Chapter 10
ROMAN
Sometimes, when the bottom drops out, it feels like there is no end to the long fall into the abyss that follows.
Metal music pounds around me, roaring like a dragon, slamming into my skull as I throw my head back and fucking scream into the madness rampaging around me. Someone knocks into me, half spinning me around. I barely feel it—and even if I did, I wouldn’t give a shit.
The name of the game tonight is numb.
Bury. Excise.
Anesthetize. Neutralize. Vaporize.
Fucking euthanize.
I barely feel the shot glass in my hand as I bring it to my lips and dump the contents down my throat, reveling in the burn and craving more, more, more.
Doomsday, the wild dance club that Laz part owns, is usually my go-to. But when I’m like this—when I’m well and truly fucked, shattering, screaming, and fucking drowning—I can’t go there.
I need something rawer. More violent, like a punch to the fucking chest. And if I’m too fucked up for the fight club, I come here, to Reaper: a grungy, hellish metal club deep in the East Village.
A place where you can look your demons in the eyes and scream in their faces as you choke them on their own blood.
A live band—three guitar players, a bassist, two drummers, and a guy screaming pure death into a mic—unleashes a wall of noise into the crowd of goths, fuck-ups, burn-outs, rejects, monsters…the broken and the damned who fill this place either to celebrate or hide from their own darkness.
And I fit right fucking in.
I flinch as the memories come rushing back into my cortex—the explosion of pure ecstasy, followed by the blackness trying to swallow me whole. Craving more of his touch—fuck, craving ALL of him. Needing it. Hungering for it.
And then fucking hating myself for it.
The cold, brutal, icy snarl of disapproval. Of shame. Of a hatred that runs so deep it bleeds from my veins.
But also the feel of his body tightening against mine. His kisses. His firm grip on me. His release. His mouth…fuck, his mouth…
And then all I see is blood dripping from his nose and that look on his face. I see it every fucking time I look in the mirror and want to smash my reflection.
A guy with wildly spiked silver hair, wearing a black leather vest full of band patches, slams into me.
I grin savagely and shove back, violence detonating in my eyes.
For a second, it looks like he’s going to push me again.
But when he sees the pure venom leaking from my fucking soul and oozing from my pores, he reconsiders.
He puts his palms up and I’m pretty sure he mouths “chill, bro” over the thunderous music screaming through the club.
Fuck, I needed that. I need more.
I whirl, shoving another metalhead headbanging behind me.
He grins, looking almost as crazy as I fucking feel, and returns the favor.
I snarl and raise a fist, as if to drive it through his face, and by proxy through the black void and the all-consuming cancer spreading through my body and mind like a plague of locusts.
But he just grins even wider, then throws his head back and fucking howls before he suddenly wraps an arm around the back of my neck and thumps my chest heavily.
“HERE!” he roars, yanking a little baggie out of his pocket. “Let’s fucking GO!”
He taps a bump of coke out onto the back of his hand, between his thumb and index finger, and raises it to his nose. He snorts it, and his eyes light up with that narcotic glow of pure unfiltered reality that only drugs can bring.
He grins and offers me the bag, watching gleefully as I tap a huge amount onto the back of my hand and lower my face.
FUCK. YES.
Alcohol has always been my go-to. It’s what dulls the edges when life tries to fucking gut me. But sometimes, it’s not enough. Sometimes, I need something faster, something more to forget who and what I am, and the chaos I’m fucking drowning in that nobody else sees.
The cocaine explodes in my veins, igniting my cells and turning my insides to liquid fire. The man roars, grinning like a fucking maniac as my eyes glaze over. He throws his head back and howls up into the madness.
I do the same.
Then we’re both shoving more drugs up our noses, until I’m a frothing, raving, screaming angel of death and destruction, pushing my way through the crowd like a rampaging bull—roaring and snarling into the face of anyone who even dares to look at me.
I slam back two shots in rapid succession at the bar and then slump heavily against it, chasing them with half a beer as I yank out my phone.
My skin is tingling and my vision blurring in and out of focus as I open Instagram. I hesitate for a second, telling myself that I don’t need to do this. That I don’t want to do this.
But I tap on Val’s profile anyway.
I start to scroll, trying to pretend my gaze isn't lingering hungrily on the shots of him backstage at the Mercury Theater, his head thrown back in a crazy laugh as he peels off his shirt, revealing the gorgeous, intricate swirls of ink over his chiseled abs, and those V-lines of his hips driving right down…
I flinch, but I can’t look away. I keep scrolling, ogling the shots of his gorgeous jawline, his perfect fucking mouth, and his eyes…
Blackness consumes me. A cold, leering, sneering shadow points its finger and fucking laughs at me.
Queer.
Sissy.
Homo.
Be a fucking man.
BE. A. FUCKING. MAN.
And still I can’t look away. Not even when I scroll down to photos of him with…
others. A slender, model-looking guy hugging him from behind, kissing his grinning cheek.
Two bubbly blonde girls with their tits falling out of their bikini tops at a pool with him, shrieking with laughter as he lifts each of them with a muscled arm, their fingers splayed across his bare chest.
I want to fucking break those goddamn French manicured fingers one by one. I want to find that pretty boy and stub out cigarettes on his fucking lips.
I want to destroy.
To consume.
To take take take and fucking TAKE.
I want…God help me…
My eyes squeeze shut.
Him.
You want HIM.
No, I don’t. I don't.
Liar.
I don’t want—
LIAR.
I’m not attracted to men—
FUCKING LIAR!
I realize my beer is gone and turn, grabbing another one and a shot of vodka from the bartender. I chase the first with the second, numbing my mind enough that I’m merely watching in slow motion from the outside as I tap on Val’s profile and let my thumb drift to the direct message button.
Me
I’m sorry
Nothing happens. No trumpets or fanfare.
Nothing.
Me
I’m VERY sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you like that.
Me
I liked it.
Me
Not the hitting you part. Before.
Me
You and I…
I stare at the phone, wanting something to happen. Fucking needing something to happen. But nothing does. No magical response. No parade.
No answer at all.
This time, the bartender shakes his head when I ask him for another two shots.
Fuck him.
As soon as he turns to serve a few goth girls near the end of the bar, I reach over it, grab the bottle of vodka from the speed rail, and storm my way back into the surging mass of violence roiling and churning in front of the stage.
Madness consumes me. Violence ignites in my veins as I throw my head back, drinking deeply, and smash my way blindly through the crowd.
MORE.
I need MORE.
I toss my head back again, howling bloody fucking murder into the thunder.
Bodies slam into me, and I slam back. Someone whirls and hits me, and when the blood explodes from my lip, I roar in delight, grabbing the guy by the shoulders, cackling madly, spraying blood into his face before he shoves me away.
Back into the madness.
Into the violence.
Into the endless hatred surging through my heart.
Someone grabs my shoulder from behind.
“ROMAN.”
I snarl, my face feral as I turn, my hands shooting out and wrapping like iron around the neck in front of me.
“ROMAN!”
Hands are shaking me even as I’m squeezing, snarling, not even seeing as I allow myself to drown in the violence that numbs the self-hatred.
And then the guy hits me, hard, in the face.
My grip loosens enough to be pried from the throat it was wrapped around. I’m violently steered through the crowd and thrown bodily against a wall. When I whirl with pure murder bubbling from my chest, a palm slams into me, shoving me back to the wall again as he roars my name.
“ROMAN. LOOK AT ME.”
The black and blood-red haze thins slightly, clearing from my vision until I realize the face I’m snarling at is a familiar one.
Bane glares at me, his dark eyes filled with lethal, barely contained fury, his teeth bared.
His throat bruised…
Fuck.
“You in there, motherfucker!?” he yells into my face.
I blink, nodding stiffly, the narcotic burn still throbbing through my senses.
“What are you doing here!?” I yell over the music, my body still twitching from all the coke, my eyes unable to focus as they dart everywhere at once.
“Making sure you don’t fucking kill yourself!” he yells back. “Or someone else!” His eyes narrow as he steps closer. “Lyra saw you at Doomsday earlier.” He peers at me closely. “Said you didn’t look good, man.”
Fuck, I was at Doomsday?
“She was worried about you,” he growls. “Which is why she called Carmine, who messaged the rest of the crew.” He frowns. “We’ve been looking all over the fucking city for you, man.”
“Well,” I smile wildly, swaying on my feet and bobbing my head to the thunderous sound of the band. I clap a hand firmly on his shoulder as I start to push past him. “Lemme know if you find me.”
Bane grabs my arm and yanks me back, his face concerned. “Rome, the fuck is going on?”
“Just having a good time, ’sall.”
“Your nose is bleeding.”
I shrug. Bane blows out a breath. “C’mon, Rome. Talk to me. This is beyond—”
“Beyond what??” I snarl. “My usual fucked-up-ness?”
He looks me dead in the eye. “You know what I mean.”
“You worried about me, Bane?” I blurt, grinning maniacally like a madman and tasting the blood dripping from my coked-up nose.
I need a drink.
Fuck, I need twenty drinks.
“Of course I am,” he hisses, stepping into my space. “Fuck, Roman. What’s this about? The wedding? Dasha?”
I bark out a single, cold laugh and clap him on the shoulder again.
“Thanks for dropping by, Antonov.”
“ROMAN!”
Bane whirls as I brush past him. But he doesn’t try to grab me this time.
“You’ve got fucking friends, man! You’ve got Evie!” he barks. “Whatever the fuck you’re dealing with…Roman… You do not have to deal with it alone!”
I laugh coldly, turning just enough to glance back at him.
“You’re worried about me?”
“Yeah! I fucking am!”
“Well, don’t be!” I grin, turning and spreading my arms wide as I step back into the roaring, raging crowd of death behind me. “I’m fuckin’ fine!”
I love Bane, just like I love all my friends. Like I love my sister.
But they can’t help me.
I can’t let them get close to me, or I’ll make them sick too.
Because that’s what I am.
Contagion.
Corruption.
A fucking black hole.
And it's time to disappear into it.
Bane’s still watching me, his face tight and his eyes blazing as I melt into the crowd, arms raised, and let the swarming mass of chaos and violence and darkness envelop me.