I feel the back of my head, wondering if I’ve been in a car accident or hit over the head. “I don’t know. What are you doing here?”
“You don’t remember seeing me?”
His face floats in my memory. I was looking up at him. Yes, I was on the dancefloor at Baroque. I remember now. “I was dancing with Jasminta and the others, and then I... Wait, was I texting with you?”
Rush nods, grimacing a little. He was up in the VIP section. He asked me to go up there, too. I take tiny mouthful of water to clear the acid taste out of my mouth. Then I was out in the smoking area with Jasminta. And then…
I don’t know what then.
“Did you put your drink down somewhere?” Rush asks. “Maybe to go to the bathroom?”
I shake my head slowly. “I was going to the bar and then I…ran into someone. Someone I didn’t want to talk to. Who…?”
Striker’s face suddenly bursts out of the black hole of my memory. I give a ragged cry and cover my mouth. It all comes rushing back. His fake apology. The champagne.
“Dree?”
Hot, burning shame overwhelms me, and I lean forward and press my face against my knees. “No, no, no.”
Striker’s stupid grin. I feel terrible. I’m so sorry you got caught up in all that shit.
That asshole put something in my drink and I just drank it down, even though I knew I shouldn’t trust him. Like I haven’t learned a goddamn thing in all these months.
I start to sob and I can’t stop. My whole body shakes with despair. Arms come tightly around me and then I’m sobbing into Rush’s shoulder.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his arms tight around me. “It’s all right. It’s over now.”
It’s not all right. I’m more stupid than even I imagined. What happened after he drugged me? I must have been stumbling around the club like an out-of-control drunk, doing exactly what everyone expects from messy, fucked up Dree North.
“Where did—where did you find—me?” I ask Rush as I struggle for breath between sobs.
“By the main bar. I looked for your friends but I couldn’t see them.”
“How long after we were t-texting?”
“Not long. About forty minutes.”
I map out the minutes in my mind. Ten minutes in the smoking area with Jasminta. Five minutes with Striker. Five minutes in the bathroom. After that, I can’t remember anything else. That leaves twenty minutes when I was drugged and…doing what?
“What was I doing when you found me?”
Rush smooths my hair back from my face and gazes down at me, his brows pinched in concern. “I think you were trying to leave the club. I knew there was something wrong as soon as I saw you, so I got you into a cab and brought you here.”
“I was by myself, just stumbling around like a mess? No one was trying to help me?”
A pained look flickers across his face. He opens his mouth to answer, but the curtain is suddenly drawn back and a middle-aged doctor in a white coat and with gray hair steps inside.
Rush lets go of me slowly and stands up. The heat from his body disappears, and as the cold seeps into my flesh, I start to shake. Something drops around my shoulders. Rush’s jacket, warm from his body. He pulls it closed around me and wipes a tear from my cheek with his thumb. The jacket smells like him, and I huddle into its protection.
The doctor looks at me from behind wireless spectacles. “I’m Doctor Glenister. How are you feeling, Ms. North?”
“I don’t know, really. Sick, I guess.”
“Can you remember what you ate and drank around midnight last night?”
I think carefully. “From about ten-thirty to midnight I had two vodka sodas. And a few mouthfuls of champagne.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rush’s gaze snap to me. He saw me drinking vodka soda and I can feel him wondering where the champagne came from.
“We did a blood test and found a drug in your system.”
I swallow around the lump that’s formed in my throat. My reputation means no one’s going to believe me if I say I didn’t take anything myself. “Which drug?”
“Ketamine. It’s a horse tranquilizer, but sometimes it’s taken recreationally. It’s also used as a date-rape drug.” The doctor’s eyes flick to Rush. Rush glares back at him.
“Did you take ketamine knowingly?” the doctor asks.
Ketamine. K. I’ve heard people talk about it, but I’ve never seen anyone on it. I shake my head.
“Would you like us to call the police?”
“Yes,” Rush says immediately.
“No,” I tell the doctor firmly. I just want to go home. I want to be someplace where I know how I got there. Rush turns his glare on me.
“When may I be discharged, please?” I ask the doctor.