CHAPTER 16
“Hi Annie.”
Obviously, she was still rather miffed at me over our fight. I suppose I should have been happy that she was at least talking to me.
Yet another hunk-of-the-day clung to her arm. I guess she hadn’t taken our argument very seriously. The guy just kept staring at me expectantly, waiting for an introduction I suppose, but he wasn’t going to get it.
She looked me up and down. “Well, well, isn’t this a fancy little turn of events?” she said, a sneer making its way across her delicate features. “Nice dress by the way.”
I put one hand on my hip and noticed with a little skip of my heart that Annie’s date was definitely taking notice of me. I took in a deep breath, effectively making my chest rise even higher, and smiled. “Thank you,” I said.
I had to get out of there, regain my bearings. Seeing someone from my real life was throwing me off balance.
“I guess it should be nice though, since I made it,” she said. “It’s funny too, wasn’t it you that was just talking about other people being whores?”
I walked away quickly, fighting the sting in my eyes. I wanted more than anything to make up with her, but she was obviously not in the mood for forgiving yet. And if there’s one thing I knew about Annie, it’s that she does things in her own time. The more you try to push her where she doesn’t want to go, the more she pushes, and nobody wanted to see that, especially while they were out trying to have a good time.
No, Annie would have to wait for another day. Tonight my focus was Frankie.
As the time went by though, minute after excruciating minute, my hopes faded.
Men kept coming over to me, asking me to dance. The first few times, I even said yes, but I couldn’t seem to have any fun out on the dance floor. Maybe it was because the men kept grabbing at me like I was a plaything. Eventually I did up the extra button on my shirt, hoping I’d still look sexy when I ran into Frankie.
When the clock struck midnight, I knew it was no use. Frankie was always at the club by that time and my hopes were completely and utterly dashed. Even the heavenly drinks were losing their charm. In fact, after I’d had a few, they were becoming too much, sort of sickly sweet, coating my tongue. The glamour of the place paled, the twinkle lights losing some of their luster. The room started pulsing slightly, kind of to the beat of the music, which seemed to invade my head. I walked toward the exit, trying to pull my skirt back down to a reasonable length, suddenly feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet. Even if I had found him, what the heck did I think I was going to do? Daze him with my cleavage? Frankie saw attractive women all the time, and lots of them. They practically threw themselves at him on a daily basis.
I’d never felt so much like a little girl.
I stumbled to the door but the thug who was guarding it was preoccupied with something on the other side. At first, I thought he was looking through the peephole to let some latecomers in and my stomach actually did a little flip thinking that maybe my Frankie had come to join me after all, but I realized the man wouldn’t be so focused if it was just Frankie. No, this was different. He wasn’t actually looking through the peephole either, just had his ear pressed to the door, his eyes zipping back and forth wildly as he tried to concentrate on whatever was on the other side.
I was about to tap on his shoulder and ask him to get the heck out of my way so I could release myself from the glittery prison, when he jumped back, his arm flailing wildly, landing firmly across my cheek. The blow sent me flying backward along with him.
My vision went white and then, even scarier, dark, for just a moment. The room tilted, and firecrackers began exploding all around. Dozens of firecrackers. I thought I had flown half-way across the room, but when my vision finally came back, I realized I had only gone a couple of feet.
Why did he hit me like that?
I had certainly never done anything to him. I didn’t even know him.
I expected someone to come to my rescue and subdue the doorman when I realized the firecracker noise was beginning to mingle with the sounds of screaming. Lots of screaming.
Shaking my head, trying to clear the fuzziness and get a hold of my senses, my eyes eventually found the man who’d hit me. Oddly enough, his hand was draped over my legs. I scrambled to get away but soon realized that in his condition, there was no way I was in any danger anymore.
At least from him.
Blood poured from his head and his open eyes registered nothing as they stared straight at me. It was then I finally realized what I was hearing wasn’t firecrackers.
Gunshots.
Glass rained from the ceiling. I put my hand down to push myself up and immediately felt the sting of shards in my hand. People scrambled both toward and away from the door, not knowing another way out, but not wanting to get shot. Scrambling away, slipping on the broken pieces of glass, I ducked my head and kept my hands up, hoping none of the glass would bounce up into my eyes.
Thrust into a crowd of people, I was jostled toward the bar, crouching behind it just inches from where the older man had bought me the drink just a few short hours before. A dozen other people were back there with me, including the very nice bartender who looked completely scared out of his wits, not that he was the only one. I could only imagine what I’d see if I looked in a mirror.
A few words came roaring above the noise of all the people scurrying to find someplace, anyplace to hide. “Police! Nobody move!”
Behind Tommy the bartender, as I read on his nametag, a man hovered over a woman who had obviously been the victim of one of the stray shots. My stomach heaved at the sight of the wound, so dark, so red. The man crouched over her, tending to her. He looked somewhat familiar, as if I’d met him somewhere before, but in all the confusion, I couldn’t place him. Tommy made a slow move deeper into the shadows behind the bar.
Back out on the dance floor, people were being thrown to the ground, getting arrested. I pulled another tiny piece of glass out of my hand, which was now covered in blood. Behind me, Tommy was lifting the hatch of the most beautiful sight in the world. A tunnel entrance.
He quickly helped the other man get the woman who’d been shot into the safety of the tunnels.
Those shoes. Something about the woman’s shoes seemed familiar. But my head was still racing. Spinning. I peeked around the counter suddenly feeling like we needed a lookout, but no one had caught on to us yet.
As the last of the people behind the bar snuck down through the hatch, I scurried over, my legs already feeling the cool relief of the tunnel before the rest of me even made it through.
“I’m the last one,” I whispered, though I probably could have yelled it without anyone hearing with all the noise they were making up there.
Tommy shut the hatch above us and locked it, cloaking us in darkness. There were still muffled noises above, but the change in the sound and pressure was almost eerie.
I shivered and leaned back on the wall, willing myself to regain my senses. But the noises from the woman who’d been hurt were far too distracting to gather my thoughts completely. Her ragged breaths were coming fast, like she couldn’t gulp enough air. The poor woman, just out for a night on the town and look what happens.
I realized, as I listened to her breathing, that she probably wouldn’t make it. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, trying to bring myself back to where I could think again.
At least Frankie hadn’t made an appearance. If he had, who knows what might have happened to him. From what little I saw, the police were definitely going after the men first, and more specifically, the men in the three-piece suits.
The injured woman just kept right on whimpering beside me, choking on every breath she tried to take. I opened my eyes slowly, a knot of black forming in my stomach. The whimpers. There was something about them.
The shoes. The shoes I noticed while she was being pulled through the hole in the floor. There was something about them too.
And that m
an. Why did he look so familiar?
The images and sounds swirled in my head as I searched it for the answer.
I sucked in a deep breath.
Annie.