by Sarra Cannon
“Yes,” I said. “Twenty-one today.”
She pressed her lips together and looked at Katy, then back at me as if trying to decide what in the world to do with us.
“Okay, then tonight's your lucky night,” she said. “But we have some rules here at Venom and you’d better follow them as if your pretty little lives depended on it. You got that?”
We nodded.
“Number one, don’t go off into any dark corners or back rooms with someone you don’t know. Number two, don’t leave here with any strange men. If either of you ladies is looking for a one-night-stand, this is not the place for you.”
I studied her, my eyes narrowing. “These are the club’s rules?” I asked. What kind of club has a rule against one-night-stands?
She returned my stare, her face dead serious. “Not exactly. These are my rules for letting you in, okay? If anything were to happen to either of you, I’d never forgive myself.”
The concern in her voice sent chills up my spine. Since when does a bouncer at a club give a crap about what happens to random girls who come in? And since when is it so incredibly dangerous to go into a dark corner with someone?
What kind of place is this?
The door girl pulled a small pen from the pocket of her jeans and reached for my hand. She turned my hand over and placed the pen against the inside of my wrist, then pushed. Instead of an actual pen, it was some kind of stamp. In the green glow of the hallway, the stamp also glowed green, like it was under a black-light. The stamp was a picture of a coiled snake.
She stamped Katy, then put the pen away.
“My name is Selena,” she said. “If you need anything, you can come find me. I’ll be here the rest of the night.”
I nodded. “Thanks,” I said. I glanced toward the heavy black door with a matching carving of a snake in the wood. “What kind of a club is this, anyway?”
She smiled, placing her hand on the metal handle. “The kind of club people don’t find by accident.”
Red Dragon
Thumping bass greeted us as the door opened. We had to walk down another long black hallway to get to the main room of the club and Katy grabbed my arm.
“What have you gotten us into?” she whispered, clinging to me. “What if this is some kind of sex club?”
I smiled at the thought. “Well, if we walk in and everyone's having sex, we either join in or turn around and walk right back out.”
She smacked my arm. “You are so disgusting.”
I bit back a laugh. If this was a sex club, at least we'd end up with one hell of a story to tell about this night.
But as we walked down that hallway, I knew this club had much deeper secrets than that. Much more dangerous secrets. Whatever this place was, it was going to be a real adventure. I knew it from the knot of fear in my core.
It scared and excited me at the same time.
I pressed forward, giving Katy's hand a reassuring squeeze.
Like the front entrance, this hallway had long tubes of colored liquid that bubbled and swam along as we walked, giving off an eerie glow.
The closer we got, the louder the music and voices became. I’d never been to a club that made you walk through a tunnel to get to the main room, but our small journey added to the mystery of the place.
Walking through that final archway and into the main room was like walking into a brand new world. My senses were assaulted with beauty and mystery and noise.
The room opened into a large two-level dance floor filled with beautiful, elegant bodies. On the upper level, a balcony wrapped around the dance floor with tables that overlooked the spectacle below. People sat drinking, talking and laughing in the shadows.
Large booths lined in plush velvet wrapped around the entire bottom floor of the room.
Dancers with perfect bodies danced in cages lifted just off the ground.
A long bar to our left took up the entire wall on that side of the room. It was unlike any bar-top I’d ever seen, in life or in the movies. Instead of wood, the bar was made of thick clear glass, bright colors rushing back and forth in waves inside long tubes that ran the length of the bar.
It was the lighting of the place that amazed me and made me have to physically close my own jaw. It was magical and mysterious. Dark and shadowed, yet filled with so much color and light. A neon jungle of glass tubes.
I studied the tubes, trying to figure out exactly how they were lit, but it seemed that the liquid itself was alive with light. How could that be? It had to be some beautiful illusion.
“Wow,” I said, taking it all in. “This place is incredible.”
Neither of us had moved from the archway.
Servers with clear glass trays passed in front of us wearing skimpy outfits adorned with jewels. One girl with long black hair and a killer body came out of a back room and stopped.
She stared at me for just a moment too long, then shook her head as if realizing she’d been staring. She smiled, meeting my eyes for a brief moment before disappearing into the crowd, presumably to deliver her drinks to a table.
“I've never seen anything like this,” Katy shouted in my ear.
Techno music blasted throughout the room and I suddenly felt the urge to dance.
“Come on,” I said, pulling her toward the dance floor.
She hesitated and threw a glance toward the bar. “I want another drink. My buzz has totally worn off after all that walking.”
I nodded. “Okay, let’s grab something and then dance.”
“Deal,” she said, leading me toward the bar.
The long counter was crowded with people, but we managed to squeeze ourselves into a small opening somewhere near the end. As we waited for a bartender to take our order, I studied the other people crowded around the bar.
Every single one of them was gorgeous. And I’m not just talking about I’ve-had-too-much-to-drink-so-everyone-is-beautiful kind of gorgeous. I’m talking about perfect skin, gorgeous glittering eyes, and banging bodies.
Never in my entire life had I seen so many good-looking people packed into one room like this.
I shifted my weight on my hand-me-down heels and pulled my tank top down on my hips. I might have felt like I belonged here when we first walked up, but I was quickly realizing how much I did not match up to the money and style of the people in this room.
My face flushed and I suddenly felt as if someone was watching me. I glanced around the dance floor, then turned my eyes toward the bar. I was assaulted by the darkest, blackest eyes staring back at me. My stomach flipped and my heart skipped a beat. Or twelve.
If the people in this club were gorgeous, the guy attached to that set of mysteriously beautiful eyes was a god. I forced my mouth closed, realizing my lips had parted and I was beginning to breathe heavily just looking at him.
His eyes were locked on mine. He wasn't smiling or nodding or trying to approach me. He was just staring, his body frozen and tense as if the sight of me had put him into some kind of angry trance. Around me, the thundering music muted and there was only him.
I could not force my eyes away no matter how hard I tried.
He stared at me as if he could see straight into the core of who I was. As if he knew something about me I had yet to discover for myself. I felt the pressure of his gaze like hand on my heart.
I heard Katy say my name, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the guy behind the bar.
But then he seemed to wake up. His eyebrows wrinkled in the middle and he shook his head, then turned away, as if we hadn’t just shared some incredibly strange moment.
“Earth to Franki,” Katy said, shaking my shoulder.
I took a deep breath and slowly came back down to reality. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”
She whistled, her eyes wide. “Where the hell did you go just now?”
“Nowhere,” I said, forcing a smile. I didn’t dare look back toward the hot bartender. I was already way out of my comfort zone here. The last thi
ng I needed was to get lost inside his eyes again.
“I asked what you want to drink,” Katy said. “I can’t do another shot of scotch. I swear, I’ll puke.”
I laughed. “I’m game for whatever.”
A female bartender came over to take our order and looked at me with expectant eyes. The bar was extremely busy, even for a Wednesday night, and I’m sure the last thing she wanted to do was stand there and wait for us to make up our minds.
I leaned forward over the counter. “We've been drinking Scotch all night, but want to mix it up. What kind of vodka do you have?”
The corner of her lip twitched. “Is this your first time here?”
As if she didn’t already know the answer. The two of us stuck out like two sore thumbs in here.
I didn’t answer. I just leaned against the bar and raised an eyebrow.
Her face broke out into a smile. “Hold on,” she said.
She reached down low behind the bar and pulled up a clear glass bottle with no label or markings of any kind.
She poured two full shots and set them down on the counter in front of us. “What is this?”
“We call it the Red Dragon,” she said. There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Trust me. You’ll love it.”
I studied her. Was she fucking with me? This drink was totally clear and was probably either a shot of straight vodka or nothing but water. Why did everyone here act like they had some big secret they were keeping from us?
“This place is weird,” I muttered, eyeing Katy as I snatched the shot glass off the counter and downed it in a single gulp.
I don't know what I expected, but nothing could have prepared me for the sweet, cinnamon flavor that slithered its way down my throat. It was warm, but didn't burn the way vodka or other alcohol usually did.
I set the glass down on the bar and felt the world around me shift. I closed my eyes, then opened them wide, drawing in a long, heated breath. I could swear a haze began to form around my vision. My entire body relaxed. I reached for the bar to steady myself, wishing I hadn’t worn such high heels.
“Holy shit,” Katy said, leaning against my shoulder. “What the hell was that?”
I couldn’t answer her at first. I could still feel the warmth of it sliding all the way down into the pit of my stomach. Heat traveled through my veins and branched out, making its way to the very tips of my fingers and toes. I let my own hand move down my arm, loving the way my skin felt. It was as if every nerve in my body had been set on fire. It was as if my every inhibition had been cast into exile.
I wanted to dance.
I shook my head, not sure if I was drunk or what. “I have no idea, but whatever it was, it was amazing,” I said. “Do you feel that?”
I turned to look at Katy and saw that instead of sensual and uninhibited, she looked like she was about to yack all over me. Her face literally had turned gray and her lips were pressed tight, like she was doing everything in her power to hold it in.
“Oh, god, are you okay?” I grabbed her arms to steady her.
She shook her head, her mouth closed tight. There was raw panic in her eyes.
I turned to the bartender. She was helping some people just down from us, but I caught her eye and mouthed the word, “Bathrooms?”
She jerked her head toward the entrance and I looked up to see a set of doors near where we’d first come in.
I grabbed Katy’s hand and led her in the direction of those doors, praying we’d find a toilet before her stomach released whatever she’d just put inside.
We barely made it inside the women’s restroom when she made a guttural noise that sounded more like a strangled cat than a human. I aimed her toward the closest trash can and winced as she threw up. I gathered her shoulder-length hair up into a pony-tail and held it back from her face.
The shot had not agreed with her, to say the least. Which only made me feel guilty for how I was feeling.
I was alive. Every sense was heightened and every tiny breath of air that brushed against my skin felt like a caress.
I didn’t tell her how amazing I felt, though, because I could tell she was miserable. I just held her hair back from her face and rubbed her shoulder, waiting for it to pass. When she steadied and leaned back against the tile wall, I reached for a wad of paper towels and ran them under the water.
“Are you okay?” I asked, handing her one towel to wipe her mouth and running the other gently across her sweaty forehead.
“Fabulous,” she said, her voice strained and rough.
“Is it over?”
She closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. Long deep breaths.
I waited, doing my best to comfort her. At the same time, though, hearing the thumping of the bass outside made me wish more than ever I could be out on that dance floor.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I think it’s passing. Man, that was disgusting. How are you not ill from that taste?”
I frowned. “You thought it tasted bad?”
She looked up at me like I had lost my damned mind. “There is no way you thought that tasted good, right? I mean, it was like someone wrapped a knife with rancid meat and shoved it down my throat.”
I shook my head. Did we have the same drink? I mean, I’d watched the bartender pour our shots from the same bottle. How could we have possibly had such different experiences?
“It tasted like cinnamon,” I said.
Her face twisted and she brushed her hair off her shoulders. “Cinnamon? No. Just... no.”
I shook my head. It didn't make sense. Either we had extremely different taste buds or something had gone terribly wrong with her shot.
I didn’t want to push it and tell her how delicious and buzzed I felt from it, but at the same time, I wanted the chance to describe it. I wanted her to feel it too.
And as bad of a friend as it made me seem, I wanted to beg her not to ask me to take her home.
I desperately wanted to stay. There was something different about this place, and I wanted to figure it out.
“I think that bartender was trying to drug us or something,” Katy said. “Did you see that smile on her face? Like she was playing with us. I think we should get the hell out of here.”
My shoulders fell. “I don’t want to go home,” I said. “I think this place is kind of cool.”
“Cool? It’s freaking me out,” she said. “There’s not a single fat or ugly person in this whole place. And that drink was not normal. There's something more than weird going on in this club. I think it’s dangerous here. We need to go, Franki. I know it’s your birthday and all, but I don’t feel right about this place.”
I sighed. What could I do? I couldn’t abandon my friend and tell her to find her own way home.
I was trying to find the cab driver's number in her phone when the door to the bathroom opened and the bartender who'd served us walked in. She was carrying a small bottle in one hand. Water, maybe.
She approached us with a sympathetic look on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at Katy. “I didn’t know you weren’t... Well, I didn’t realize. I wouldn’t have given you that shot if I’d known.”
“Known what?” I asked.
She turned to look at me, confusion wrinkling the skin around her eyes. “I didn’t know you weren’t both the kind of girls who belonged here.”
Her words were gloriously vague. I wanted to ask her what kind of girls did belong here, but she didn’t give me the chance.
“Here,” she said, pushing the clear bottle into Katy's hand. “Drink this. I swear it’ll make you feel right again.”
Katy held the bottle at arm’s length. “I don’t think I should take anything from you, no offense.”
The bartender’s face softened. “I know. I completely suck for doing that to you,” she said. “We don’t get many normals in here and I was getting such a strong vibe there by the bar. I didn’t read you right and I messed up. I’m genuinely sorry, and I don’t blame you for not trust
ing me.”
“Normals?” I asked, but neither one of them even acknowledged my question.
“Do you think you could call us a cab or something? I just want to get home and get to bed,” Katy said, shoving the bottle back toward the girl.
She wouldn’t take it back. She closed her hands around Katy's and pushed it back toward her. “I promise you, all you have to do is drink this and you will feel completely, one-hundred-percent better. Just take a sip. You’ll see.”
“It’s not water?”
She shook her head. “It’s more like an antidote for a very nasty shot. Please.”
Katy stared down at the drink in her hand for a long moment, then unscrewed the cap and took a single sip. She waited and I held my breath.
She took another sip, then let her head rest against the tile wall.
I waited, completely, acutely aware of the weirdness of this entire situation. Who had an antidote for a shot? Or even a hangover? And why had she come in here after us?
Katy's eyes opened and she let out a long sigh of relief.
“Better?” the bartender asked.
“Much,” she said. “Wow. My head was pounding and my stomach was all twisted up and now I feel fine. What is this stuff?”
The girl’s entire body relaxed. “I’m so glad,” she said, avoiding the question. “I would have felt awful if you went home sick. I swear I just didn’t realize.”
I took a step back and crossed my arms across my chest. “Okay, so what’s with the cryptic messages and the weird drinks and everything? What is this place?”
I loved the way the shot had made me feel, but I didn’t like the way this girl was implying that my friend was ‘normal’ and I wasn’t. That had not been totally lost on me, and I wanted to know what the heck she meant by it.
The bartender shook her head, her long blonde curls caressing her shoulders. “You really have no idea where you are, do you?” she asked.
It was a question with too obvious an answer. We obviously had no clue where we really were.
“How did you end up here, then? I mean, it’s not like we’re on the main strip with a big sign out front. Most people don’t find us on accident.”
