Chapter 23 #2
“Your cousin creeps me out!” Arianna yells over the pounding loud music, also looking at Jude. “Sorry, but I always feel like he’s trying to orchestrate some elaborate plan to make me disappear whenever I’m in the same room as him.”
“I think everyone feels that way with Jude,” I giggle. “He’s harmless, he just—”
Before I can finish my sentence, Jude’s arms suddenly drop from across his chest. He raises his fists in a fighting stance as a big, tattooed, bare-chested guy smashes into him, sending them both crashing to the ground.
Kirill.
I gasp, feeling the shift in the air buzzing over my skin as Kirill and my cousin start to punch the shit out of each other. A bunch of people swarm them, yanking them apart. Jude’s grinning like a psycho with blood dripping from his mouth.
I turn to Ari. “I should go help him.”
She nods. “I’ll come, too.”
I shake my head. “No, stay with them!” I nod my chin at the rest of our friends, lost in their own trance-like dancing. Lucia is guzzling a bottle of water, and Wren is grinning from ear to ear as she runs her hands over her own tits.
Arianna frowns. “Yeah, that…might be a good idea.”
Still feeling like the air is caressing my skin and that my dress is the most erotic thing I’ve ever felt, I rush over to my cousin.
“Juuuuude,” I frown, kneeling next to where he’s sitting on the floor.
“Cousin,” he grunts.
“Your faaaace,” I pout. I gingerly touch the red swelling near his eye. But then, without even thinking about it, I start to, well, pet him.
Jude winces a little, then his eyes narrow. “Fuck,” he growls.
“Whaaaat?” I giggle.
“Have you been drinking?”
I shrug. “A liiittle?”
His jaw tightens. “The absinthe?”
I grin enthusiastically. “Jude, it’s so good—”
“Shit,” he hisses. “Yelena, you need to get home, now.”
I snort, shaking my head. “No freaking way! I’m having too much fuuuuun—”
“Yeah, because you’re on fucking molly.”
My face scrunches up. “Who?”
“Molly,” he grunts. “As in MDMA.” He rolls his eyes at my confused expression. “Lena, you’re on ecstasy. Like, a lot of it.”
I blink, shaking my head. “Oh, I don't think so.”
He winces as he pinches the bridge of his bleeding nose. “Trust me, you are.”
“Stay here!” I yell over the music, springing to my feet. “I’m gonna get you tissues for your nose!”
“Lena—”
But I feel like I’m on a mission, so I don’t even hear most of what he yells about the absinthe as I rush off to the bathroom.
Or at least, looking for the bathroom, with no success.
Not only is this place a crumbling old castle I’ve never been in before, but now the walls are buzzing.
The low lights and clusters of flickering candles sitting in big metal holders set into alcoves are shifting in and out of focus.
The music is teasing over my skin as my pulse pumps erotically in my veins.
I dart down a hallway, then a curved stone staircase. Then another hallway, before I realize two things.
One: I’m super lost.
And two: I think what Jude said is finally sinking in.
You’re on ecstasy.
Suddenly, it all makes sense. The way even the brush of the air over my skin felt like foreplay. The way my friends were zoning out and lost in the music, touching their hair or bodies like they couldn’t stop.
The way I swear I could see the music thudding upstairs.
I whirl. The hallway stretches out behind me, longer and longer, as if it’s being pulled like taffy. I whirl back, and then gasp when I swear I see something dark slip behind a corner.
“H-hello?” I whisper.
Heat ripples over my skin.
I turn and start to walk quickly in what I pray is the direction of the stairs.
The lights flicker. The heavy thud-thud-thud of the music upstairs makes my pulse skip. My dress shifts, and I have to bite back a whimper when it drags electrically over my bare nipples.
I hear footsteps shuffle behind me. I spin around.
…Nothing.
I start walking again, desperately looking for the way back upstairs.
A dark shape slips through my peripheral vision, near the opening to another hallway. I jolt, my eyes widening as my throat tightens and pure, naked fear wraps its icy, bony hands around my throat.
I’m not just on drugs. And I’m not losing my mind.
I truly think I'm being haunted.
LEAVE THE DEAD WHERE THEY LIE.
THE DEAD KNOW WHAT YOU DID, YELENA. THE DEAD DO NOT FORGET.
A shadow slips past the corner of my eye again, sending my heart into my mouth and my pulse jackhammering. This time, I turn, and I fucking run.
When my strappy heels slow me down, I pause just long enough to kick them off and then keep running, my bare feet slapping stone.
Deep, dark laughter echoes through the halls in time with the bass upstairs.
Candles flicker, the flames reaching for me like hellish hands as I bite back a scream and race down one hallway, then another.
That same black shape…or is it a different one?…shifts at the edge of my vision, and I choke as I bolt away down another hallway.
Around a corner, down a hall, up a curved staircase I don’t remember—
And then I go crashing into a huge, dark, unmoving figure.
My scream of terror curdles in my throat as I shove away from it, my legs giving out as I start to topple back.
A strong hand seizes a hank of my hair at the nape, wrapping it in a fist and yanking me back upright, angling my face to his.
Achilles.
I stare at him, my breath still coming in haggard, staccato bursts. My mouth opens to say…I don’t even know what. Then it shuts again. Then opens.
“You’re an asssssholle,” I spit into his face.
Achilles doesn’t blink and doesn’t move. He just levels those dark devil eyes at me, his chiseled jaw grinding.
“I mean it!!” I scream at him. “You’re an asssssshooo—”
“That’s nice.”
It happens so fast, I can barely process it. One second I’m standing in front of him, glaring into his stupidly perfect, gorgeous face and calling him an asshole.
The next second, he's flinging me over his shoulder like a sack of laundry.
“Stop it!” I screech, kicking and thrashing, pounding my fists on his back. “You’re an asshole!” I blurt. “You’re an assssshoollle—”
“And you, little prey,” he growls as he starts to march away with me over his shoulder, “are coming with me.”