ANYA
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
You let me be your nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare.
Jetmir’s words he’d spoken over the phone played on repeat in my mind while I danced with Francesca and Gianna in the club, doing my best to celebrate my birthday like any other regular girl.
Except, we weren’t exactly typical. Our actions could lead to wars, and if anyone messed with us, it could cost them their life. It was the reason we usually kept others who weren’t part of our world at arm’s length.
The bass thrummed up through the soles of my heels before I’d even reached the bar, drowning out the beating in my chest that kept stumbling over Jetmir’s name.
Francesca and Gianna flanked me, bumping my shoulders and keeping me sandwiched between them like they always did when they thought I might bolt.
They ordered enough drinks for a small army—tequila first, then something bright pink that Gianna swore would fix everything—and soon we were laughing over the rims of shot glasses, salt on our lips, and wide, drunken grins on our faces.
If we’d been anywhere else, I’d have kept one eye on our drinks and a hand near my clutch, the way Gabriel taught me.
But this was La Reina. Papa’s club. It was named after my mother, and every bouncer at every entrance had known my face since I was sixteen years old and sneaking in through the back door.
Out of every spot in Miami, this was the one where I could set my guard down and know no harm would come to me.
Another shot down our throats and we ran to the bathroom in a giggling clot, reapplying lipstick under fluorescent lights.
Then we were back on the dance floor, moving our bodies until my calves burned.
The floor panels pulsed beneath our feet, red, then blue, then yellow, throwing color up our bare legs and across the hems of our short dresses.
One song bled into the next song, the speakers never letting the room catch its breath, and around us people’s hips rolled and mouths found each other in the dark.
A bead of sweat traced a slow line down my spine. I gathered my hair off my neck, lifting the heavy strands and tipping my chin back, hoping the heat and the noise could scour Jetmir’s words from my psyche.
For a second it worked, but then I felt that familiar pressure against the back of my neck. I turned. Scanned the crush of bodies, the flashing lights, the strangers mid-laugh. Nobody was looking at me.
Still, my pulse wouldn’t slow and my heart refused to calm.
I dragged shallow breaths in and my movements turned heavy and half-hearted. An arm brushed mine. I flinched and pulled it back on instinct before I saw a handsome stranger: blond hair, easy smile, angling closer and asking with his body if he could dance with me.
Every part of me wanted to leave. I hadn’t let a man’s hands anywhere near me since Jetmir, and the thought of trading his for a stranger’s made my skin prickle.
But I made myself stay. I made myself sway toward him instead of back.
How am I ever supposed to get over him if I can’t even handle one dance?
“What’s your name?” he shouted over the music, close enough that I caught the mint and rum on his breath. “Are you here with someone?”
“Friends.” I ignored his first question and answered his second by pointing to Francesca and Gianna, a few feet away, already tangled up in their own strangers.
We danced. He shouted a joke I didn’t quite catch, but I laughed anyway. His hands found my waist and stayed respectfully at my hips, and I let them. However, I felt nothing. No spark. No stumble in my chest. Nothing at all.
Still, we danced for hours.
By the time my friends and I stumbled out of the club, my legs almost giving out from the tequila and the exhaustion, the sun was already threatening the horizon.
Miami was catching fire under the October sunrise.
Somewhere out there, a few million people were about to open their eyes and set about their days.
And I would go to sleep and dream of what—who—I always did.