by Sophia Sharp
“Let them in!” someone else shouted from inside, but the guy blocking the entrance stood still, arms crossed. He bared his teeth greedily at us. “I like you,” he said, reaching for my waist. Without thinking, I slapped his hand away, and regretted it immediately. “We’re here for Arthur,” I said quickly, hastily trying to amend the situation.
“Arthur?” the guy cocked an eyebrow.
“Arthur Eliot,” Liz emphasized. “And if you don’t let us in, you’ll have to answer to him.”
Apparently, that struck a nerve. The guy’s eyes went wide at the mention of Arthur’s last name. “My apologies,” he said. “Of course, friends of Arthur’s are allowed in. Send him my best regards.” He began to step aside, but then he caught sight of Rob. For some reason, that made him hesitate again. “He with you?” he asked.
I was about to turn and answer yes, but Rob patted the guy on the chest and whispered something in his ear. The guy laughed. “Alright,” he said. “You seem like a chill dude. You can come too.” And just like that, he stepped aside from the doors for us. All the uncertainty I was feeling minutes ago was replaced by a sense of victory. We had made it in!
The triumph was short-lived, however, when I saw what awaited us inside.
The sound of the party slammed into us as we stepped through the door. All my anxiety returned. Inside, it was just as I expected. The music was loud; the lights were off. I couldn’t see anything. It was dark and murky. I reached for one of the girls, not caring who, found somebody’s hand, and grabbed it.
“How are we going to find Arthur here?” I screamed into her ear.
“Ask somebody!” came the reply. I realized it was Ashley.
“What? I can barely hear you!”
“Ask somebody!” she repeated.
“Who?” I looked around, but didn’t even know where to start. My eyes started to adjust to the dim light, and I could see that the entire interior was a mass of bodies. It would be impossible to get through that crowd. There were groups of guys and girls everywhere, mostly closed off in tight little circles. Almost everyone held a red solo cup in his hand, which added a tiny bit of familiarity to the whole thing for me. The music continued pumping, loud enough to cause eardrums to explode. We were right at the entrance. Already, people were pushing by us on their way in or out.
For once, I was thankful I had heels on. With the extra bit of height, I could just see over the heads of a lot of the crowd. Scanning the interior, I spotted a small flight of stairs on the left, and a doorway leading to a hall on the right. The building wasn’t small, but it was packed. I felt like I was in the middle of a herd. Even the stairs were full of people, some trying to get up, some trying to get down, and in the dark it was hard to see more than the basic body shapes.
“We need to split up!” Liz screamed. Her voice was barely audible over the noise of the party. She grabbed my hand. “I’ll go upstairs with Tracy. You guys look on this level!”
“Alright!” Eve shouted back. She took Ashley and Madison by the arm, and together they started squeezing their way through the crowd.
Liz looked at me. “Ready?”
“As much as I’ll ever be,” I sighed, and started with her for the stairs.
Quickly, I discovered that pushing through all the bodies was going to be the least of my troubles. Every step Liz and I took seemed to attract a new guy. Without exception, every single one of them was sloppily drunk. Their attempts to hit on us were repulsive. None of them even looked good! The first time it happened, I had hoped Rob’s presence would be enough to discourage the behavior, but when I looked over my shoulder for a rescue I discovered that Liz and I were alone. Rob had gone with the others.
“Hey baby, come here,” another guy said, trying to pull me in.
“No thanks,” I muttered, pushing him away. Barely a second later, another one tried the same thing with Liz, but she pushed him away, too. We were both here for a purpose, and that was not to be hit on by drunk, sloppy guys.
“Hey, you’re new here!” somebody yelled into my ear, and tried to step between me and Liz. “Hi, I’m—”
Liz didn’t even give him a chance to finish before she grabbed my arm and yanked me away.
“We’ve got to keep moving!” she screamed. “If we stand still, the guys come swarming like bees to honey. Don’t make eye contact!”
“Trust me, I’m not trying to,” I assured her. “How are we even going to find Arthur? We don’t even know what he looks like!”
“By the sound of it,” Liz yelled, “he seems to be somebody people know. Come on, let’s get to the second level. We can start asking there. The other girls are scoping out this floor.”
We moved toward the stairs. Bodies kept squeezing me, and we had to continuously fend of attempts by guys to hit on us. They took the term liquid courage to a whole new extreme here.
The second floor, once we got there, was slightly less crowded. And the music, which came from speakers installed on the first level, wasn’t quite as loud. Here, at least, people seemed to be able to have some semblance of conversation. But it was still difficult to see in the dark.
I noticed a girl standing by herself. “Excuse me,” I said, “do you know—”
I cut off as her face went green and she turned away to vomit all over the floor.
“Jesus!” I exclaimed. “Are people always like this?”
“It works for some,” Liz observed astutely, and led me on. “Let’s just look around. Arthur sounds like someone a lot of people know, so there’ll probably be a crowd around him. And, he’s a bit older, so he might stand out.”
“Not by much,” I quipped, but we kept going, clinging onto each other to avoid being separated by the flow of bodies. After making a circuit of the floor, and finding nobody who matched Liz’s description, I decided to try asking again. I spotted a group of three girls, standing away from the rest of the party in one corner, looking as disinterested in their surroundings as I felt. They seemed a good choice.
“Hey,” I screamed over the music as I made my way to them. “Do you guys know where Arthur is?”
“Oh.” One of them made a disgusted face. “Arthur Eliot?”
“That’s right,” I said eagerly. “You know him?”
The girl crossed her arms. “Yeah, he’s here,” she said with attitude. “He’s where he always is. Up the stairs, in the clubhouse.”
“Which way?”
“Up the stairs and through the two doors. You can’t miss it.” She sniffed and looked Liz and me up and down. “You guys are definitely his type,” she added scornfully.
I didn’t know what that meant, but decided not to ask. “Thanks.” I did my best to smile and appear cordial, but I wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. The girl I was speaking to looked like she was about to spit on us. The three of them were clearly bitter about something.
We made our way up the stairs, which I assumed would lead to the third floor, but they bypassed it entirely and emerged in the attic. Up here, away from the noise, I could actually speak at a normal level and be heard by Liz. The stairs led to a narrow hallway, at the end of which were a set of grand doors. There was nobody up here aside from us.
“This is… kind of spooky,” I noted. Aside from the thin light that showed from beneath the doors, the hall was pitch black. Our heels echoed against the wooden floor as we walked forward. I looked at Liz when we got to the doors. After a moment’s pause, she pushed them open.
Inside was complete mayhem.
It was a small, dimly-lit room. The ceiling angled on either side, creating a triangular shape in line with the roof. Three long couches stood against each of the walls, with a coffee table in front of each. Empty bottles of liquor lay everywhere. Cigarette smoke filled the air and music played in the background. It was of a different variety from that downstairs. It was more mellow, more trance-like. And it suited the people here perfectly. Bodies were strewn over the two couches on the opposite walls. All were femal
e, and all lying either half-asleep or completely unconscious in various positions of gluttony. None of them had any clothes on.
Only the couch directly in front of us, at the far end of the room, was different. There, a man sat in the middle, while four girls on either side of him laughed and giggled as they drank from exotic-looking bottles. One of the girls was leaning over the table. I watched, half in fascination and half in bewilderment, as she rolled up a dollar bill and snorted a line of white powder. She rubbed her nose, blinked a few times, and leaned back into the shoulders of one of the others. It took me only a moment to realize what she had done, and when the realization hit, I suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. I’d never seen hard drugs before.
I half-debated backing out of the room when Liz took my arm. Nobody had noticed us yet, and it would have been very easy to sneak back out. But Liz’s attention was all on the man at the far end of the room.
“That’s him,” she told me. “I know it!”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe this is a bad time…”
“No!” Liz hissed. “That’s him! You have to go talk to him!”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who’s been attacked!”
“What? That makes no sense. Why don’t we both go?”
“You’ll have better luck,” Liz insisted.
“What are you? Scared?” I whispered. I only meant it as a slight jab, as a way to spur her to come, but her answer surprised me.
“A little,” she admitted.
I looked at her in astonishment. Our window of backing out of the room and avoiding notice was quickly closing. One of the girls on the side couches stirred, but then fell back to her previous position.
“Come with me,” I said.
“No,” Liz answered. “You’ll do better by yourself. Just go!” Without warning she took my shoulders and pushed me forward. I stumbled, catching my balance just before I fell, but the clamor was enough to draw everyone’s attention.
“The door!” the man on the couch yelled suddenly. “Close the door!” He had a deep voice, but his words were slurred. He was clearly drunk, and probably high, too. Black hair swept around his face like a mane, but it was too dark to distinguish any of other features of his face. “You!” he screamed, pointing at Liz. “Close the door!” Liz jumped, and quickly ran to obey. The man leered greedily at her backside. One of the girls at his side whispered something in his ear, and he started laughing.
I took a deep breath. Now or never. “Arthur?”
He looked up, and saw me for the first time. The same greed that shone in his eyes when he watched Liz move was back. “Why, hello there,” he said enticingly. “And who might you be?”
I cleared my throat, eyeing the girls around him uncertainly. Each of them, too, was in various stages of getting naked. At least Arthur had his clothes on, though his shirt was unbuttoned to the navel. “We, um… we need to talk.”
“Oooh,” he giggled, winking to the girls around him. “Aren’t you forward?”
“I tried to find you earlier,” I started to say, “but you were—”
“Shush, shush,” he interrupted. “My darlings,” he said, attention shifting to the girls around him, “this lovely young lady demands my attention. If you’ll excuse me…” He trailed off, picking himself up off the couch. The girls gave some pathetic noises of protest that made me sick. No females should ever be that supplicating.
Arthur walked toward me, swaying from side to side. It was very obvious he was intoxicated. My chest constricted as he came closer. I knew Liz was with me, but having this type of man nearby, in this type of environment, was beyond uncomfortable.
“And what is it you’d like to talk about?” he whispered giddily into my ear. He smelled of booze, cigarettes, and… sex. At least he made no direct effort to grope me, which was more than I could say for most of the guys I’d come across here.
“Not here,” I said, eyeing the others. I tried to glance over my shoulder at Liz, but she was beyond sight. “Somewhere more private.”
“Well, in that case, you can just follow me,” he said. He stepped to a rug hanging on the wall, and in one grand motion swept it aside. To my surprise, there was an opening hidden behind it, and it looked like it led to a hallway. I hesitated, and then stepped through. If anything bad happened, I had my crystal. And Liz was at my back. At least, I hoped she was.
Arthur stepped in after me and let the rug fall. The hallway was darker than the previous room, but I saw the dim outline of a door farther down. I looked behind me, and my stomach knotted when I realized Liz was not there. When I said somewhere more private, I had done it in the hopes that Liz would clue in and come with me. Apparently, she didn’t pick up on the hint.
Arthur walked toward the doorway, and I had no choice but to follow. This was absolute madness. I was alone with a man who was not only inebriated, but also seemed entirely unpredictable. Every step I took toward the end of the hall made my pulse quicken.
Arthur opened the door, and light streamed into the hall. To my relief, a lamp was on inside, and gave more than sufficient light to see.
“After you, m’lady,” he said, motioning for me to walk in. After a brief hesitation, I did. I couldn’t back out now.
The room was small, and windowless. There was a queen-sized bed that nearly overwhelmed the space, and a dark oak desk with papers scattered across it. The light came from a floor lamp in the corner. Suddenly, I realized that the door I just walked through – the door Arthur was now closing – was the only way in or out of the room.
The door closed with a thud. I jumped involuntarily and twisted around. Arthur’s back was to me. He was hunched over the doorknob, doing something I couldn’t see. Suddenly I heard the distinct click of a lock, and fear swelled in me.
Arthur turned around slowly, and I saw his face for the first time. It was smooth, but the way his facial features came together – his deep-set eyes, his prominent brow, his beak-like nose – gave him a look of stunning intelligence. His eyes pierced into me. They held an intense, prophet-like focus. It was… uncomfortable.
“I know why you’re here,” he told me. I blinked in surprise. His voice did not waver at all – he sounded completely lucid. There were not a sliver of the stupor from before. “I know who you are.”
“What?” Quickly I scanned the room, searching for a way out. Arthur stood menacing in the doorway. That was the only entrance, or exit, to the room. Fear swelled in me like a tide rushing into a cove. Fear, and uncertainty. What had I gotten myself into? Arthur’s eyes pierced into me with intense focus.
“I don’t know your name,” he continued quietly, “but I know what you can do. The other girl with you – is she the same?”
“Uhh,” I stalled, desperately racking my brain for an explanation. He knew? How could he know? This was beyond freaky. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He just looked at me, but that gaze could split boulders. His eyes were full with a raw intensity. Of unmitigated focus. And it was all directed at me. It was terrifying. Was the inebriation from before just an act? It must have been. What else to explain the shift to full coherence now? This was the man I had to talk to, the one who could give me answers. But his was beyond petrifying. At least I had the crystal around my neck. If he tried anything, I could stop him with it. I could link to it. I could—
“Ah,” he cooed, “you give yourself away too easily.”
“Give myself away…?” I started to ask. But, the words died in my throat. I realized I had unconsciously taken hold of my crystal. With supreme effort, I forced my hand away. The crystal lay against my skin, and that was enough to use it. I looked around the room again, quickly trying to figure out my surroundings. Something about this didn’t seem right. Something was off. Something…
Without warning Arthur thrust his hand into his blazer pocket. My back stiffened. If he was reaching for a something that could harm me… I readied myself to
link to the crystal.
“Do not be afraid,” he said, but those dark eyes did not lend themselves to assuaging fear. Slowly, and with extreme deliberation, he took his hand from his pocket. His fist was clenched. He was holding something small. I didn’t know why, but it demanded my attention.
He brought his hand carefully in front of his face, and for the first time, his gaze shifted away from me. I felt a tiny bit of relief. Slowly, like a flower blossoming, his finger unfurled. And in his palm lay a colored crystal that looked much like mine. It was smaller, however, and was a translucent red, not colorless. I sucked my breath in involuntarily.
“You recognize it?” he mused. “Of course you do. You have one just like it around your neck.” This time, there was nothing unconscious about my hand jerking up to grip the crystal. If he thought he could take it away…
“Here,” he said, slowly moving his upturned hand toward me. “I know what you can do. Do not deny it. This is what you came to me for.” This was a completely different man from the one I encountered in the licentious stupor from before. “Take it!” he said. “Take it, and tell me what you feel!”
I hesitated only for a moment. He knew about me. How? But the red crystal held my attention now. It called to me, much like mine had when I first encountered it. There was something different about it, something… special. Something… sinister? Yes. No. Maybe—I could not tell. All I knew was that I could not look away.
Slowly, as if in a dream, I reached out to take it.
“Yes,” Arthur coaxed. “Yes, yes…”
My fingers brushed against the red crystal. A blast of pain ripped through my body. Fire surged within me, running from the crystal and back, from the crystal and back. A thunderous roar sounded in my ears. All sensation faded to black. I knew heat: the heat of the sun, the fire of the stars. It pulsed inexorably through me, unrelenting, holding nothing back.
