and watch Holly die.
I couldn’t lose her too.
I swallowed the hard lump in my throat and pulled my cell from my pocket, my heart racing as I pressed it to my ear.
“Yo.”
“Ty, can you come get me?” I stuck my finger in one ear, a useless attempt to block out the thumping music vibrating the walls of the small bathroom I was hiding in.
“Where the hell are you?”
My eyes drifted down to my very drunk, possibly roofied friend who lay across the pristine white tiles. She hadn’t moved for at least a few minutes, and my eyes were constantly watching her stomach, my heart skipping a beat every time she took a little longer to inhale.
“I’m at a frat party.”
Silence.
Thick silence.
“Jesus, Ave! What are you doing at a frat party? You know you ain’t meant to be there.”
I did know, but at that moment, it wasn’t my biggest concern. “Can we skip the lecture,” I pleaded, sweeping my hair back from my face. “I think Holly got drugged, and I can’t get her out of here on my own.”
He groaned loudly into the phone, but I could hear his feet scuffing at the gravel outside the clubhouse as he made his way across the lot toward his Harley. “I told you. Avery—”
“And I fucking heard you,” I snapped back before quickly realizing who I was talking to. Tyler was a prospect but still a club member. They didn’t deserve my disrespect. “Sorry.”
“Text me the address.”
It was harsh, but every muscle in my body collectively relaxed when I realized he was coming.
And I wasn’t on my own.
I hung up, quickly tapping out a text message and crossing my fingers that he got here soon before I wasn’t just dragging my drugged friend from here, but my dead friend.
“Avery, let me in!”
I almost collapsed to the floor in relief as Tyler hammered at the bathroom door around twenty minutes later. The music was so damn loud I couldn’t hear a thing outside this tiny bubble, which meant the usually comforting sound of a motorcycle pulling up outside was totally drowned out.
I leaped up, quickly flicking the lock and pulling the door open. He rushed inside, his eyes scanning the space—something I noticed the boys from the club always did when they were in a place they didn’t know well.
“What’s he doing here?” Holly slurred, her brows pulled together, and her eyes narrowed. She’d come alive a little in the past ten minutes or so, but despite the glassy, dazed eyes, and having no idea what the hell she’d been given, the tone of her voice wasn’t one I appreciated.
“He’s here because you were unconscious, and I couldn’t get you the hell out of here and to the hospital without help.” I tried to keep calm and not yell at her about her issues and the fact that she had called me pleading for help. It was the assholes in this house who drugged her and caused her to pass out, but she’s going to look at Ty like he’s the damn enemy?
All because he’d called her out the other day.
Reaching out, I grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet—not as gently as I could have, might I add—while Ty came around her other side. He hooked one of her arms over his shoulder and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Come on,” he urged, already heading for the door. “I’m scared if I spend too much time in this place, I’ll start wearing bowties and sipping tea on Sundays.”
People stopped and stared as we struggled past, Tyler fighting to keep a confused and droopy Holly from rolling head-first down the frat house’s staircase. At the same time, I shoved drunk college students out of the way.
Holly and I had agreed to disagree about the choices we made during the past year or so that we’d been friends. I was focused on school and had found safety and a comfort within the club. She was determined to get that ‘college experience’ she kept rambling on about. She wanted to party hard and drink herself into an early grave. At one point, I’d convinced myself our differences had been what made us such close friends. That whole opposites attract crap they tell you about, but honestly, I was starting to question everything.
Maybe we were more alike than I wanted to admit.
We simply handled our pain differently.
“Hey!” The sound of his voice over the music sent a shudder down my spine. I kept