and waving like a sea of people on the other side of the railing. Standing, I walk over to it, subtly setting my drink aside and hoping that Carlo doesn’t notice. I’m still working up the courage to drop the mother of all bombshells on him. Liquid courage is the one thing I need most and the one thing I can’t have, oh irony of ironies.
The people out on the dance floor are sweaty, heaving, and lost in bliss. I settle against the railing and let the music wash me away. My foot taps, my head bops, my lips move to the lyrics flowing from the massive speakers.
“Enjoying yourself?” Carlo whispers in my ear a moment later. His body is pressed against mine from the back. I can feel the insistent throb of his manhood against my thigh. Again, I shudder. How can one touch do so much to me? It should be illegal to think the things I’m thinking of doing to him right now.
I spin around to face him. “It’s not half-bad,” I say with a wry smile. “But all this separation, this sitting-on-the-throne business up here, it gets a little isolating, don’t you think? Why don’t you take me to dance?”
He grins. “As the lady wishes.”
Wrapping his hand around mine, he guides me past the hulking guards and towards the crowd.
We’re halfway across the dance floor when everything happens at once.
A drunk couple comes stumbling off the edge of the dance area and crashes through our clasped hands. I feel Carlo’s fingers desperate to cling to mine, but we slip apart anyway. Two more partiers careen through the gap, dancing wildly, and suddenly there is a gulf of a yard or two between us.
It’s like being out at sea and having waves toss us apart as the crowd pulls Carlo and me in different directions. I can still see him through the heads and shoulders of the dancers, but I’m struggling against the tide to get back to him.
Then—boom.
All the lights go out and the music shuts off. For two or three seconds there is silence, but wait—it’s actually not silence.
There’s somebody screaming from deep within the building.
And with a growing horror, I realize one thing: It is a scream I recognize.
A scream I could pick out from miles away.
I know it so well it’s seared into my memory.
He sounds like he’s in trouble. He sounds like he’s in pain.
Once the initial lull has passed, pandemonium breaks loose. I guess people are scared it’s some sort of attack. All my survival instincts jump to red alert, and conscious thought goes flying out the window. I see Carlo’s eyes, wide and alarmed, trying not to lose me through the dozen people who’ve come between us.
Stay! his gaze orders.
But all I can think is: He needs me. I have to find him.
I turn and run through the club, pushing past people toward the source of the screaming.
I run, the scream echoing in my ears. I find a long hallway leading off one end of the club and charge down it, not even sure I’m heading the right way.
But then the sounds behind me get quieter and I can pick out the screaming again. It’s him. It’s definitely him.
I’m covered in sweat and my heartbeat is loud in my ears, but I can still hear it. I’ve kicked off my heels, running barefoot, I’m not even sure when. Everything is hazy. I feel slightly drunk, surreal, as though I’ve stepped into one of my paintings.
I turn left, right, left, down a staircase, then another. I’m running blindly through this shadowy labyrinth, but somehow I know that this is where the scream came from.
Rounding a corner, I come to a large metal door—the kind they have in bank vaults. What the hell? This kind of thing doesn’t belong in a nightclub, at least not any nightclub I’ve ever been familiar with. It looks like it’s swung open. A keypad on the front has a small screen, but it’s blank. I wonder if it has anything to do with the power outage.
I go to walk into the cell, but first I stop.
This feels wrong. Someone should be here. I see a stool on one side of the door, like the perch for a permanent guard, but it’s empty. I pause and listen, but down here, there is only the hiss of air conditioning and the vague thump of bass vibrating the concrete structure around us.