I have to admit, it isn’t your typical nightclub. The interior is designed to mimic a dungeon, the exterior a facade of fake stone like the walls of a castle. Every person standing in line is dressed in black on black, some pretending they’re vampires, others too stupid to know that fantasy is always more convenient than reality.
Yet, here I am, standing near a small tree planted in the center of a sidewalk, my shoulder leaning against the iron cage that circles it, my eyes set on a newly of-age woman who’s already had too much to drink tonight and is bouncing in place waiting to get inside.
Her idiot for a boyfriend stands next to her, a flavor of the week and nothing more. His skinny jeans and floppy hair annoying the living piss out of me. It is what it is. Adeline has no taste in men, but I won’t have to hate this one for too long.
Her boyfriends never last more than a few weeks or months because Adeline isn’t the type to commit.
Her habits and choices have driven me insane for the past two years.
I’ve watched her lose her virginity in the back of a car, have witnessed her run from one guy to another. I’ve been the silent specter that counts the boys and men she’s stumbled through without concern for her reputation.
Thirteen, not that I’m counting, and if you judge her for it, I’ll gut you and laugh while you scream.
It isn’t that she’s desperate for the attention, she just falls into it, and like most anything with a dick, they take advantage.
But she never seems to care, and for that I admire her more than I should. She’s a free spirit, a beam of light that manages to slice its way through the dark landscape of my careful life.
Adeline isn’t the type to attach herself to anything. She’s only seeking a release during painful hours, an escape to lessen the weight of a life spent misunderstood by everyone that knows her.
Everyone but me, that is. But then I’ve never met her, not formally, at least. Not in way that she would remember.
Still, I know everything about her.
I know that she’s a hellscape that can consume you before you realize what’s happening.
I know she’s turned on by dominance and fear, and that she hates fluffy romance that’s sweet and shallow.
I know she has fantasies that other people would consider immoral and wrong.
I know that she never shows herself to the world because they will judge her.
And I know there isn’t a single jackass she’s ever been with that appreciates how dirty and broken she really is.
They can’t make her scream.
Can’t make her come.
Can’t do much of anything but convince her to lie beneath them pretending she’s into the moment.
I won’t deny that last part amuses me, even if I won’t let myself do anything about it.
The woman has issues.
They are the same as mine.
Tonight is her eighteenth birthday and she’s waiting outside a club that you have to be twenty-one to enter. It’s so like her, the rebellion, a personality trait that would drive most sane people crazy, but that calls to me like a whispering lover.
I’m going to follow in behind her at some point, but for now, this spot by the tree will do.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I fish it out to see Lincoln’s name flashing at me.
“Where are you?”
He doesn’t bother waiting for me to say a damn thing before demanding answers I don’t want to give.
“Taking a walk,” I answer.
His deep laughter bursts through the phone. “Walking my ass. You’re watching her again, aren’t you?”
“She needs to be watched.”
He curses beneath his breath. “I won’t argue with you there. What’s the little psychopath doing now?”
“Waiting outside Black Orchid.”
Lincoln goes silent for a second. “She’s not old enough.”
“She never is,” I answer, amusement dripping from my voice. “But she has a fake ID.”
“I thought you took that from her.”
Three times to be exact but she keeps getting new ones. Eventually, I’ll have to kill the assholes giving them to her. I say as much and he groans.
“She’s out of control.”
“She’s hurting,” I argue, not that it should matter.
“She’s just a kid, Ari. You’re sick in the head to keep following her.”
He’s not wrong.
“She’s also going inside. It’s been great catching up with you. The pep talk was helpful. But I need to go.”