Midnight Dragonfly 03 - Fragile Darkness by Ellie James

Author:Ellie James
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

Will wanted to go to some place on Bourbon.

I have no idea why, but we’re at Club Rouge.

Can you come?

The place was packed.

A bald, goatee’d bouncer stood at the door, allegedly checking IDs but he seemed as gone as everyone upstairs. With nothing more than a smile, the four of us squeezed past him and up the narrow staircase to the music blasting from the second floor.

Red. That was the first thing I noticed. The lights were all red, creating an amber haze against the frenzy of dancing. Black lights swirled, not rapidly like the party at the theater, but more of a dreamlike progression, pale crimson fading into shadows, shadows into darkness, hovering for a slow breath before giving way to the muted, dawn-like glow of crimson all over again, and again, like an endless roll of day into night, night into day, but with each hour lasting only seconds.

Victoria grabbed my hand, leaning in close. “Wicked,” she murmured.

That was one word.

The mindless electronic rhythm hummed through me, the crowd swelling from all directions. I texted Kendall, letting her know we were there, then we split up to look for them. Victoria and Trey headed for the bar, while Deuce took my hand and soul-walked me to the dance floor. With each swirl of red into black, black into red, something inside me swirled, too, a cold awareness, a knowing like in the Square, making my chest tighten, as if my throat wasn’t letting enough air squeeze through.

The energy was the same, broken and desperate, as the night before. The white didn’t flash, but for a disjointed second I could see the twist of shadows again, collapsed against the ground, frozen there. Forever.

Half-dancing, half-walking, Deuce guided me deeper into the thrash of sweaty bodies, keeping my hand locked in his. With every step we took, every slam of the drums, the hum inside grew stronger, a low-wattage electricity zinging through my blood, telling me Will was close.

Will, or someone.

Stopping, I lifted my face to soft red haze, pulling in a thousand different scents, perfume and smoke and beer, sweat and something else, something earthy and pungent. Something that swirled through me, quietly urging me to let go, and just be. For once. For that night, that moment. I’d been fighting for so long, to breathe, to understand. To forget.

Especially to forget.

Everything.

Somewhere along the line, part of me had. I’d built a quiet wall inside me, to protect, Julian said. But I didn’t want protection. It was like cheating—or hiding. I wanted to live, to be the me I’d been before.

Around me, hundreds morphed into a mindless entity moving in unchoreographed synchronicity. Closing my eyes, I felt them, every one of them, all the individual strands wound together, escape and freedom, pain and agony and a desperate cry for release.

It all tightened through me, exactly like the night at the abandoned hospital where we found Jessica. Emotions lingered, echoes surviving long after bodies failed. You heard them, even when you heard nothing.

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