Yackle held a second door open with one hand—he didn’t even look at Cath. Levi patted him on the arm as they walked past.
It was dark inside the bar and crowded, people pressed shoulder to shoulder. There was a band playing on a couch-sized stage near the door. Cath looked around, but she couldn’t see past the crush of bodies.
She wondered where Wren was.
Where had Wren been forty-five minutes ago?
Hiding in the bathroom? Crouched against a wall?
Had she been sick, had she passed out? She did that sometimes.… Who had been here to help her? Who had been here to hurt her?
Cath felt Levi’s hand on her elbow. “Come on,” he said.
They squeezed by a high-top table full of people doing shots. One of the guys fell back into Cath, and Levi propped him back up with a smile.
“You hang out here?” Cath asked when they were past the table.
“It’s only douchey like this when there’s a band playing.”
She and Levi moved farther from the stage, closer to the bar. A movement near the wall caught Cath’s eye—the way someone flipped back her hair. “Wren,” Cath said, surging forward. Levi held her arm and pushed in front of her, trying to clear the way.
“Wren!” Cath shouted over the crowd, before she was even close enough for Wren to hear. Cath’s heart was pounding. She was trying to make out the situation around Wren—a big guy was standing in front of her, his arms caging Wren against the carpeted wall.
“Wren!” Cath knocked one of the guy’s arms away, and he pulled back, nonplussed. “Are you okay?”
“Cath?” Wren was holding a bottle of dark beer halfway up to her mouth like her arm was stuck there. “What are you doing here?”
“You told me to come.”
Wren huffed. Her face was flushed, and she had drunk, droopy eyelids. “I didn’t tell you anything.”
“You sent me a text,” Cath said, glowering up at the big guy until he took another step back. “‘Come to Muggsy’s. Nine-one-one.’”
“Shit.” Wren pulled her phone out of her jeans and looked down at it. She had to stare at it for a second before she could focus. “That was for Courtney. Wrong C.”
“Wrong C?” Cath froze, then threw her hands into the air. “Are you kidding me?”
“Hey,” somebody said.
They both turned. A fratty-looking guy was standing a foot away, nodding his head at them. He curled his lip and grinned. “Twins.”
“Fuck off,” Wren said, turning back to her sister. “Look, I’m sorry—”
“Are you in trouble?” Cath asked.
“No,” Wren said. “No, no, no…”
“Pretty hot,” the guy said.
“Then why the nine-one-one?” Cath demanded.
“Because I wanted Courtney to come quick.” Wren waved her beer bottle toward the stage. “The guy she likes is here.”
“Dude, check it out. Hot twins.”
“Nine-one-one is for emergencies!” Cath shouted. It was so loud in here, you had to shout; it made it way too easy to lose your temper.
“Do you really think that’s appropriate?” Cath heard Levi say in his smiling-for-strangers voice.
“Fucking twins, man. That’s the fantasy, right?”
“Take a pill, Cath,” Wren said, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s not like I actually called nine-one-one.”
“You realize that they’re sisters, right?” Levi said, his voice getting tighter. “You’re talking about incest.”
The guy laughed. “No, I’m talking about buying them drinks until they start making out.”
“Is that what happens with you and your sister?” Levi stepped away from Cath, toward the guy and his friend. “Who fucking raised you?”
“Levi, don’t.” Cath pulled on his jacket. “This happens all the time.”
“This happens all the time?” His eyebrows jerked up in the middle, and he turned on the guy.…
“These two girls have parents. They have a father. And he should never have to worry that they’re going to end up in a bar, debasing themselves for some pervert who still jerks off to Girls Gone Wild videos. That’s not something a father should ever have to think about.”
The pervy guy wasn’t paying attention. He leered drunkenly over Levi’s shoulder at Cath and Wren. Wren flipped him off, and he arched his lip again.
Levi stepped closer to the guy’s table. “You don’t get to look at them that way, just because they look alike. You fucking pervert.”
Another fratty guy stepped up, carrying three beers, and glanced over. He grinned when he saw Cath and Wren. “Twins.”
“Fucking fantasy,” the first guy said.
Then, before anyone saw him coming, the guy standing next to Wren—the big one who had been caging her in—stepped past Levi and plowed the drunk pervert right in the chin.
Levi looked up at the big guy and grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. Wren grabbed his arm—“Jandro!”
The pervy guy’s friends were already helping him off the floor.
Levi took Cath’s sleeve and started pushing Jandro into the crowd. Jandro dragged Wren behind him. “Come on,” Levi said, “out, out, out.”