Chapter 14
A s the two women walked towards the exit of the car park, two tall, broad male figures strode down the street on the opposite side, making a beeline for the side entrance door of The Black Iris , the town’s only nightclub. Their faces obscured by shadows, Kyla couldn’t be sure it was them, but the silhouette of their bulky bodies only brought back memories of the previous night.
“I’m pretty sure that’s them,” she said, pointing at them both turning down the narrow alleyway that led to the side entrance.
Sam squinted and then said, “No...it can’t be. They were never that tall. Or muscly.”
“I saw them last night in darkness. I’d recognise those fine male forms anywhere. I’m telling you that’s them.”
Sam ran her tongue over her bottom lip and giggled. “Well, I may be swayed from older men after all.”
Not needing any further encouragement, Sam dragged Kyla across the road, all but running down the alley towards the club entrance. A queue had already started forming to get to the check in desk, but the two hunks they’d both seen come down here were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are they?” Sam asked, looking around the grey entrance lobby and the dozen people in front of them, waiting to pay to enter.
Kyla shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe gone for a smoke round the back?”
“Maybe. I hope they’re here.”
Kyla grinned. “You’re like a teenager all over again. I remember Mr Duvall’s social economics class and you drooling over them back then.”
Sam blushed, redness sweeping from her neck right up to her forehead, flushing her tanned skin to a deep red colour. “But then I met Harry and my course of life was set. It was like comparing diamonds to cubic zirconia. A proper man next to two boys.”
Kyla rolled her eyes. “Well, now the boys are men.”
Sam licked her lips and gave her friend a wink. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
The queue moved forwards and soon enough, the pair had paid and were clattering up the stairs to head into the dark world of booze, good music, and promiscuous predators. Foggy memories clouded Kyla’s mind as she thought back to the first time her and Sam had come here. So much had happened since then.
As a shudder ran down her spine, Kyla pushed her thoughts away, forcing herself to live in the present, not the past. Reaching the top of the stairs, a set of light-coloured wooden double doors stood between them and the two hot brothers.
Sam yanked the doors open, enveloping them both in thumping dance music, the bass vibrating right through their bodies. Stepping inside, they took a moment to let their eyes adjust. Almost immediately, Kyla spotted a lone figure at the bar on the other side of the room. Easily a head taller than anyone else, he was easy to spot. The broad bulk of his body and the confidence oozing from him made him stand out like an apple amongst oranges.
“Wow,” Sam said, her mouth dropping open. “He is just...I don’t remember either of them being this fit. Which one is that?”
“I don’t know,” Kyla replied. “I think...” She waited for one of the spinning lights to cast its beam over him and highlight his hair. “I think that’s Adam, the blonde one.”
Right on cue, as if he heard her, the lonesome brother turned around and looked right at them. Sparkling green eyes locked onto hers, flecks of gold flitting through them every few seconds, making Kyla think of jade crystal and gold. Even from this distance, his eyes were as vibrant and mesmerising as if he were stood right in front of her.
A sickening lurch clenched around Kyla’s heart as their eyes met. Something whispered in the back of her mind that this was more than just her body reacting to him. As much as she appreciated his fine form, she found herself wondering what his story was, not just wanting to know what he was hiding in his boxers.
Trying to battle her thoughts and figure out why she was thinking so differently about him, Kyla didn’t notice Sam pushing her way through the crowds until she had nearly reached him. Feeling like a rabbit caught in headlights, Kyla couldn’t take her eyes from him. Whatever spell he had cast over her with one look broke the instant he looked down to find Sam touching his well-defined bicep.
Kyla stood, watching with curiosity, to see how he would react to Sam. As the lights twirled around, bathing the room in various shades of colour, Kyla could have sworn she saw a swirl of black dissipate through his eyes as he looked at her friend. The obvious recoil and the disdain in his features was nothing short of as if he’d just sucked on a lemon.
Taking a step towards them, Kyla jumped out of her skin when a hand touched the middle of her back. Spinning around to see whose wrist she would be breaking, she found herself stunned to see the handsome Ben Worthington stood next to her.
“Sorry,” he said, withdrawing his hand and holding both up in a surrender sign. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He gestured his head towards the bar. “Would you like a drink?”
She stared back at him, falling into the darkness of his eyes. Just like his brother’s had done moments ago, Kyla found herself lost, hypnotised by him. His chocolate eyes speckled with glints of light, silver and purple, and Kyla couldn’t help but feel like she was falling into a bottomless abyss.
“Are you ok?” he asked.
His deep voice brought her back to reality with a snap. “Yes, sorry. I just...” Heat flushed through her body, and she laughed. “Your eyes are really pretty. Have you seen the film Men in Black ?”
Giving her a lopsided grin, he nodded. “Of course. Who hasn’t?”
“You remember the bit with the cat and the galaxy on its collar? When the woman stares into it, she gets lost?”
He nodded.
“Your eyes remind me of that. I don’t know why.”
He leaned down and whispered into her ear, “Because I’m full of mystery, that’s why.”
Goosebumps popped up all over Kyla, causing her to shiver. She smiled back at him but said nothing, finding herself thinking over and over about his eyes. It unnerved her that she could be so lost in something as simple as someone’s eyes. And not just one person’s either, both of them.
The eyes are the window to the soul , sprang forwards from her memory. It was one of her gran’s most favourite sayings about people. From the depths she had seen of Ben Worthington’s eyes in just a few seconds, he had a soul buried so deep, someone would lose theirs trying to find it.
“Still want that drink?” he asked.
“Sure,” she replied. “But I’m driving so just a coke for me please.”
“Of course. At least I know you’ll remember this in the morning and there’s no risk of you throwing up on me.”
Kyla laughed and allowed him to lead her to the bar. As they walked, she couldn’t ignore the throng of thirsty, drunken people seeming to move around them like he was Moses parting the Red Sea. The Worthington’s were a highly respected local family, but she hadn’t expected anyone to remember the two nephews, nor immediately know that Ben was one of them. The change in them was just phenomenal.
The bartender ignored the people who had been stood there for minutes longer and came straight to Ben for his order, much to the disproval of those around them. Within a minute, Kyla had a pint of coke in her hand, complete with clinking ice and a blue straw. Ben bought himself a glass of whiskey—neat. As full as her own glass, Kyla started doubting her choice to entertain him in any way.
Placing his hand on the small of her back, Ben guided her towards the overcrowded booths that edged the dancefloor. Blue velvet bench seats and wooden tables were always a welcome place for drinks that got in the way of dancing, or throbbing feet that needed a brief reprieve from high heels, body weight, and twisty moves.
Kyla didn’t need to look to know that there would be no spare places. These were usually the first things claimed by the early birds that came in the instant the club opened. As luck would have it, a group of young lads cleared out of one as the pair approached it.
“Perfect timing,” Kyla said, grinning at him as she sat down.
“It’s a knack of mine,” he replied, sitting down opposite her and taking a sip of his drink.
Kyla pulled a face at him. “How can you drink that?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “The same way you drink your coke. It’s refreshing, and I like the taste of it.”
She burst out laughing. “I’ve never heard whiskey described as refreshing when it’s mixed with something, let alone when it’s not.”
“Well,” he said, lifting his glass. “Now you have. You know what they say—first time for everything.”
Watching him take a proper gulp of it, Kyla shivered. “So where did you end up on your travels?”
He flashed her a dazzling smile. “Everywhere.”
“That’s...specific,” she replied, already trying to think of how to escape him. Sam could gladly have this one. “Excellent conversation starter.”
“Sorry,” he said, grinning at her. “A decade of travelling makes it hard to pick out exact details.”
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Kyla tried to help him along. “Surely you must have had a favourite place? Somewhere that you really loved and didn’t want to leave?”
“Oh yeah, for definite.” A warm smile tugged at his pink lips. “That would be Pompeii.”
Now he had her attention. Kyla couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her. “You went to Pompeii?”
“Yeah. Several times,” he said, shrugging his shoulders as if it were something nonchalant. “Absolutely amazing place. It’s coated in this deathly silence that’s somehow peaceful and beautiful. The way everything has been preserved so perfectly for all these years...words can’t describe it. I’d give anything to go back.”
Kyla couldn’t miss the water glistening over his eyes as emotion clearly overwhelmed him. She began to wonder if it were true when people reported feeling extreme sadness when visiting places steeped in so much tragedy.
“Are you going back?” she asked.
The corners of his mouth tweaked up with a twinge of sadness. “No, not again. That’s all in the past now.”
Kyla wanted to dig a bit deeper into his cryptic words. What was all in the past? His travelling? Or visiting Pompeii? Seeing his eyes glaze over, something she knew all too well herself, she tried to distract him with something else. “Was there anywhere you really hated?”
Blinking the water from his eyes, he looked back at her and chuckled, before taking a large swig of his whiskey. “Plenty. There was this one particular place I couldn’t stand but Adam loved it. Had to drag him away from it.” Shaking his head, he finished the rest of his drink in one gulp, slamming the empty glass down on the table. “He’d go back there right now if he could.”
“Where was it?”
For just a second, he hesitated. “Down under.”
“Down under? As in Aus—”
A shot glass banged down on the table, making Kyla jump. “Couldn’t take the heat, could you, little bro?”
The sarcasm dripping from Adam’s words couldn’t be missed. Adam sat down next to Kyla, sprawling his arms across the back of the seats. He glared at Ben with such hatred, Kyla squirmed in her seat, feeling like she really needed to move and let them work out whatever issue they seemed to be having but she couldn’t go anywhere, trapped between a wooden board and the bulky body of Adam Worthington.
“Oh, it wasn’t the heat,” Ben replied, smiling back at his brother. “It was more the people.”
Leaning forwards, Adam grinned. “Never did quite fit in, did you? Couldn’t quite make your own way in life so you thought it’d be best to just take someone else’s, hmmm?”
Kyla picked up her drink and sipped at it as she widened her eyes in shock at the two brothers jabbing at each other with words. The atmosphere between them started to charge, the air becoming almost electrified, as if taking on its own physical form.
Becoming acutely aware that things were escalating, Kyla shrunk into her corner, pressing herself up against the wooden partition as much as possible, wishing she could sidle her way out of this now.
“Well,” Ben replied, his skin seeming to turn a shade of onyx. “Whose life would be better to take than that of someone who makes everyone around him miserable because he’s such a selfish bastard.”
As the dancing lights continued to spin around the room, casting moving shadows over everything and everyone, Kyla couldn’t quite work out if the darkening of Ben’s skin was from the lights or not. Narrowing her eyes to try and zoom in on him, Kyla couldn’t quite register what her eyes were reporting back to her. It looked as if all of Ben’s veins were popping from his skin, creating ridges in his blackening skin tone.
As quickly as the illusion had appeared, it disappeared, leaving Kyla wondering if Ben had snuck some alcohol in her coke after all.
“I’d love to rip your heart out,” Adam said. His icy tone combined with his flat, emotionless stare sent chills down Kyla’s spine. “But I prefer watching you torture yourself every day.”
Kyla’s eyes widened. Where the fuck was Sam? Clearly, these siblings had some deep-rooted issues that needed working out. Remembering her thought from last night of Adam most likely having a micro-penis, she bit the inside of her lip and stifled a giggle. She then realised the catch with this pair wasn’t their lack of manhood but the freight train of baggage they obviously had.
“She was too good for you,” Ben said, resting back against the velvet bench with a sadistic smile. “You didn’t appreciate her at all.”
Adam jumped up and slammed his fists down on the table. The noise reverberated around the entire building, instantly silencing everything. Music stopped. Lights stilled. People froze. Chatter ceased.
Kyla held her breath and kept her focus on the large indents his fists had left in the table wondering what the hell was happening right now.
“You know nothing,” Adam said, his top lip curling back as he sneered at his brother. “You were a curse to us, always hanging around like a lost puppy. It was almost like you couldn’t let me have the perfect life unless you had it as well. Even when you did the most unspeakable thing, you took the cowards way out. You couldn’t even face your own reflection, could you? Did the demon within you smile back at you then, Octavio?”
With cat-like reflexes, Ben sprung to his feet and knocked the table clean out of the booth. Kyla shrieked and curled her legs to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible. With clenched fists, Ben invaded his brother’s personal space, literally going head-to-head with him. Kyla felt like she had been caught between two warring bulls and had no way out.
“I did it to save you the pain of doing it. You really are a stupid fuck sometimes, Azazel. Get your head out of your ass and actually pay attention to what goes on around you. Some day you might just realise people do things because they care—” Ben’s chest heaved up and down with his laboured breaths “—about you.”
Kyla froze. Azazel? Who the fuck was Azazel?
Adam threw his head back and laughed. When he looked back at his brother, Kyla’s heart stopped dead. The trick of light she thought she’d seen earlier was now confirmed to her as reality. Adam’s eyes were no longer the colour of jade crystal but that of the deepest shadows of night. His flesh bulged with wine-coloured veins and his teeth had turned into a mouthful of lethal canines. The energy around him pulsed with menace, the promise of blood being spilled hanging in the air.
As Kyla took in the perilous sight before her, something deep inside her stirred, coming alive. A fire she’d smothered years ago that tried relighting every day suddenly reignited with a roaring flame. Whatever betrayal Adam spoke of, Kyla understood that pain, the agony of family, of your own blood deceiving you.
Kyla knew that kind of anguish never lessened, it was just something that had to be lived with. Some days, it could be plastered over, but it could never be aired because it would never heal. Because it would never heal, it was always there, pulsing, throbbing for attention.
Watching such a magnificent, terrifying kindred spirit feel emotions just as raw as Kyla did bewitched her. But that wasn’t the scary part.
The scary part was the more she watched, waiting, expecting, relishing in it, the more turned on she became.