Second Epilogue
Camila
If I didn’t keep moving, I’d think too damn much… or maybe throw up. Whatever came first. Between the five shots some random guy at the bar paid for and the blunt I’d smoked in the back alley with a girl I didn’t remember the name of… I’d say I was looking towards the latter.
So yeah, dancing in the middle of the club was better. Sweaty strangers, bad decisions, lights strobing like they were trying to shake sins loose. This place didn’t judge. Just swallowed you whole, never letting you see the sun.
I needed that tonight.
My heels blistered my feet, my dress was too tight, my hair smelled like cheap perfume and cheaper weed… but nobody cared, and neither did I.
That was the rule here: Be pretty enough to be ignored, bitchy enough to not be fucked with. Thin line to walk…
But I always did. Because being “Camila Rodriguez,” perfect daughter turned street rat, didn’t matter here. Being Ingrid’s older sister, the protector, didn’t matter here. And being my father’s punching bag definitely didn’t matter here.
I shoved past a guy twice my size as he crowded my space without any manners… I couldn’t be one to judge though.
The room wasn’t staying still… and neither was the liquor I’d sloshed around in my stomach not even a minute ago on the dance floor.
Feeling it coming back up the wrong end, I rushed to the bathroom, puking into the nearest toilet as another random girl opened the stall and held my hair back. Girlhood at its finest…
After I freshened up, or tried to in the dirty sink, I gazed at myself in the mirror, eyes dazed as my once straight flipover was now a wavy messy pile of curls.
I washed the dried mascara from my face, trying to scrub out the smudged makeup stains from my flushed freckled cheeks.
I could’ve cried looking at myself in the mirror…
but that was more of my sister’s shtick.
Always on the verge of tears, flinching at every sound, the once perfect daughter my father paraded once I fought back… or at least tried to.
But my resolve, in contrast, was turning off my brain, finding solitude in the silence. Trying not to get drowned out by the thoughts that haunted me or the memories that lived in my nightmares.
Tumbling out of the bathroom, I rubbed at my forehead.
I felt like absolute shit. But eventually, my feet would take me to the door, force me over to the shitty motel down the road, and land me “safe” in the bed of the room with a broken deadbolt lock.
At least that’s what I thought happened when I ended up blacking out and back in my motel room.
But tonight my feet had a mind of their own.
Despite the pain in my throbbing skull, the music was electric, flowing through my body like fire, my head as light as a feather.
Passing the bartender, I plucked one of the expensive drinks off the VIP tray before sipping, stumbling and nodding to the beat of the music.
I was growing hotter, my mind buzzing louder than I wanted it to.
God, Camila. Put the drink down and get some air.
I pushed through the crowd, hips bumping strangers, my heels wobbling like newborn deer legs.
I’d almost made it to the side entrance. Freedom and fresh air was on the horizon. Then the room shifted again, and my body followed.
Shit. No, no, no—I stumbled, tried to correct, stepped too hard—and slammed my drink right into a man standing at the nearest VIP table.
Half the liquid dumped all over him.
The other half splashed back on my chest. I glared up at him, or at least drunk me’s version of a glare as he stared down at me, his eyes dark, but the twinkle in them and slight hint of a smirk telling me he found this amusing.
“Cabrón,” I muttered, my vision clearing just enough to make out the features of man standing over me.
An unbuttoned suit that stretched over muscle.
Expensive watch glinting and blinding. Tattoo ink peeking up from his collar.
Dark, assessing eyes that took in everything at once. I sidestepped him.
Trying to get past when my hand came to my mouth, my body doubling over as I threw up again…
and not just on the floor… it was a pair of shoes.
A pair of very expensive Italian shoes that I recognized from a few assholes my father used to introduce me to at his business parties.
My eyes hazily glanced up to see… the same guy from before?
Only this one seemed ten times angrier. Was I seeing double?
I stood as best as I could, stumbling when I felt someone steady me from behind.
“Easy there,” someone said behind me, a dark voice by my ear coming out with an Irish twang.
Hell no. I’d had enough with these Irish men making my life a living hell.
“Suéltenme,” I slurred, only realizing drunk me was speaking solely in Spanish this entire time. “Let go of me,” I said harder, trying to push off his hands, but he wasn’t budging.
“Flynn, this one’s a fire cracker,” he chuckled from behind me.
The man glaring at me didn’t say a word. He wasn’t finding this all too amusing, not like his double was. I tried to blink my eyes, willing one of them to disappear and bring me back to reality… that must’ve been some exceptional weed I smoked.
The grip on my waist tightened, pausing my attempts at escape. “You’re done for the night,” he said.
I scoffed, pushing him away fully as I turned to look him square in the face again. Who the hell did he think he was?
“Like I said. Get your hands off me.”
His gaze directly bypassed me, landing on the other hallucination sitting at the booth.
“Can we keep her?” he asked. “She’s got a little fight to her… You know how much I love a challenge.”
“No,” I responded for him, walking off before a hand grabbed mine. The happy clone held my wrist, pulling me over with a shit-eating grin.
“And where do you think you’re going, princess?” he asked, and maybe it was drunk me awakening horny me… but this man was annoyingly attractive. Tall, overbearing, handsome, charming… everything I had to stay away from.
“Let her go, Finny,” the broody one said in his chair, but Shits-and-Giggles shook his head.
“But she’s cute.”
“Cute?” I repeated, blinking like the word was in another language. Nobody…nobody had ever called me cute. Pretty, sure. Hot, sometimes. A bitch, always. Cute was a new insult.
His grin widened. “Aye. Cute. Like a kitten that’ll scratch your face off.”
I tugged my wrist again. He didn’t let go.
“Let. Me. Go.” I jabbed a finger into his chest for emphasis, except it landed more like a weak poke because my balance was absolute shit. Smooth, Camila. Real intimidating.
The broody one finally stood from the booth.
Up close, he was worse—broad shoulders, a sharp jaw cut from stone, dark hair pushed back like he didn’t have a single soft bone in his body. Same eyes, same nose… same, well, everything as the man holding me, but colder.
My feet buckled, my eyes rolling back as I stumbled, Shits-and-Giggles holding me to him like something soft. A sliver of annoyance passed through as I tried to push him away, but he was too warm, too inviting…
“Suéltenme… por favor…” My voice cracked, the Spanish tumbling out helplessly.
Tall-and-Angry looked down at me for a little while longer, his jaw ticking as he contemplated. His eyes looked in the middle of something like pity and anger, maybe a hint of annoyance too.
“Fine,” he muttered, already walking away—except he wasn’t talking to me. And before I knew it, I was already upside down again. Finny had thrown me over his shoulder like a rag doll, big hands locking around the backs of my thighs.
I squeaked.
“Easy now, kitten. You’re safe,” he murmured. “We’ve got you.”
“We?” I slurred, my vision going in and out.
“Aye,” he said brightly. “Two for the price of one, princess.”
I would’ve cursed him out again, but the world was already slipping away. It didn’t even give me a chance to process that these assholes were real or that they were hauling me out after spilling liquor and throw-up over them.
Can we keep her?
Fine.
I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant… but something told me from the looks of these men… it wasn’t anything good.
And the last thought that flickered through my head before the darkness swallowed me whole was simple, stupid, and terrifying:
Fuck. I think I just got taken.
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