Chapter 5

Elara

The upstairs hallway was quieter. The music came up through the floor as vibration more than sound—a low, rhythmic thudding that traveled up through the soles of my shoes and into my knees and made my whole body feel like it was slightly behind itself. The wall was closer than it should have been. I put one hand flat against it to steady my path and moved toward the end of the hall, which Blake had said—Blake had definitely said—was the guest room, the last door on the right. My eyes kept wanting to slide off the door numbers, so I counted them again just to be sure.

I pushed it open.

The light was low, just a lamp in the corner, and for a full second my brain simply refused to process what my eyes were already taking in. Then the image locked, and something in my chest lurched sideways—like the floor had shifted under me, or like the alcohol was suddenly deciding it had somewhere more inconvenient to be.

Declan Hayes. Shirt gone. Kneeling between a redhead's spread thighs, one big hand pinning her wrist above her head. His other hand was under her, angling her so he could drive into her in long, controlled strokes—every snap of his hips accompanied by the wet, filthy sound of it filling the small room. When he pulled back I caught a glimpse of him before he buried himself again: thick, veined, the kind of thing that explained the sounds she was making.

The redhead moaned, legs locked around his waist. "Declan—don't stop, I'm so close—"

He heard the door. His head lifted. Those sharp green eyes locked straight onto mine.

Surprise flickered first. Then recognition. Then something darker and tighter that I couldn't name. He didn't pull out. Didn't even slow down. He just kept moving while he stared at me, and the room was so quiet except for her and the lamp buzz and the music shaking up through the floor.

My stomach dropped—hot and sick, the nausea arriving with a speed that had nothing to do with the alcohol and everything to do with a room I hadn't thought about in weeks. For half a second I wasn't in this hallway anymore. I was somewhere else, in a different room, under a different body that hadn't stopped when I said wait, when I said no, when I'd stopped saying anything at all. The cold clarity of that memory cut through every blurry edge the drinks had given me—wrenching me sober in exactly the way I didn't want to be.

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

"Sorry," I got out. The word came out tiny, barely mine.

I turned and walked—almost ran—back down the hall.

The stairs were a nightmare. The railing was slippery or my hand was, and I held on with both anyway, taking the steps one at a time because my depth perception was lying to me and the last thing I needed was to go down them face-first. Whatever sudden, horrible lucidity that room had shocked into me, my body was still three drinks and one bad decision behind my head.

Downstairs was worse than I remembered. Two guys had lost their shirts. Someone had spilled something sticky across half the floor. In one corner a couple was doing things that belonged behind a locked door. In another, two girls had their hands in each other's hair. Further back, three people seemed to be working out some kind of group project that definitely wasn't on any syllabus.

American college parties, I thought, with the particular hysteria of someone who was still partially functioning, are genuinely something else.

I would rather be playing Werewolf. I would rather be in a dentist's chair in a country where I didn't speak the language. I would rather be almost anywhere that was not a space full of bodies and noise and the lingering, horrible residue of that image from upstairs.

I shoved through the crowd toward the front door. An elbow caught my shoulder. I kept moving.

Outside, the October air hit like a slap, and I stopped on the porch and just stood there for a moment, breathing, while the cold worked its way through my jacket and my lungs settled back into something like a normal rhythm.

Don't think about the room. The instruction arrived automatically, which was how I knew I was already failing it. Don't think about the way he looked at you while he was still inside her. Don't think about that image—the way his hips moved, the controlled and deliberate thing he was doing, the fact that he didn't look away from you for even a second.

I became aware, distantly and with a kind of appalled remove that I credited entirely to the alcohol still sitting warm in my bloodstream, that some small, traitorous part of my brain was comparing. Was wondering. Was doing the thing I absolutely did not have permission to do given that I had just had a flashback to the worst night of my life.

I was horrified at myself. That was good, actually. The horror felt appropriate.

I opened my texts and typed to Leah:

Not feeling great. Heading out early. Don't worry.

Three dots appeared instantly.

baaaby nooooo come find meeeee

Then:

Are you okay? Do you need me?

Then:

im with blake were KISSING elara oh my god i think i love him

I stood on the porch a second longer, and something in me softened in spite of itself. Second time tonight I'd almost walked into someone else's good moment. Apparently I had a talent for it.

Go kiss Blake, I typed. I'll see you at home.

youre the BEST text me when youre safe!!!

I was already pulling up the rideshare app, squinting at the screen because the letters were smaller than they should have been, or my eyes were less reliable than they should have been, and either way my thumb found the right buttons eventually. Six minutes. I could wait six minutes.

I pulled my jacket tighter and sat down on the top porch step, away from the door, away from the noise, just far enough into the dark to feel like I'd left the party behind. The cold was almost helpful. It gave me something specific to feel.

You don't even know him, I reminded myself.

The app told me my driver was five minutes out. I watched the little icon move on the screen and focused on my breathing and didn't think about anything at all.

The cold air didn't answer, and I was grateful for that.