Fight Dirty

by Eva Ashwood

  That’s one of the first things my dad taught me when I started going to parties—never leave your drink unattended and never drink something if you don’t know what it is. But in my haste to leave my anger and fear behind me, I didn’t take the time to remember that.

  I feel woozy, and I lean against the wall for a second, blinking as I try to force myself to focus on the girl who gave me the drink.

  She’s laughing, not in a cruel way, but in a way that makes it seem like we’re both in on some joke.

  “What the fuck was in that?” I manage to ask her without slurring my words too badly.

  She lifts an eyebrow and shrugs. “It was just laced with a little molly. Just to get the party really going. Isn’t that why you came in here?”

  I shake my head, and it sends the world spinning again.

  “Why wouldn’t you get something from the bar if you just wanted a regular drink?” she asks, like I’m the idiot here. And maybe I am.

  I push myself away from the wall, swearing under my breath as I do. My skin feels too hot, and everywhere the silken material of the dress rubs against me feels like it’s exploding in sensation. I can’t tell if it’s a good sensation or not, to be honest, and I bite back a noise of frustration.

  I try to make my way out of the room and through the crowd so I can get some air outside, but as I’m walking down the hall, I can feel the drugs really hitting me hard. The fact that I’m already at least two drinks in is definitely not helping, and I feel like no matter how hard I try to keep my feet on the ground and moving one step in front of the other, it’s impossible for me to not feel like I’m floating.

  My head is in the clouds, and the colors from people’s clothes start to blur around the edges. It’s like a rainbow of people, swirling and dancing, and I’m somewhere adrift in the middle of it.

  I giggle at the idea of a bunch of gang members stretched out across the sky like a rainbow, stuck in place, glaring and angry about it. It’s a funny image, and for a solid few seconds I can’t stop laughing. Some people pass by and look at me funny, like I’m being weird, but I just keep moving past them, sometimes reaching out for the wall to help keep my balance.

  There are so many people here. Fuck. Too many people.

  When I get back to the main room, it almost feels like they’re closing in on me. The music is too loud, the bass of it thumping through my body like a heartbeat, and the edges of the crowd seem to thump in closer with every pulse of the song. Someone brushes past me, and I startle hard, the slight contact radiating out from my forearm all the way down my fingers and up to my chest.

  I can’t tell if it’s too much or not enough, and I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly so fucking dry.

  All of a sudden, I feel very alone. That adrift feeling comes back, and I blink back a few tears. Goddammit. I’m not going to cry here. That would be stupid.

  But everything and everyone feels so far away. I don’t know any of these people. I want Scarlett. I want my dad. I want familiar faces and warm arms and someone to touch me with kindness.

  If my dad dies, who will be left? Who will be my family?

  It’s all so fucking much. I feel like I can’t breathe.

  It feels like every one of my emotions are so close to the surface, making it impossible to ignore them as they all fight to be felt right away. The sadness, the loss, the fear, the anger, the strange feeling of arousal. It’s all there, and I feel like the world is hurtling around me, making it so hard to hold on to anything.

  I keep moving, trying to find a place to sit down or at least a place to lean where no one can touch me. I walk right into someone on my way to find a couch or something, and when I step back, the blurry form resolves itself into Sloan.

  He opens his mouth and then frowns, looking down at me. Before I can brush past him, he grabs my shoulder.

  “Look at me,” he demands.

  “Fuck off.” I swat at him, trying to fight my way free, but he’s too strong. He’d be stronger than me even if I weren’t loopy as fuck, but if I were in my right mind, I’d have a decent chance of breaking his grip anyway. There’s nothing I can do to get away from him in the state I’m in right now though. I can barely keep track of all my limbs, let alone use them to fight.

  “Mercy DeLeon,” he says, and my full name sounds so weird coming from him. Like hearing a teacher say your name on the weekend. Or something. I giggle in response, and he shakes me a little. “Hey. Look at me.”

  Finally, I glance up and nearly get lost in the thrashing storm of his eyes. They’re so gray, so deep and a little dark. I forget to blink for a bit, and he stares right back at me.

  “Are you drunk?” he demands, scowling.

  I shake my head. Because I’m not. At least I don’t think I am? I had drinks. But it’s not the drinks.

  Whatever Sloan sees in my face lets him know something is wrong, clearly, because he has that look on his face. That angry look like I’ve disappointed him.

  In the mishmash of the feelings fighting for dominance in my chest, anger claws its way to the surface, flaring too hot and too bright. “Don’t you fucking judge me,” I say, and it’s too loud to my own ears.

  “What the fuck did you do?” Sloan shoots back, and I try to pull away from him again, but his fingers dig in harder. “Mercy, what did you do?”

  “Get away from me,” I snap. “You don’t care. None of you. You don’t fucking care!”

  I can’t control the words coming out of my mouth, and in the middle of the anger, I start feeling like I want to cry again. I rub my hands up and down my arms, and suddenly even my skin feels too tight. Everything is too much, and I want to lie in a cold, dark room for a little while.

  Sloan keeps his hands on my shoulders and steers me away from the crowd. Rory and Levi materialize out of nowhere, and Sloan says something to them that I don’t catch.

  Whatever it is, it gets them to put their hands on me too, and I flinch away. “No,” I mutter.

  “Hey,” Rory says. “You’re okay. We’re going to get you out of here.”

  “Wanna go home,” I reply, sounding miserable.

  They propel me a little faster out the door.

  The air outside feels like a revelation against my heated face and skin, and I stop to drag in deep gulps of the fresh air. It’s quieter out here, and the grass looks nice and soft. Like it would be a good place to lie down and take a little nap.

  I start trying to head in that direction, but they won’t let me. Of course they won’t fucking let me. They never let me do anything I want to do. It’s all what they want. Always what they want. I can’t even lie down in the grass without Sloan pulling me back, trying to drag me off down the driveway to where the car is parked.

  I struggle against his hold, and Rory steps in closer, helping him keep me close.

  “Leave me alone!” The words pour from my lips over and over again. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

  “We’re going to take you home,” Levi says, and I glance at him. His eyes are so brown. Like chocolate. Like velvet. “Let us take you home, okay? We’ll take care of you.”

  I don’t believe him. They sent my dad out there to die, and they won’t do anything to help him. They don’t care about him, and they obviously don’t care about me. I can’t trust them.

  But I’m so tired. My limbs feel like they weigh a hundred pounds, and it’s hard to even lift my legs to get in the car, so Sloan and Rory mostly lift me in.

  Sloan takes the front seat, while Rory and Levi climb in the back with me, one of them on either side.

  “What the fuck happened?” Levi asks once Sloan gets the car moving.

  “She wouldn’t tell me,” Sloan replies darkly. “I don’t know if she knows.”

  “Knowing the people at that party, could have been anything,” Rory chimes in with a sigh.

  Their words sort of go over my head, drifting in and out of my ears as the drugs kick in even harder. It’s unbearable to be sitting in the stifling car,
and the halter neck of my dress feels like it’s choking me.

  If I don’t get this dress off, I feel like I won’t be able to breathe, and I reach around to the back for the zipper, trying to get it off.

  “Mercy, no,” Levi says, batting my hands away. “Keep your clothes on.”

  “It’s too fucking hot,” I complain, moving away from him and closer to Rory. “Stop it. It’s my dress, and I’ll take it off if I fucking want to. You’re not my fucking boss.”

  Giving up on the zipper, I manage to get the tie around the neck undone. The top of the dress falls down easily, the silky material slithering down my skin. I don’t have on a bra under it, because the neckline and back are too dramatically plunging for that, so as soon as the fabric falls down, it exposes my bare tits to the car.

  “Fuck,” Sloan hisses, and I can see him looking in the rearview mirror. He drives even faster.

  Levi and Rory are affected too, their eyes going dark. Rory licks his lips and glances away and Levi clenches his hands into fists in his lap.

  We get back to the house in record time, and it feels like I blinked and we’re already there. The two guys in the back help get me inside, pulling my dress back up to cover my tits.

  When I glance at Sloan, he looks hard and closed off. He’s mad, but it’s nothing like the way he was the last time I embarrassed him or whatever while we were out. He turns away from me, like he doesn’t want to look at me, and I look at the floor, breathing hard even though I don’t really have a reason to be out of breath.

  I don’t know what to say to him, and it doesn’t really matter one way or another, because he turns and disappears into the kitchen without another word, leaving the three of us alone in the living room.

  Levi and Rory practically cart me up the stairs between them, and Rory pushes open the door to my bedroom so Levi can get me through. It’s still a little bit of a mess from when I got ready for the party earlier, and if I wasn’t so out of it, I might be embarrassed for them to see it. As it is, I don’t give a shit.

  “I’ve got it from here,” Levi says, finally letting me go.

  Rory hesitates, glancing from his friend then back to me, and it looks like he’s unsure about leaving.

  Levi just rolls his eyes and makes a face. “I’ll take care of her,” he says firmly. “I’m not a fucking prick. I’m not going to do anything to her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Rory replies. He moves to stand in front of me, reaching up to brush a few stray strands of hair out of my face. “You’re gonna be okay?”

  It sounds more like a question than when he said it before. As if he really wants to know the answer. Rory’s nice. He cares. He pretends to care.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him, and he grins.

  “That’s our Hurricane.” He leans in and gives me a quick peck on the lips and is gone before I can react to it.

  Levi closes the door behind Rory and starts rummaging through my clothes in the dresser. He pulls out a pair of soft shorts and a t-shirt and puts them on the bed.

  “Okay,” he says. “Let’s get your dress off.”

  “Let’s get your dress off,” I mutter back, and he shakes his head, coming to stand behind me.

  His hands are warm as they ghost down my mostly bare back, fingers finding the zipper and dragging it down. He unties the halter top straps again, and the dress slides down my body and pools on the floor, leaving me in just my heels and panties.

  I can tell Levi is trying hard not to look. He keeps his eyes focused on my hands as he holds one and helps me step out of the puddle of red fabric. He turns to get my t-shirt, and I step closer, running my hands up his back.

  It’s broad and strong and just as warm as his hands. I pull the hem of the shirt out of his nice pants, but if I want to get the shirt off, and I suddenly very much do, he’s going to have to turn around. The thought of rubbing my naked skin against his naked skin is a very good one, and I make a soft noise of want just from thinking about it.

  There’s a sharp intake of breath from Levi, either at my closeness or the noise, and he turns around quickly. My fingers go straight for his buttons, but he catches my wrists in one of his large hands before I can make any headway.

  “Mercy.” His voice is low and firm. “No.”

  I pout and let him push me away, giving himself some space. In the back of my mind, I’m still upset about everything. My dad is out there somewhere, scared and feeling like he’s going to die, and none of the guys will help him.

  The feelings churning in my chest haven’t gone away. Emptiness, loneliness, guilt, and fear all claw at the inside of my rib cage, and I need something to make me feel better.

  A good fuck would go a long way there. The heat and pleasure of it would chase away the bad feelings still festering in me, and I already know how good it can be with Levi. I know how solidly built he is under that shirt, and how good his dick is.

  “Come on,” he says, keeping me at arm’s length. “Get dressed so you can get in bed.”

  “No,” I mumble, folding my arms. “I don’t want to.”

  He sighs with feeling. “Mercy. You can’t go to bed in your underwear and heels. You need to put something on.”

  Fine. If he doesn’t want me to sleep in my underwear and heels, then I won’t. I shimmy my panties down my hips, letting them fall to the floor in a heap. Keeping my eyes on him, I kick off the heels and stand next to the bed, butt naked in front of him.

  Levi just sighs again. “Good. Great. Get into bed, okay? You need to sleep this off.”

  I feel too keyed up to sleep, but lying down does sound nice, and the sheets are cool under my bare legs when I give in and sit down, so maybe it’s not a terrible idea.

  I kick the covers down, and Levi leans over to pull them up around me, but before he can, I grab his arm and drag him down on top of me.

  He blinks for a second and then pulls away quickly. “Fuck.”

  “Sorry,” I say with a little chuckle, even though I’m not.

  He presses his lips together. He looks frustrated and tense, and I half expect him to leave and decide it’s not worth it to put up with me when I’m like this. It wouldn’t surprise me. They didn’t sign up for babysitting when they said they would watch me, and if I choked on my own vomit or whatever in the night, it would be my own fault and one less problem for them to worry about.

  I grit my teeth, waiting for Levi to shove off the bed and leave me, but he doesn’t. Instead he moves to the other side of the mattress with a sigh, putting some space between our bodies as he settles his head on one of the pillows.

  When he speaks, his voice is a low mutter. “It’s going to be a long fucking night.”

  22

  Despite the events of last night, I wake up pretty early in the morning.

  The sun is shining through the window, falling right on my face the way it does when it’s too early, and I take my time letting consciousness wash over me, processing everything. My head is much, much clearer than it was when I fell asleep, and I open my eyes slowly, waiting for the headache of being hungover to hit me.

  The light slices right into my head through my eyes like I knew it would, but other than that, the hangover isn’t as bad as I expected. I feel more alert than I did before that’s for sure, and I can tell that awful feeling of being high and out of control is gone. Thank fuck for that. The feeling of wanting to crawl out of my own skin was horrible, and I can only remember it in flashes.

  I breathe a sigh of relief at feeling normal and then yawn. It’s still early, and I fully plan to go back to sleep for a while before I have to go downstairs and face the guys. I can only imagine how that will go down, considering I don’t know what I might have said to them while I was rolling. I stretch slowly and then shift like I’m going to turn over and go back to sleep when two things hit me in rapid succession.

  The first is that I’m naked.

  Totally, one hundred percent naked.

  I’m not even wearing underwear, and
I know I put some on when I was getting ready to go out last night. My heart kicks into overdrive, and then I notice the second thing.

  Levi is in bed next to me.

  He’s asleep, lips parted slightly as he breathes deeply and evenly, and my mind races alongside my heart, trying to put together what the fuck might have happened last night.

  I can barely remember getting back to the house, really. I remember Sloan being angry and them getting me into the car, but other than that, it’s all kind of a blur. My stomach rolls when I think about it too hard, and I swallow, forcing myself to take a deep breath.

  “What the fuck?” I say out loud, and that’s enough to wake up Levi.

  He blinks quickly, face scrunched up as he yawns, and any other time I might have thought it was a cute look on him.

  Any other time when I’m not freaking out about holes in my memory and being naked as fuck.

  “What the fuck happened?” I demand, sitting up and wrapping an arm over my tits so he doesn’t get any more of the free show he’s been enjoying for however long.

  “Nothing.” His voice is rough with sleep, and he reaches up to run the fingers of one hand through his hair.

  I narrow my eyes and search his face. He looks a little groggy with sleep, but his expression holds no hint of guilt or deception. Still, I don’t know whether I believe him or not. I don’t think I do.

  “You just laid there all night and didn’t touch me?” I ask. “Yeah, right. Why am I naked then?”

  “Because you didn’t want to put your fucking clothes on,” he says, sounding exasperated. “Look under the covers.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it.”

  I keep my eyes on him for a second, but then I do as he says, lifting the covers to look. He’s not naked. The nice button-down shirt he had on from last night is gone, as are his shoes and socks, but he’s still wearing his dark, expensive-looking jeans.