Lost Girls(64)

Bennet would be here. I was counting on it.

...

Our car doors swung open, our feet crunched over gravel and we moved, dreamlike, over cracked concrete toward a building that looked like it had been abandoned since it was built in the ’40s. My throat was dry and I craved a drink of water. That high-spirited demeanor Lauren had exhibited earlier was fading. Now every step she took was light-footed, her shoulders slightly hunched, her posture defensive. She swung a glance around us, taking everything in and still denying what she saw. That same group of tough guys guarded the entrance, although the doors hung open today, a thick, hungry darkness beckoning from within.

“Where are all the cars?” Lauren asked me. “This place should be packed.”

The lot and surrounding streets looked suspiciously empty, just like the last time I had been here. But, once I’d gotten inside, I’d heard the emphatic shouts of a mob. Had all those people come on a bus or something?

“Hey, sweetness,” one of the greasy-haired creeps called out to us. “You got an invitation?”

Lauren’s head bobbed up and down as she slid those tickets out of her pocket, then lifted them so everyone could see. A couple of the guys chuckled, almost as if they could sense her apprehension.

“Platinum Level, huh?” I said in a loud voice, striding toward that open door with as much confidence as I could pull together. “That means there’s gotta be a crowd inside. So, where are all the cars?”

One of the guys did a dramatic bow, which set the others laughing again. “Valets, at your service. We aim to please. No need to have looky-loos dropping by, right?”

“You sure you want to go through with this?” I asked Lauren, my voice low.

She nodded.

We walked through the front door together, side by side, heads up as if we were already inside and being watched by the largest crowd we’d ever seen.

“These raves sure look different during the day, don’t they?” she said, pushing a short laugh out of her lungs at the end of her sentence.

“I don’t think this is a rave.”

“True. But this place still looks like a dive, just like all the others.”

Our footsteps echoed down the long, narrow hall, a dull harmony of heel-toe, heel-toe. I swung a nervous glance over my shoulder, back toward that sun-drenched yawn of empty parking lot. Bennet wasn’t here yet. I worried that he wasn’t coming, that some other crisis had been more important. Maybe some other teenage girl had needed rescuing or maybe the traffic had been too heavy or maybe he never cared as much as he pretended.

I forced those thoughts away. Lauren and I weren’t alone in this, we couldn’t be.

“Give me my phone,” I said. She slid it into my hand. That closed doorway loomed up ahead. Already I could hear the faint, whooping shouts of a large crowd on the other side, could feel the thunder of applause in the soles of my feet.

Some door guard was going to take away both of our phones soon. Someone was walking toward us now, coming from behind, heavy footsteps pounding on cement floor. I could feel him getting closer. At this point, I knew that Lauren and I no longer had the choice to turn around and leave.

My legs slowed me to a stop, like they just realized they had somewhere else they’d rather be.

“If there’s ever a problem, you can send me a text. Okay?”

It was too late to call my dad now—not with a Platinum Level guard a few feet away and getting closer with every breath—but I could send a text. I clenched my phone like it was a lifeline, punched in three buttons and pressed send.

9-1-1

I hoped he would know what it meant.

Sweat dripped down my neck as I prayed that this building got cell reception. The walls were made of thick cement blocks, probably reinforced with steel, just like Costco and Sam’s Club. Mom and Dad would lose each other forever in those places because their phone calls wouldn’t get through.

“No phones, no cameras, no keys, no purses,” a gruff voice said behind us. “And no jewelry.” One of the meatheads who had been lounging outside grabbed both Lauren and me by the arm. “Hand ’em over.”

“But I have our gear in my purse,” Lauren argued. “We can’t fight in our school clothes—”

“We’ve got that all taken care of, sweetness,” he said as he yanked away my phone and my kandi bracelet, tucking them into a large plastic bag. But in the process of reaching for Lauren’s purse, that kandi bracelet tumbled out of the bag and when he took a step forward, it got crushed beneath his heavy boots. Before I could even react, he pulled the batteries out of our phones.

Had my text to Dad gotten through or was it lost in cyberspace?

“Inside, girls,” the guard said with a smile that looked more like a snarl. He pointed toward the closed door that had been haunting me all day. “They’re waiting for ya.”





Chapter Thirty-Four


The door opened and the sweaty heat of a large crowd poured out. I blinked, temporarily blinded by the bright lights that focused on us. Then the lights swung away, beaming down on a fight that was already taking place in the center of the cavernous room. That guy behind us pushed, one broad hand on my back and one on Lauren’s, guiding us both toward another door. We weren’t in the main arena long, but in that amount of time I was able to see a lot.