Excerpt

She picked up her drink again and pretended to drink it. Seph and St. James were still on the dance floor, the growing crowd swallowing them up. She looked around for Tristan again, but he'd faded back into the crowd.

For a moment, surrounded by all these people, she felt incredibly alone.

With a sigh, she pretended another sip of her drink and tipped it under the bar when no one was looking to dump part of it out. She waited five minutes then ten, ordering another Sprite. Her mouth felt dry, so she guzzled this one, leaning heavily on the bar. She laid her head in her hands, pretending to be a little dazed, wondering if someone had noticed. Finally, she laid her head against the bar.

"Hey, you okay?" Greg the bartender.

"I'm fine. Just a little dizzy."

"Let me get you some water," he said and quickly set a cold glass of water in front of her.

God, she was thirsty. She pressed the glass to her lips and drank it down, the cool water feeling so good against her hot throat.

Had she gotten some of that crap in her system? She cursed and continued to drink.

"Looks like you could use some air," said someone beside her.

"I'm fine," Kip snapped.

"No, really, your face is all flushed."

She looked up, expecting Ponytail Boy with his baggy jeans and thin hands, but it was someone else.

It was him.

He sat beside her on another oil drum, a shark-like expression in his dead, hungry eyes.

She started to reach for his face, wanting to tear it off, but something sharp gouged her thigh. Her gaze fell.

He grinned at her, a hypodermic needle wedged between his fingers.

"No…" she mumbled through thick lips. "No!"

"Should have drank your Sprite like a good girl," he said, stroking her hair, running a hand down her left arm.

"No…stp."

The words wouldn't come, no matter how hard she tried.

"But good girls don't get tattoos, do they?"

He gritted his teeth, anger glinting in his blue eyes. His lips were against her ear and she smelled the sweet stink of Jim Beam on his breath, sweating from his body. "Good girls don't bleach their hair and pick up guys in bars either."

Her limbs were heavy, unresponsive. She cursed at him, but her lips wouldn't form the words.

He was against her now, smelling like fresh earth and musk. Sweet, gagging musk. He took her cell phone and laid it on the bar.

She wretched as he pulled her off the oil drum and led her past the dance floor.

She struggled against sluggish muscles, but nothing responded. Nothing moved as he led her out the red metal door. He mumbled to the bouncer about how she'd had too much to drink.

"Yr…ded," she struggled, slurring badly.

She couldn't control it, but the words rang through her thoughts like a mantra. You're dead, she muttered over and over.

Before this was over, she'd see him dead. At her hands.