“You don’t like subways?” Seth asks.
“No, I really don’t.” Just thinking about the doors closing with me trapped on the train has my heartbeats picking up speed. I take a deep breath, trying to keep myself from having a full-blown panic attack.
Seth takes my hands, catching me off guard. Before I can pull away, he brings me in closer, his eyes locking onto mine. His pupils dilate and his irises seem to take on an unearthly glow. My heart beats even faster, but for some reason I can’t look away. My body wants to run, but my mind argues to make sense of it, telling me that his eyes are normal and not glowy. That it’s just the streetlights reflecting weirdly or something and I’m being crazy.
“Indi,” he says my name, his voice smooth and velvety. I feel myself being increasingly drawn to him and what he has to say. It’s like it’s the most important thing and I have to listen, despite everything telling me not to.
“Yes,” I say.
“Subways aren’t so bad. You’ll get on and you’ll be perfectly fine.” His deep, dark brown eyes are like a bottomless glowing pool, urging me to dive deeper and deeper.
“I’ll be perfectly fine,” I say and he smiles… and then I come to my senses. What am I saying? I will not be perfectly fine getting onto the subway. I’ll be sick to my stomach as the tunnel walls close in on me, and I’ll probably throw up all over the floor. I jerk my hands out of his, shaking my head vehemently side to side. “No, no, I won’t. I can’t do subways. I’m sorry, Seth. It was nice to meet you, but Liv and I need to go.”
He looks at me as if my head just spun in circles and he doesn’t know what to do about it. “B-but,” he stutters, “you’ll be fine. Perfectly fine.”
Is this guy for real? “Look, thanks for trying to help me get over my claustrophobic, irrational fears of riding the subway or whatever, but it’s not going to happen. I need to go home.” I look around for Liv, but don’t see her or Ben anywhere. I don’t see anyone anywhere. This is the city for crying out loud. There should be people everywhere. Where is everyone? Where is Liv? “Liv!” I shout. I get no answer and shout again. “Liv! Liv!”
The cool night air weighs heavy on my shoulders as I spin in circles, frantically looking for my cousin. All the lights from the lampposts along the street blur together, moving in streaks around me. My lungs seize up, air no longer moving in and out as it should. “Liv! Liv, please answer me!” The ground tilts, the pavement under my feet no longer steady and I begin to sway.
Seth stalks toward me, his hands moving lightning fast to grip my shoulders. He eases me to the ground as my knees give out. His eyes lower to the side of my neck as his thumb rubs over the thrumming beats of my quickening pulse. He licks his lips slowly, the look in his eyes hungry. And just like that, everything goes black as my panic attack takes full effect and I pass out.
Muted sounds whisper in my ear, too far away to make out clearly. I struggle to make sense of them, but it’s like I’m underwater and everything is muffled.
And then I remember Liv.
I jerk straight up, slamming my forehead against something hard. For a moment I see stars as my hand finds its way to the knot forming just above my right eyebrow.
“Shit,” a familiar guy’s voice shouts very near to where I am.
Dropping my hand to the ground, I scoot a few inches backward. I blink and squeeze my eyes shut a few times, clearing my head of the fog until I can see straight. To the right of me, Seth rubs at his own forehead with the palm of his hand.
The way he looked at me—so hungry like—right before I blacked out plays over my mind and I scoot back a few inches more. I know I’m probably being stupid, and if I voiced any of this out loud people would definitely think I’m crazy, but I search for bite marks along the side of my neck. A huge sigh comes out in one big puff as my shoulders slump in relief.
Not a vampire…
Because vampires aren’t real…
And I’m obviously crazy for even having considered it.
“Are you okay?”
I jump and scoot backward at the same time. Ah! When did he get so close?
He holds his hands up, palms out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. But are you okay? You hyperventilated and passed out.”
“Liv. I need to find Liv.” I move too fast, climbing back to my feet, and begin to sway again. The knot on my head throbs and I cover it back up with my hand as if it’ll somehow make everything better.
Seth takes hold of my arm, bracing me by the elbow. “Easy there. I don’t want you passing out again. Maybe you should sit down for a minute.” He leads me over to the edge of the sidewalk then helps me to sit along the curb. “Breathe in slowly through your nose then exhale through your mouth.”
“Huh?”
“It’ll help with panic attacks. Just listen to my voice and focus on your breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.” He wraps one of his arms around my back so both of his hands are on my upper arms. He takes a deep, slow breath in then lets it out, nodding for me to mimic him, so I do. After a few breaths, the world rights itself and my lungs open back up.
“Thank you.” I stare at him, trying to reconcile the conflicting thoughts about him in my head. Is he a good guy or is he a bad guy? I can’t figure it out. All I know is there’s something different about him. Something not normal. He makes me uneasy and comfortable all at once. I mean just a little bit ago I was convinced his eyes were glowing, and he wanted to bite me and now here he is talking me through a panic attack. It doesn’t make sense.
“What?” he asks, when I’ve stared for too long. “Do I have something on my face? Please say it’s not a booger.” He wipes the underside of his nose with the sleeve of his shirt.
I try to suppress a laugh, but a little slips out, anyway. “No, you’re good. I’m just trying to figure you out is all.”
“And?”
I search his eyes, looking for anything abnormal; unusual pupil dilation, a strange glow, the intense hunger I thought I saw earlier, but find nothing other than curiosity. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something else, something darker hidden beneath, something he doesn’t want me to see. “I don’t know yet.” A shiver runs through me, spreading goose flesh along my arms he mistakes for the coldness of the night.
He runs his hands up and down my arms to generate heat. “Well, if it helps, you’ll be glad to know I got a hold of Ben. He and Liv are already at the club. I also called for a Taxi so you won’t have to worry about the subway. It should be here any minute.”
“She’s already at the club? She left me?” I don’t know whether to be hurt about being left behind or straight up angry about it. Angry. Definitely angry. How could she do that? How could she leave me alone? When I get my hands on her I’m going to… I don’t even know what, but it will be bad. She’s got another thing coming if she thinks I’m just going to roll over and forgive her for this because it’s not going to happen. And a month of my chores, uh-uh, she will be doing them for at least the next three.
The taxi arrives a few minutes later. Seth stands then holds out his hand for me to take. “It’ll be okay Indi. Let’s go find Liv and Ben.”
“It’s not okay.” I take his hand and he helps me up.
He doesn’t let me go. Instead, he pulls me a little closer, our hands still joined between us. He stares down at me with a mix of emotions warring in his gaze as though he’s struggling to decide something. With a step back, he breaks eye contact and clenches his jaw. “We should go.” He leads me over to the taxi then opens the car door, motioning for me to get in.
Confused about everything; Seth’s strange behavior, why Liv would leave me, I do the only thing I can do; I climb into the back seat as Seth runs around to get in on the other side. He gives the driver the address and we spend the ride over in silence. Mostly because I’m too busy either trying to make sense of him or dreaming up various anger-fueled murderous scenarios for Liv, than to talk.
The cab comes
to a stop outside a tall brick building with a huge marquee displaying Night Life in big bold red letters. Flashing lights run along the bottom, dancing off the faces of the people standing in line to get in. Seth hands the driver the fare, telling him to keep the change as I open the door to get out. I scope out my surroundings, taking in the cars parked along the street, the sounds of the people talking all at once so nothing is understood, to the enormity of the line flowing way past the building. It’s going to take forever to get inside.
Beside me now, Seth places a hand on my shoulder blade with a gentle nudge forward.
I look over at him. “Don’t we need to get in line?” My gaze moves past him to the black ‘67 Chevy Camaro slowly cruising down the street. I narrow my eyes, my mind working to come up with where I’d seen it before. Winchester and Rosewood. It’s the same car I saw right before I got on the bus. What are the odds of that?
I shake it off. With my nightmare this morning, the weight of this day in general, and all the other crap that’s happened, I’m becoming paranoid. I need to just chill. I look up at the club, viewing it with a different state of mind. As mad as I am at Liv for ditching me for some dude she just met, maybe going in and letting off some steam isn’t such a bad idea.
A hand waves over my face.
“Huh?”
“And you’re back,” Seth says with a grin. “You spaced out there for a minute. I was trying to tell you we don’t need to wait in line. My cousin owns the club so I can get in whenever I want.” He looks at the entrance and then back at me, a mix of emotions playing over his face. “Unless, you want to call Liv, or I can call Ben, and we can have them meet us out here so you don’t even have to go in.”
“No, that’s okay. We can go in. I doubt either one of them would hear the phone ring anyway over the music.”
“Right.” He holds out his hand again and I catch a glimpse of regret in his eyes before he shoves it away. In its place is an empty stare, and a nearly convincing smile. “Shall we?”
I accept his hand, ignoring the growing uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. “We shall.”
5
The smell hits me first, alcohol, sweat, lust, and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s kind of metallic. Copper maybe? And then all the sounds come, riding on a pulsating wave of music capable of being felt all the way down to the bone, the beats overpowering the shouting conversations of the club’s patrons. Colored lights affixed around a raised DJ booth on the other side of the room move back and forth over the dance floor, bathing everyone in shades of blues, purples, and greens. A sea of raised hands, and swaying bodies clad in mostly black or leather attire, fill nearly every bit of space on the ground floor. Above us, a glass railing wraps around a second level, giving people a place to chill outside the dance floor.
Several pairs of eyes make their way over to where Seth and I stand on the fringes, sending chills racing down my back. Every one of them looks at me like I’m fresh meat to be devoured as their ravenous gazes travel up and down my body. I inch closer to Seth, changing my mind about letting off any kind of steam. Something about this place mixed with the way some of the people are staring at me has my spidey senses tingling off the charts. I have a feeling fun here comes at a price I’m not willing to pay. I’ll just stick to finding Liv and taking all my frustrations out on her for ditching me when we’re safely back on the bus. Providing we get back in time to catch the last one for the night.
I stand on my tiptoes while pulling down on Seth’s arm so I can reach his ear. “Where should we start looking?” I just want to find her and get out of here.
Seth points to the right side of the room where a bar lines the majority of the wall. “Let’s start there.”
“Okay.”
He leads me into a mass of gyrating bodies and I hold on to his hand as tight as I can so we don’t get separated. We pass several people making out and a few who should seriously consider getting a room, before we make it somewhat close to the bar where the crowd thickens with people waiting to get drinks.
Great. At this rate we’ll never make it there.
The soft touch of a finger moves over the back of my neck followed by a sharp sting that has me bringing my hand up just underneath my ear. I pull my hand away to find a small amount of blood on the tip of my finger. A few feet away a tall guy in a sleeveless black shirt with unusually bright gray eyes stands among a horde of swaying bodies moving in stop-motion under a strobe light. The twisted smile on his face sends a million invisible ants crawling over my skin. Caught in his stare, I watch as he licks the tip of his finger, then presses it against his lips as though shushing me. He winks then disappears within the next flash of the strobe light.
Heart speeding uncontrollably in my chest, I stretch my neck out, looking for the guy in the sleeveless shirt, wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing. I run my hand over my neck again if only to check my own sanity. My movement stalls when I find what I hope won’t be there when I look. Time seems to move slowly under the effects of the strobe light flashing over the dance floor, and for a second, the club fades away as I look down at the small amount of blood smeared on my fingers.
Did that guy scratch me and then—I don’t want to finish the thought, but it comes anyway—lick it off?
A thread of uneasiness, wrapped in a heavy dose of full on dread, worms its way into my stomach, sending a message to every nerve ending in my legs to carry me out of here now.
Like right now.
I take a few steps before I come to my senses and remember why I’m here. Liv. I’m here for Liv.
Sticking close to Seth’s side, I peer around the room, hoping I can spot her somewhere in the crowd. With the slow pace in which we’re moving it’ll be forever before we reach the bar, and I want to get out of here sooner rather than later. I doubt Liv’s at the bar, anyway. She’s not really into the whole drinking thing. I stand on my tiptoes, hoping to get a better view over the crowd. Starting with where we came in, I scan the room as best as I can. Not every table is visible from where I am and with the amount of people packed on the dance floor, it’s practically impossible to see everyone’s faces.
“Come on Liv, where are you?” I mumble under my breath. I’m about to give up when I spot a girl with perfect red hair going up the stairs to the second level. “Over there, on the stairs. I think that might be Liv,” I shout at Seth.
He leans in closer. “Are you sure?”
“No, but let’s check it out, anyway.” I’ve got to do something other than move only a few paces every few minutes. This place is starting to get under my skin and I don’t know how much longer I can keep myself from reaching a total and utter freak out.
Seth chews on his bottom lip as he looks out over the club, his eyes darting to every corner and along the railing on the second level, as though he’s trying to avoid someone. I’m about to ask him about it when he says, “Okay, let’s go. Stay close and maybe we…” His voice gets lost in the crowd as we make it toward the stairs off to the right of the bar, but I can almost swear he’d said maybe we can make it out of here unscathed. Unscathed? What does he mean by unscathed? Sleeveless shirt guy enters my brain and I shudder. On second thought, maybe I’d rather not know what he means.
Halfway up the stairs I bump into a guy hovering over a blonde woman. He glares at me and I do a double take. I could swear his eyes were glowing. He continues to stare and I blink a few times to clear the crazy. There’s no glow. I must be imagining things again. It’s probably just the lights. He smiles, showing the tips of his teeth—his pointed teeth. I trip on the stairs nearly taking Seth down with me. The guy laughs, his teeth perfectly normal.
I’m losing it.
Seth leads me away from the stairs toward a series of high-backed booths along the wall. Deep red leather covers the seats, each booth half circling around a dark wooden table. Various drinks litter the tabletops, the seats occupied by people drinking, smoking, groping each other, or doing drugs. A guy
with dirty blonde hair winks at me then lowers his face to the table where he snorts a line of white powder up his nose. He leans back, draping his arms across the back of the booth.
What kind of place has Liv dragged us off to?
I slam right into Seth’s back, biting my tongue in the process. A tangy metallic taste fills my mouth. “Ow. Why did you stop?” I move around him and come face to face with a well dressed, good-looking man in a three-piece suit that probably costs a few thousand dollars, minimum. It’s totally out of place in a club setting. The guy is tall, at least six feet, three inches with dark blonde hair and stubble along his jaw. His pale blue irises shimmer in the colored lights streaking back and forth over the club. Fine lines form along the side of his eyes as he smiles down at me with perfect white teeth.
“Who’s your friend?” Three-Piece’s gaze roams over me from head to toe, assessing. I don’t know whether to be flattered or creeped out, being I’m only seventeen and he’s got to be at least twenty-five or so. The tip of his tongue trails slowly over the bottom edge of his top lip, the gleam in his eye both hungry and satisfied. My stomach takes a nosedive. Okay, definitely creeped out.
Wide-eyed, Seth takes a step back. Still holding my hand, he pulls me close to his side, his grip tight. His jaw clenches as he looks at the man in front of us. He takes a deep breath then plasters on a fake smile, giving me the impression this is whom he was trying to avoid. “Ludvikas, this is Indi.” Seth looks at me, his eyes hard to read. “Indi, this is my cousin, Ludvikas.”
“Call me Vik.” He holds out his hand for me to shake, his eyes a brighter shade of blue, as though they’re being lit from behind. Seth squeezes my fingers and I hesitate midway. Vik closes the distance, taking my hand in both of his. He steps closer, his intense gaze holding me in place. “It’s nice to meet you, Indi. I need to talk to Seth for a moment. You’ll be fine here on your own won’t you? Maybe have a drink? Enjoy yourself a little, hmm?” His pupils dilate and his voice echoes in my mind, urging me to comply.
Of Blood & Magic: Blood Descent Book 1 Page 5