The Danger You Know

by Lily White

  “I’m not a baby bird,” I argue, unsure if he can understand my slurred words beneath the thump of heavy music.

  His chest shakes with laughter as he draws my arm up to wrap over his shoulder.

  “You are a baby bird. Out here flapping your wings when you don’t know how to fly yet.”

  Whatever. He doesn’t know me. There is no way a stranger can see what even my closest friends never noticed. He’s just a bouncer pissed I caused a scene and is escorting me out.

  On the outside, I’m a girl who had too much to drink. But on the inside, I’m dying.

  Not from sorrow.

  Not from pain.

  But from something much deeper and more horrifying.

  There is no easy way to explain what I feel when I stand still long enough to think of it.

  The closest I can come is the feeling of being set free in space, what a person must feel if they are floating away watching the Earth grow smaller. They’re swallowed by the cold and the darkness, but instead of panic, you feel an odd resignation...an acceptance that you’ll never return home.

  They say if you were to watch a person encounter the event horizon of a black hole that they would remain frozen in place forever, at least as far as you could tell, because time stops inside that hole. Just disappears.

  And maybe that’s how I feel.

  That I don’t exist in time.

  That I’m stuck in place without hope of going back or moving forward.

  It isn’t that I’m lonely. I prefer being by myself. Just that there is something missing, something I can’t name.

  Not that he would know that. He’s only just met me.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going home,” he answers, his voice a smooth baritone that vibrates against my ear. “I’m calling for a cab.”

  The club feels too crowded all of a sudden, my stomach twisting over a lack of food and too much to drink. It’s far too hot now, the chill of fear abandoned for the heat of panic.

  “I think I drank too much.”

  “I know you did.”

  We weave through the crowds, my feet stumbling, his arm tightening on my waist to keep me upright, the heat of his body comforting in a way. I won’t fall on my ass, not with a steel band locked around me.

  Everything is closing in on me, so fast, so thoroughly.

  The walls are caving in, the people blending together in one big lump of flesh. We bump into something. There is a jostling, a voice complaining, but that steel band never releases me as the room becomes a tunnel too narrow for me to pass through.

  “I think...”

  He moves us faster, but not enough. My legs are giving out, my head feels heavy and gross. There is no music now, just a steady thump of bass. I can’t keep my eyes open despite my best effort.

  “I think I’m passing out.”

  The man says something I can’t understand, my body giving out. A whispered curse, a hiss of sound, and as my legs became jelly and my body is heavy as stone, I begin to fall, only for another steel band to lock beneath my legs and lift me up.

  My face turns into his chest, a hard plane beneath soft cotton.

  Fingers gripping into the fabric of his shirt, I breathe him in again before the blackness swallows me whole.

  “You smell so familiar...”

  I’m not sure if the words really leave my mouth.

  Ari

  Well, this is unfortunate.

  Not only does it look bad that I am carrying out a half-dressed girl who is barely conscious, but I am doing so after having stalked her for several years.

  Not that anybody knows our history, but still, mine isn’t a face I want associated with Adeline Kane. And here I am, cradling her to my chest in full public view where any person can give a detailed account of me for a lovely police sketch.

  I should have stayed home tonight. Hell, I should have kept going without turning back on the night I killed her father. But here I am, carrying his tragic daughter out of a nightclub she isn’t old enough to be in.

  Woulda, coulda, shoulda, right?

  Son of a bitch...

  We broke free of the crowd and are approaching the front doors when the bouncer’s eyes slide my direction, his brow lifting in silent question. Only Adeline has the power to conjure my ghost and make it visible to the world.

  And in my line of work, that is less than acceptable.

  Spinning on my heel, I give him my back before he can dedicate my features to memory. Thankfully, he isn’t paid enough to give too much of a damn. Back into the crowd, I tuck my head low and push forward to find a service hall leading to another door.

  Adeline is too still against me. Too quiet. It’s the alcohol, I know that. But it disturbs me more than I want to admit.

  Even in sleep, she is too large for her skin. Even unconscious, she spreads out like wildfire and engulfs her space. Maybe even more so while sleeping because she can slip free from her restraints.

  Adeline cries in her sleep. She talks. She screams. She fights. She never rests.

  I should know. I’ve watched her.

  But I’ve never allowed myself too close. I never enter her room while she is home.

  You smell so familiar...

  Her words come back to me, and I know it is impossible.

  This is the first time I’ve touched her.

  The first time I’ve ever been near her.

  Except, that isn’t exactly true.

  I was close to her once, but we were separated by a sheet of glass.

  It was the first night I learned she walked in her sleep.

  Adeline was still sixteen at the time, her father’s body not yet cold in the ground. I’d kept watch outside her bedroom, tucked in a shadowed corner staring in through her window like the creeper I am.

  She was thrashing that night. Crying. Her fingers curling into her sheet as her body arched from the mattress. But then her eyes opened, and I thought she’d woken from the nightmare.

  Her gaze didn’t contain its usual fire. Her stare was utterly vacant.

  I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen a person sleepwalk, but it’s an eerie sight. Like watching a ghost go through the routine of the last moments of their life, completely unaware of everything around them.

  But somehow that eeriness fit her.

  Adeline was ethereal, transparent. At least to me.

  She’d climbed out of bed and left her bedroom, and I circled the house to find her again in the kitchen. She walked up to a set of French doors with gauzy white curtains pulled to the sides, her eyes open and unseeing, her forehead pressing softly against the glass.

  I knew she wasn’t aware, so I’d risked stepping up.

  Her palm splayed over the glass, her fingers curling as if she were trying to hold on to something. And I’d pressed my gloved hand to hers, so close to touching, but still separated by glass. I’d stared at her face like she was looking at me. I’d pretended that we could know each other. Our breath fogged the only barrier between us.

  I studied everything about her face, the crystal depth of her blue eyes, like a hidden oasis with only dappled sunlight. The soft curve of her jaw. The sharp blades of her high cheekbones. The blood red tint of lips that were swollen as if she’d been chewing them.

  She does that when she thinks, chews her lips. And why do I have to fucking know that? I don’t want to know that.

  That was when curiosity turned to obsession. And realizing that, I’d forced myself away from her to return to the shadows.

  She sank to the ground as soon as I stepped away, her expression twisting in such raw, honest grief that my breath caught, my hand fisted.

  I don’t like it when Adeline is still.

  It’s why I’m in a rush to get her out of the club, why I storm down the dark service hall to kick open a back door into the alleyway. Why I carry her to my car because I can’t put her in the back of a stranger’s vehicle in the condition she’s in.

  It would b
e too easy for someone to take advantage, and I’m not even sure she can tell the driver her address. I could, but that’s beside the point.

  The girl is so far gone, it isn’t like she’ll remember anything. I’ve just never pulled my car into her fucking driveway before. I was always careful to park around the block and walk over.

  This is too close.

  But I do it regardless.

  Thankfully, Adeline sleeps the entire way home, her tiny body curled up in the passenger seat, the seatbelt I’d strapped over her absolutely useless if I get in a wreck. Not that I will. I’m an excellent driver. You have to be to flee murder scenes without being caught.

  She is safe.

  From the world, at least.

  For tonight.

  I’m not so sure the same can be said about me.

  I pull into her driveway just as she is stirring from that aggravatingly still sleep, her eyes blinking open, hazy from blacking out.

  Killing the engine, I pull my seatbelt from the buckle and lean over to remove hers. Her breath is hot against my forearm, her body stirring again as she opens her eyes more.

  “Where am I?”

  Teeth clenched, I think about opening the door, rolling her out with my foot and backing away. It’s what I should do. But I answer her instead.

  “You’re home.”

  Her lips pull into a sloppy smile, her hips shifting over the seat so she can roll her head to look at me.

  “Who are you?”

  “Does it matter?” I cock a brow, challenging her to care.

  She laughs, and it’s like music, free and unencumbered.

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  We stare at each other for several quiet seconds, the beat of my breath matching hers. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused, her face so serene that I feel relaxed because of it.

  “You’re pretty,” she says on an exhalation of breath.

  Pretty?

  Flowers are pretty. The sky is pretty. Women are pretty.

  I am none of those things.

  “You’re drunk, and I’m not pretty.”

  Adeline pushes up to kneel in her seat and leans over the center console, her palm cupping my cheek as tender as a lover.

  “Yes, you are. But you’re flawed. I can see all the mistakes. You’re gorgeous because of those flaws.”

  My eyes widen, heart hammering. She needs to go. This is too much. Too close. How the fuck does she know that?

  It’s the tragic artist in her. She looks for the cracks and fissures, the imperfections in anything she sees.

  Her sloppy grin widens, pearly white teeth glimmering beneath.

  “It’s okay. I’m flawed, too. Would you like to see?”

  What a stupid question. I don’t need to see. I already know all her flaws. I could write a fucking book about them.

  Adeline doesn’t wait for an answer before climbing over the center console to straddle my lap. And while I should open my door to jump away, I find myself sucking in a breath, my body going far too still.

  She leans forward to press her mouth to my ear.

  “I don’t even know your name, and all I want to do is kiss you right now. How fucked up is that?”

  Extremely. It is just one of the things about her that drives me crazy. Don’t get me wrong; I love that about her. But I also hate it.

  “We shouldn’t do that,” I answer.

  “I like doing things I shouldn’t.”

  Yes, yes she does. She really is a little monster.

  “Why?”

  Her lips brush the shell of my ear, and I ignore how my dick twitches.

  “Because the world tells me no, and it makes me want to do it more. Why should I be bound to their rules? This is my life. I want to live it. I want to taste it. I want to explore every forbidden and unknown thing. Don’t you?”

  Her hips roll over my lap, and my hand grips down to still her. She laughs against my ear, the sound of it breathy.

  “Please.”

  My eyes close and open again to find her unfocused gaze searching mine, her mouth slightly parted, top teeth scraping the bottom lip.

  And then she presses her mouth to mine while her hips roll again, a groan crawling up the back of my throat because she tastes like fire and ice, life and death, like the arid heat of a desert and the immaculate violence of a summer storm.

  The tip of her little pink tongue sweeps along the crease of my mouth, teasing, tasting, seeking permission.

  Adeline is attempting to lead this dance. And many guys in the past had let her. But I’m not those guys. I know she needs more than that.

  She doesn’t get off on polite, respectable fucks. She doesn’t enjoy sloppy, suffocating humping. She looks like she'll puke when a guy fumbles between her legs for only a few seconds before losing patience and diving in.

  I’ve watched her shut down so many times, disappointed, but then smile and lie that she’d come.

  The same wouldn’t happen with me. Not that it should happen at all, but tell my dick that...or my teeth.

  And before you gripe and complain that I’m taking advantage of a drunk woman who doesn’t know better, you can fuck off. I never claimed our story would be pretty or safe.

  I open my mouth to let her tongue slide in, but then I clamp down with my teeth, trapping the smooth muscle as a squeak of pain bursts from her throat. Grabbing both her wrists with my hands, I force her arms behind her back to trap them together with one hand while bringing the other around to her front.

  My teeth release her, and I shove her back, a little beep sounding from the car when her spine hits the horn. She stares at me wide-eyed and afraid. I grin.

  “Here’s the thing about fucking men you don’t know. You never can tell which ones are monsters.”

  Another woman would have fought or screamed, but my little psychopath shudders as my hand dips beneath her shirt to sweep up and grip her tit. Squeezing her tight nipple between my thumb and finger, I twist until her mouth falls open, and her hips circle down against my lap.

  And then I bite her again. Her full bottom lip that has mocked me for years. The same one she chews at all fucking hours. I punish her mouth for teasing me every chance it gets. For distracting me. For trapping me.

  Adeline’s hips move faster, my cock swelling with the intent to take her, but I’m not ready for that. Not until she cries. Begs. Fucking slits an artery and offers me her blood if I will only promise to relieve the pressure.

  My mouth consumes hers in the next breath, our tongues sliding together as the car beeps again because she can’t keep her body still. I suck on that little pink muscle, wishing it was smaller and between her legs, but my fingers will have to do.

  Dropping my hand between her legs, I growl to find she is wet, absolutely dripping with the need she has to be filled.

  I flick her panties aside, losing myself to that wet heat, my thumb circling her clit with a punishing force because she deserves to be punished for what she is doing to me.

  This should not be happening.

  But I drag my thumb down her slit, push it inside her tight hole and massage the circle of the opening before dragging it back up to play her clit again.

  Adeline is panting, mewling, grinding down on me like she can’t get enough.

  I release her mouth to run my teeth along her jaw, my lips down her throat, my mouth hitting her shoulder when she catches her breath enough to barely talk.

  “I’m going to -“

  Panting, she can’t get the words out, her body writhing.

  “I’m going to -“

  No. I won’t let her come yet.

  I pull my hand away and shoot my stare to her face. The color in her cheeks has drained, her eyes unfocused and hazy.

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  My eyes round in understanding, and I shove my door open just in time for her to lean to the side and vomit on the cement.

  Fucking hell...

  Head falling back against my seat, I
take a deep breath and catch up with myself, irritated to all hell that I won’t be working her body tonight, and also thankful that the alcohol interfered and stopped a colossal mistake.

  She heaves a few times before finally straightening up to look at me, the back of her hand wiping her mouth just as her eyes cross and she passes out.

  Her forehead lands on my shoulder, and I close my eyes, wondering how the hell I ended up here.

  Exhaling slowly, I almost laugh at the moment. She is the most aggravating woman I’ve ever known, and I can’t get enough of her.

  It’s difficult to maneuver both of us out of the car given that she is dead weight. But I manage to get her inside the house, tuck her into bed and am pulling the blankets up to her chin when her hand reaches out to grip my shirt.

  Gaze going to her face, I wait for what she will do.

  A smile softens her lips, but her eyes never open. She whispers, though, the words so utterly confusing.

  “You stand over me at night. I see you at the side of my bed. It’s okay. I like it when you’re there.”

  And then she is gone again, lost to sleep.

  I peel her fingers from my shirt and stand straight.

  What was she talking about?

  I know good and goddamned well I’ve never entered her room while she was sleeping. And I also know she doesn’t have another stalker.

  That would be fucking awkward. Right after running into him, exchanging schedules, and splitting up the week between his nights and mine, I’d have killed him for daring to think he could encroach on my territory.

  It wouldn’t fucking happen.

  So, what was she talking about?

  It appeared that, not only is Adeline an out of control monster, she’s also certifiable.

  And fuck if that doesn’t make me admire her more.

  But still, when all was said and done, what happened between us tonight shouldn’t have been allowed. It shouldn’t have occurred.

  After staring at her for another few minutes, I stroll out of her room, glancing back one last time, promising myself I will never let it happen again.

  Ari

  May 19, 2016

  Adeline danced for three weeks after that night in my car. By herself, alone in a house too large for her. Always to the same song, Volcano by Damien Rice, the fucking thing on repeat in my ear while I listened from afar.