Put Me Back Together(20)

As the crowd thrashed around me, I tried to remember where Emily had said she was going before she’d disappeared through the press of bodies. To get more drinks? To the bathroom? I couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d left. I didn’t even know what time it was. The evil harpies had made me take off my watch. My head began to feel very heavy as the crowd shifted around me and I lost sight of Sally altogether. Suddenly I felt the seeds of panic beginning to germinate in my gut and I turned around, scanning the faces on every side, trying to spot Sally’s red lips and blonde curls. The threat of the Facebook message loomed large in my mind, the words echoing in my brain, louder than the music—although it occurred to me that the music in here was so loud no one would be able to hear me scream. If a hand came out and grabbed me, dragging me down, nobody would even notice.

Just as this thought entered my brain an arm reached out and looped itself around my waist, the fingers spreading across my stomach, and I felt my panic spike up into real terror. Without looking around to see who it was, I tried to scramble away, but we were packed in so tightly there was really nowhere to scramble to. Feeling my movement, the hand tightened slightly and something inside of me snapped. I took hold of the fingers gripping me just above my bellybutton and bent them backwards as fast and as hard as I could. I heard a shriek of pain—which, as I predicted, went unnoticed by the rest of the dancing crowd—and then I lunged forward and roughly shoved my way through the bodies, adrenaline pumping like jet fuel through my veins. I focused on the edge of the dance floor and nothing else until I reached it and slammed headfirst into something sturdy and warm and tall.

Something or someone.

This time I actually screamed and pushed out hard with my forearms, flinging myself backwards. I heard someone calling my name but I ignored it, so intent was I on getting away, although it didn’t really seem like that was going to happen. Not when I was wearing four-inch borrowed heels and I was losing my balance, my arms pin wheeling as I careened toward the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing myself for the horrifying crunch of my bones breaking, when a pair of arms reached out and caught me at the critical last second.

My eyes flew open as I found myself once again on my feet, my hands locked onto those arms like vises, not only to brace myself, but also out of fear of who was attached to them.

“Katie, it’s me,” a voice said. “It’s Lucas.”

They were the same words I’d said to him earlier when he’d mistaken me for Emily. I guess it was a night for mistaken identities.

“Lucas,” I breathed, loosening my grip on his arms. I felt one of his hands slide down to the small of my back, holding me steady, his eyes focused on my face, full of concern. “Get me away from here.”

Taking me by the hand, he led me up one staircase and then another to a lounge at the very top of the club. There were couches and armchairs scattered around the area and it was mostly empty, just one couple making out and two girls who seemed to be sleeping, their heads resting one on top of the other. Lucas and I sat down on a couch in the corner. It was a loveseat, meant for two people in theory, though in this case I had to assume two twelve-year-old girls—it was that narrow. I was practically sitting in his lap. I tried to wiggle over, but there was no couch left next to me, and he kept leaning toward me and touching me with his warm hands and murmuring softly to me, which was so calming, almost like a lullaby, except liking his lullaby was so totally against the promise I’d made myself. The more he tried to calm me, the more agitated I became, until I felt his hands cupping my face, holding it still.

“Breathe, Katie,” he said. “Breathe.”

With his words, and the steady breaths that followed, I felt the adrenaline leeching out of my body being Withd by a none-too-subtle pounding in my head. Drawing my legs up onto the couch, I wrapped my arms around them and pressed my cheek into my kneecaps, closing my eyes. I felt his palm, warm against my back as he rubbed it and smoothed my long hair, something I’d done countless times for Emily when she was hungover, though having it done to me was quite a different thing. If the music in the club hadn’t been so incredibly loud, I might have actually drifted off.

When I finally opened my eyes again and sat up, Lucas was still right there beside me with a sweet smile. I tried to smile back but I was too embarrassed, remembering the perfect fool I’d made of myself downstairs. Luckily, Lucas didn’t ask for an explanation. Instead he handed me a bowl of pretzels.

“Here, eat this,” he said. “Sorry, it’s all we have to snack on. And drink this.”

He handed me a glass full of clear liquid, which I eyed warily.

“It’s water,” he added.

Looking down at the food in my hands, I gave him a puzzled look. “When did you get this?” I said. Had he left me alone on the couch while my eyes were closed? I hadn’t felt him move. And if he had gone, whose hand had I felt on my back? I felt my heart begin to pound again.

“I texted Brit to bring this stuff up,” he said, his voice full of reassurance. “I’m actually hiding up here with you. Brit’s covering for me.”

“You should go back to work,” I said. “I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”

“No trouble,” Lucas said easily. “I covered for her last month while she spent four hours behind the club having a screaming fight with her boyfriend. She owes me. This won’t even cover it.”