from him and ruin the rest of her evening, so I decide to head out by myself. She’s not ready to leave yet, but she’s sober enough to make her own decisions, and I’ve told Penelope to keep an eye on her while also making sure she didn’t say anything about Lana to Felix so she wouldn’t get in trouble. Because that’s what good friends do.
I hold my shoes in one hand while I have my phone in the other as I try to get a cab, but apparently, things are quite busy around this time in Crescent Vale City. I’m not having any luck securing a ride back to Spine Ridge U.
“Damn,” I mutter to myself, strolling through the streets.
I can still hear the music blaring in the background, along with several groups of girls and guys having fun outside. People are laughing, screaming, shouting, and doing all sorts of stunts to grab attention. But a particular group of guys follows me, making me feel on edge.
“Hey, beautiful. Where are you going?”
I ignore them and head straight across the street. It’ll be a few more blocks before I get to the road that leads up the hill. If I can’t find a cab soon enough, I’ll have to walk all the way back to Spine Ridge U.
“Hey,” the dude behind me says. “Care to answer, or are you always this obnoxious?”
There are five of them in total following me, and not the kind of guys I’d ever want to associate with. Definitely from the wrong side of the tracks and most definitely drunk as hell.
“Please leave me alone,” I tell them before I saunter off.
“Hey, that’s not fucking nice,” another one yells.
I increase my pace, but within minutes, they’ve caught up with me, and now fear really is coiling its way around my heart.
“Hey. We’re talking to you, bitch!” one of them yells before gripping my jacket.
“Let go of me!” I yell, jerking free of his grip.
They laugh and surround me, preventing me from moving another step.
Shit.
I’m cornered.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I tell them. “Please, just let me be.”
One of them laughs. “I don’t think so. You insulted us.”
“I didn’t say anything,” I say.
When I try to move past them, one of them shoves me back into the middle of the group.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Let me through,” I say through gritted teeth, my hand diving into my pocket.
He raises his brow. “Or else?”
I pull out my knife and point it at them, and they begin to laugh.
Fine. If they won’t take me seriously, then I’ll make them.
I attack him, running my knife through his hand.
“ARGH!” he screams.
I pull it out and try to bolt.
“Grab her!” the wounded one shouts.
Another guy grabs my waist and pulls me down to the ground.
“Get off me!” I shriek, and I slice around to get him to back off, cutting into his arm.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spits, trying to steal the knife from my hand.
“No, no, no!” I scream, holding on to it for dear life. “That’s my father’s knife!”
“She fucking cut me!” the guy I hurt yells. “How about we teach her a fucking lesson for that, boys?”
“Oh, now we’re talking,” another guy says, and he steps over to me and grips my hair, pulling my head back so tightly I shriek.
“I can’t fucking wait to play with you.”
A car comes veering down the road, tires screeching left and right, headlights blinding me.
“What the f—”
I shut my eyes as it’s headed straight toward us.
“Watch out!”
SCREECH!
A loud thump makes me hold my breath.
Yelps are all around me.
My eyes flash open, but the blinding lights stop me from seeing anything except the damaged metal and leg sticking out from underneath the wheel.
Oh God.
BANG!
I jolt up and down against the ground.
Was that a …
Another shot goes off.
My eyes burst open.
Someone in a hoodie tucks a gun away and pulls out two big knives, slicing into the men one after the other like he’s cutting through butter. With ease, he fights them off, jumping around their attacks, cutting into their flesh instead. Their screams fill the void of the night.
One by one, they all go down, blood spattering all around me, and I close my eyes, waiting for my impending doom.
I can hear the clicking of the metal before it goes off, and I open my eyes to await my final moments.
BANG!
My heart jumps along to the sound.
The guy who was on top of me, holding me down, has a giant hole in his head.
I shove him off me, and he flops onto the road like a sack of potatoes.
But now I’m staring straight into the barrel of a gun.
A puff of smoke appears from beneath a hoodie, and the gun is retracted, replaced by a hand covered in tattoos.
“Get up.”
I can’t even properly process what happened as my legs move on their own, my whole body shaking as I crawl up from the ground.
Unsteady, I fall into him, but he holds on tight.
Two familiar hazel eyes bore a hole into my head when I look up. And for a second, I almost forget how to breathe … until he reminds me.
“Breathe.”
I blow out a single shell-shocked breath. “Caleb? What are you doing here?”
I gaze at the bodies surrounding me, and my knees begin to quake. There’s blood everywhere, on the ground, on his Aston Martin, and even on my dress.
He tucks away his knives.
“Saving your ass,” he replies as he opens the car door. “Now get in.”
“What?” I mutter, utterly lost in the violence that just happened.
“I said get in,” he grunts.
When I don’t respond, he grabs me and shoves me into the passenger’s seat himself. “That wasn’t a fucking question, Crystal. Get in.”
One of the bodies gurgles and groans.
“Wait,” I say, pointing at him. “He’s still alive. We gotta—”
Caleb pulls out a single small knife and throws it at the man, piercing his bone right between his eyes.
“Not anymore.”
The man slumps to the ground.
Another body on top of the pile of bodies he left.
Caleb fishes all the knives out of the dead bodies, wiping them on his hoodie like it means nothing to him. And as he tucks them all away, he marches to my door and shuts it tight, sealing me in silence.
I swallow the lump in my throat when Caleb gets in right next to me.
“Did they hurt you?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Good. Next time, you call me.” He slams the door shut. “So I can chop off some fingers before I kill them.”
He starts the car as panic coils around my heart.
Don’t show fear. Don’t ever fucking show it, Crystal.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting us the fuck out of here,” he growls. “I don’t wanna get the cops on my ass.”
I glance at the place he hides his knives. “You killed them.”
“Because they tried to fucking touch you,” he retorts, glaring right back at me. “No one fucking touches you except us.”
He did this for me out of pure possessiveness?
His foot hits the gas, and the car races off.
“Thank you,” I mutter after a while.
There’s a pause. “You’re welcome.”
He’s still looking at me, not just in an angry way, but in a way that almost feels … protective.
I grab my coat and pull it tighter.
“I don’t understand how you were even there to save me?”
“I was watching you,” he retorts.
My eyes widen.
He followed me? The entire night?
“You shouldn’t have gone there,” he adds. “RIVERA clubs are dangerous.”
“I just wanted a night out with my friends, that’s all,” I say.
“It took every ounce of self-control for me not to drag you out of there myself, you hear me?” he says, looking at me sternly.
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say.
“I let you play around in that club because you needed the release after last night, but don’t think for a second I’m letting you out of my sight.”
I swallow. “Why?”
“Because my dad told me to,” he growls.
I roll my eyes. “Sure.”
“Believe what you want,” he quips, jaw tensing.
“So where are we going, then?”
He glances back and forth between me and the road. “I’m taking you the fuck home. Where else?”
I rub my lips together and look away. “Impressive. I don’t believe a single word you’re saying.”
“Then don’t,” he growls, shifting gear so fast that I almost fall over.
“You don’t have to protect me. I’m not your fucking girlfriend,” I retort.
“I will protect what belongs to me,” he grits back, eyes fixated on mine for a moment. “You knew what you signed up for when you made that deal with us.”
“Out of necessity,” I add.
“You’re ours.” He continues. “To play with. To use as we see fit.” His eyes trail down my body and the short dress I’m wearing. “And you will do as we say.”
I pull the coat even tighter, but it won’t cover up all my skin.
Fuck.
He drives faster and faster through the city, not giving a shit that he’s running red lights.
“You’re going too fast,” I say.
“I don’t fucking care,” he growls, shifting gears again.
“Why are you in such a rush?”
“I need to get the fuck away from there,” he grits. “Before I turn around and run over the rest too.”
My breath falters. “The rest?”
“You thought those five fuckers went to that club by themselves? It was a group of twenty dudes,” he says, grinding his teeth. “They all frequent that club looking for easy chicks to score and dump while they’re intoxicated.”
“Shit,” I mutter, moving in my seat to grab the door. “Brooke’s in there.”
His hand suddenly grips my thigh, fingers digging into my skin to keep me in place. “She’s not with one of them. I checked,” he says. “You’re not going back there.”
I gulp, but he doesn’t remove his hand, and for some reason, I can’t stop focusing on how each finger splays against my inner thigh and how much my heart rate picks up with every passing second that his fingers touch me.
Slowly, his fingers start to inch up.
“Caleb. You’re speeding.”
“I can’t help it. I want you out of my fucking car as fast as possible,” he grits.
I try to swat his hand away, but he won’t let go.
“Do you even fucking know why?” he says, throwing intense glances my way.
I swallow and shake my head, the alcohol making me feel dizzy.
Or maybe it’s from the obsessive way he’s looking at me.
And the possessive way his fingers inch closer and closer to my most sensitive spot.
“Because since we chased you into the maze, I’ve been living with a goddamn raging hard-on.”
I clench my legs and look down.
My pussy throbs.
It actually freaking throbbed.
Oh fuck.
