It all started with bright lights and pulsing music. Bass reverberated through my body as I moved my arms and legs to the beat. My best and oldest friend, Bree, spun in circles by my side, basking in the neon glow of the club. Hot pink and emerald lights bounced off the walls. It was my eighteenth birthday, and I’d only had one request. I wanted to go somewhere I could dance.
Out of the corner of my eye, a tall hooded figure caught my attention. The guy was staring right at me with eyes the color of midnight. A spark of heat burst into my cheeks as I cast a sideways glance his way. He stood away from the crowd, leaning against the neon-lit wall with his arms crossed over his muscular chest. His gaze was dark and hooded and strangely intense.
With a slight shiver, I frowned and glanced away.
The upbeat song spiralled away, replaced by a more melancholy tune that chased away my feverish dance energy. I loved dancing, more than I loved most anything else, to any beat, to any song, but there was nothing quite like a fast tempo to get my feet moving. Now that the rhythm had slowed, I finally realized just how long we’d spent on the dance floor. My breath was ragged, my mouth parched.
Bree leaned forward and grabbed my arm. “Come on. Let’s try to buy a drink.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but it was no use. Bree was a force of nature, and once she got an idea into her head, there was no talking her out of it.
When we stepped foot off the dance floor, my eyes were instinctively drawn to where the strange hooded guy had been watching me. He was gone, replaced by nothing but the swirling neon lights. A twinge of disappointment went through me, even though that was completely ridiculous. It had been a long time since a guy had given me even the most fleeting of glances. All the guys from school knew me, well enough to know to stay as far away from me as they could. I was the weird girl who kept to herself, the one who nobody liked. No one except for Bree.
It had been nice to feel like maybe I wasn’t the pariah everyone at school thought I was.
We reached the bar at the far end of the club, and Bree hoisted herself up onto one of the iron stools. It was a weekday, so the place was pretty empty. A huge plus in my opinion. I wanted to dance, free and wild. Not get trapped in a sweaty mess of grinding college students.
Bree patted the stool next to her. “Come on, Norah. One drink won’t kill you.”
“No, but my mom might kill me if she found out.” Still, I hopped up on the stool and dug my elbows into the slick iron surface of the bar top. Warehouse 27 was one of those trendy industrial places, set inside an old warehouse that had once been used for freight storage. Everything was iron or steel, and every wall was covered in intricately-designed graffiti.
Not only would my mom kill me if she found out I was drinking. She’d kill me if she even knew I was here.
“What’ll you have?” The bartender strode up to the bar, giving both me and Bree a long stare before flipping two coasters in front of us. He didn’t look much older than us, his dark shaggy hair falling into his eyes.
I glanced at Bree and raised an eyebrow. I certainly didn’t know what to order.
“Two vodka and tonics,” she said with a smile and a confidence that suggested she’d ordered drinks at bars a thousand times before. But that was all for show. She hadn’t. We might live in the city that never sleeps, but we rarely stayed up past our bedtimes.
The bartender nodded and grabbed some glasses from under the bar before he gave me a nod, his eyes locked on something behind me. “Looks like you have an admirer.”
An admirer? Was it that hooded guy from before? My heart lurched, and I slid my chin onto my shoulder to glance behind me. A tall figure in a deep green cloak now stood in the center of the dance floor, his eyes locked on my face. He wasn’t dancing, a fact that made the chills sweep down my back again.
For a moment, I thought it was the same guy, though his cloak was