“Where are you going?” He grabbed my arm, not letting me get away. “You can’t leave now. We’re just getting started.”
I tried to pull away, and he held tighter. There was something in his eyes, something dangerous that made me stop resisting. Maybe this guy would prove interesting after all.
“I need to find my friend,” I said. “We got separated.”
“You’ll find her later. I’ll help you. Let’s get another drink.” He pulled me along to the bar, ordering for the two of us.
Because I wasn’t an idiot, I watched him closely. I watched him drop something in my drink before handing it to me. Pretending not to notice, I accepted the drink. Now I had a decision to make.
I could throw the drink in his face and call him out for being a shady piece of shit. I could also abandon the drink and get the hell away from this guy. The third option was to play along. Drink it and discover how fucked up this night could get. In my twenty-one years, I’d never been so reckless.
Only someone with extreme problems would consider drinking it, knowing it was drugged. And yet, I was incredibly tempted to do just that. There was a strange part of me that wanted to know what would happen. How far would he take this? Would he hurt me or simply use me for his own pleasure?
This was the side of me that I kept hidden from my friends. From everyone. I knew it wasn’t normal. Maybe there was something wrong with me. There was something about the danger that I couldn’t resist. A rush of excitement filled me as I brought the drink to my lips.
He seemed satisfied when I took a large swallow. We kept dancing until I finished most of the drink and felt too foggy to dance any longer. My vision began to swim. The party became a blur of bodies moving together.
When he kissed me, I didn’t resist. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. He’d made sure of that. I was putty in his arms as he brazenly groped me. I guess it kind of felt good. Being touched while high always felt nice. There was nothing special about it though. Nothing that set him apart from any other guy in the building.
“Let’s go back to my place,” he said tightly, clasping my hand in his. “I’ll rock your world.”
My initial reaction was to curl my lip and sneer. Who said something so corny and thought it was cool? I never would have looked twice at this guy if I’d been sober.
I tried to speak, to tell him that I wanted to stay and find Luna. The words wouldn’t come. They were jumbled in my brain. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, like it refused to participate.
He didn’t wait for a response. Taking advantage of my current state, he ushered me along to the exit. I was unsteady on my feet, unable to walk in a straight line. My body felt numb, like there was a disconnect between it and my brain.
When it became clear I was struggling to walk properly, he slid an arm around me, doing his best to hold me upright. He seemed to be in a hurry to get me out of the building. Probably because he didn’t want me to black out completely before he got me alone.
The briefest thought fluttered through my head. Why the hell did I drink that knowing it was drugged? Was I trying to get myself killed?
We emerged from the hot, sweaty warehouse into the late summer air. My head cleared slightly as I sucked in a deep breath. Someone stepped in front of us, bringing us to a stop.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Stray Hurley stood right in front of us, and he looked pissed.
CHAPTER TWO
CODIE
I gaped at Stray, wondering if I was tripping out or if he was really there. Dressed in faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, he looked like my drug addled mind’s greatest fantasy. His black hair was short but long enough on top for a girl to get a good handful. The intense rage in his wild blue eyes confirmed that I was not imagining him.
“I’m taking my girl home. What’s it to you?” The guy next to me clearly had no idea who he was speaking to, otherwise, he would have known that he taunted death.
Stray was one of the Graveyard Kings. I’d had the misfortune of getting to know him because of my friend Storm’s relationship with his friend Rebel. Stray liked to flirt with me, doing his best to drive me crazy. I’d never fallen all over him like so many other girls did. That only made him try harder.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, feeling and sounding like I had a mouthful of molasses.
Ignoring me, Stray fixated on the guy at my side. “She is not your girl, and she’s not going anywhere with you.”
There was no hesitation. Stray’s fist was a blur as he punched the guy straight in the face. The guy stumbled back, grasping his bloody nose. He seemed genuinely shocked. He really didn’t know who Stray was.
Wintervale wasn’t all that big. A western Canada town of about thirty thousand. Large enough to have a Walmart but too small for a movie theatre with more than five screens. How did he not know?
The Graveyard Kings had a reputation. They were known as the campus crime lords. They were notorious for running a black market crime organization. From drugs to weapons and even organs, the Kings would get a buyer anything for the right price. I’d always thought most of those stories were simply rumors that had been greatly embellished. Storm had confirmed there was a lot of truth to those tales.
“What the hell is your problem, man?” My would be companion did his best to save face. He threw a punch back at Stray. A punch that Stray happily took with a grin on his face.
