Nineteen
There isn't a delicate way to dance to this music. It's going to be close and tight and I don't think he's going to like it, but he's the one who suggested it. Before I can think about how reckless this is, I take his hands and put them on my hips, turning so my back is to him. I take one shaky breath before I find the beat of the music and move my hips.
He hesitates for a human second. Then his chest is to my back and he's moving with me. Instead of being warm and sweaty, he's cool and solid. His scent is all around me. Sharp and minty, like biting into a Wintergreen Lifesaver. It clashes with the heat and sweat in the atmosphere.
He doesn't breathe in my ear, and I can't feel the pulse of his body, but he is here. I put my head back so it bumps against his chest and go faster. He follows, as if we are one person, twined together. I've never danced like this. I've danced with guys before, but this is on a whole other planet. My body heats and my skin burns with the music, with the moment, with this contact. I briefly wonder if my sparkles are rubbing of on his shirt. Doesn't matter. I can't tell if it's the beer or him that makes me feel like this.
The song ends, but we keep moving. I shouldn't be surprised that noctali have great rhythm, so we keep going until a new song clicks on. We're lost to time and space; bodies mesh around me, lights flicker. It is stuffy and hot, but I suck it in, letting it flow through me like electricity.
A sound that isn't music makes me pause. I swear it's a hiss in my ear. The hands on my hips vanish. I spin around, hoping he's okay and knowing he isn't.
“What is it?” He's still behind me, but he's far away, listening to something I can't hear.
“I need to go.” He looks down at me, eyes unblinking in the smog, no visible sweat on his skin, but with my glitter everywhere. I like that something of me has rubbed off on him.
“Why?”
“I must go. I will see you later.” He slips through the crowd. I reach my hand out as if I can bring him back. I'm jostled around by the rest of the enthusiastic dancers, and I can't breathe.
“I thought you told me there was nothing romantical going on,” Tex yells in my ear. She's got another drink in her hand as she batters her way though the dancers.
“There wasn't,” I yell back.
“Oh really? Then what was with all the brown chicken, brown cow?” Her eyes light up and she yanks me in for a hip bump. “Tell me about it later. Let's dance!” I have to laugh at her as she drags me to a free space. The music takes over me again, and I have to move. I can't stop looking over my shoulder, hoping he'll be there and wondering what the hell happened.
I dance a little longer with Tex and go to get another drink, the buzz from the first one wore off too fast.
“Your face is all red,” Tex says. My ears are ringing from being so close to the speakers for so long and my voice is hoarse from having a yelled conversation with her while we were dancing.
“Is it?” I'm not sure if it's the dancing or the alcohol. Probably both.
***
Ivan took a trip to the south. He'd always had an affinity for the desert. The vastness. The emptiness. I was relieved when he left, but knew he would be back. Someday. Before he went, he warned me about the promises we made and what breaking them means. He would be all too pleased if I broke mine.
Which was why I didn't answer her messages. Somehow her desperation seeped through the blocky, emotionless letters. It was for the best.
I lasted several days without answering her until she messaged me about a party. I only considered for a moment before I messaged her back. She gave me the address and I took my shirt off, holding onto it so I wouldn't lose it.
The house wasn't hard to find. The music blared for miles, the smell of so many bodies packed into a small space so attractive and delicious, I wondered if I would be able to control myself.
She was dressed in a gold tube of material that barely covered her skin. Golden powder clung to her skin. Her green eyes reached out to me through the dark.
Mine.
The moonlight shattered over her skin and her blood pumped faster whens she saw me. The adrenaline seeped from her pores, scenting the air with her smell.
She smiled when she saw me and introduced me to her friends who sensed my otherness. She seemed confused, unaware of how unusual her reaction to me was.
The close bodies in the room and the smell of sweat drove me to distraction. I wanted all of them. If I could have, I would have ravaged the whole house. Left it littered with bottles and bodies, the stereo still pounding. Instead, I watched the glitter on her shoulders as she moved. I'd never seen so much of her skin exposed before. So many sweet places. She turned her head and I glimpsed her neck.
I asked her if she wanted to dance. So I could touch her and smell her and want her. I got a thrill out of the wanting.
I'd watched enough of the modern dancing to see how it was done, but I hesitated. I wanted to seize her, but I let her decide.
I had never let a human decide.
She took my hands and turned her back to me. The music was fast, like a racing heart. I could hear hers racing over all the others in the room. I hadn't been in a room full of people in twenty years. I kept my focus on her as I slid my hands onto her hips. It was the first time I'd touched her like that.
She cranked her hips with the beat, and I fixed mine to her back, moving with her. I lowered my head so I could smell her hair.
It was a million times better than running. It was better than flying. It was running and flying and feeding all together. There was only her and her hips and her breath and the glitter in her hair, on my hands, everywhere. She was everywhere. If I had saliva, my mouth would have watered. If I killed her than this will never happen again. Her life would be gone. That was what I wanted, more than her blood. This.
I was so lost in her, I almost didn't hear it. A sound that didn't fit with the party. It was Ivan, running through the woods a mile away. He'd followed me. A trap. I couldn't let him have her.
I told her I had to leave. Took my hands from her burning skin. Stunned, she let me go.
He was waiting for me outside and asked me why I was there. I didn't respond. He asked me if I cared about her. I was silent, because I couldn't answer that.
***
I go outside to get some air. My hips miss the feel of Peter's hands. I tell myself I'm being ridiculous. It's absolutely freezing and there are a bunch of dying cigarettes shoved in a flowerpot polluting the air, but I needed to get out of there. I walk down the porch, to the back of the house where some of the party noise is blocked and the cool air rushes through the trees that line the property.
“Ava?” I turn to find someone staring at me, illuminated by the floodlight from the porch. Blond hair, leather jacket, hiking boots. And one brown eye and one green one. Oh shit. It's him. Ivan.
My mind races to my purse, which is somewhere buried under the seat of Tex's car. My cell phone is unreachable, stuck in this insane holster-garter-thing that Tex let me borrow so I could keep it under my dress. Sooo, completely useless.
Trying to act casual, I move back toward the porch, my hand groping for the railing.
“How did you find me?” I mean, it can't have been that hard, but still. My foot in the stupid high heel bangs against the first step of the porch. It's wrap-around, so I'm still really far away from the door. Too far away, if I'm being honest.
“I smelled your scent on Peter. So I followed it.” My best bet is to keep him talking and get myself back into the house. There's no way he's going to hurt me in a house full of witnesses. Right? Sweat slides down my back, making my dress damp in the night air.
“What do you want?” One step.
Silence.
Another step.
“I want you to kill Peter.”
“You what?” Have I missed something about the immortal part of being a noctalis?
Man, I wish I had that pepperspray. Not that it would have saved me anyway. It's more to make me feel like I have some sort of upper hand, that I'm not a damsel in distress. No, I believe in girl power and all that.
Oh, who was I kidding? I'd let Peter rescue me, no white horse or charging required.
Someone pukes in the bushes on the other side of the house. I'm so close I can hear what song is playing inside. A girl giggles and I hear a male voice shush her as they stumble to a car. They're so drunk they'd be no help.
“How?”
“I think I'll let you figure that out. Just keep dressing like that.” His eyes scrape over my body and I want to strangle Tex for making me wear this.
“Does Peter know you're here?” Maybe if he hears his name? I scream it in my head, praying that somehow he'll be able to hear me. Peter, Peter, Peter.
“Yes.” He takes one step as I take one, so we're the same distance apart. All my organs turn into ice and I can't swallow.
“I've upset you,” he says, amused.
I guess that emotionless noctalis thing is reserved to Peter.
He gives me a smile that sends chills through my veins.
“You may go,” he says after a moment. Just like that? I take a step backwards, testing. He stands there serenely. Freedom is only a few steps away. Not wanting to fall on the steps, I turn around to ascend the rest of them, but something seizes me from behind, latching onto my neck. I thrash, making contact with someone's shoulder. I hear his voice in my ear as the air is squeezed from me by hands strong as steel bars. What is it with people strangling me?
“So fragile,” he says, releasing me. I slam into the steps, trying to drag air into my lungs. I cough, holding onto my throat. The only sound I hear is my attempt at breathing, and the music. I raise my head, but he's gone.
I use my arms to get myself into a sitting position. What. Just. Happened? One minute I'm dancing with Peter in a way that makes me tingle and want him and then his brother, who I've met once, is trying to kill me. Again.
“Peter?” I don't know why I say his name. It's not like I want to see him. The traitor. He let his brother used my windpipe as one of those squeezy stress balls. Maybe they planned this all along. I close my eyes and lean on the porch railing, trying to put my scattered thoughts back together.
“Ava?” Tex's voice makes me flinch. I can't see her in my condition, but there's no way I can hide. Her steps clack against the wood as she approaches me.