“Athena!” Cayde’s voice almost cuts through the fog that seems to have settled over my brain, but not enough to stop me. Someone pushes something cold and damp into my hand—a shot glass, I realize through the buzz of anger that seems to have settled over me. “Thanks, Dean,” I mumble, assuming that it was him that handed it to me, and throw back the shot before dropping it on a side table and striding towards the fight, which has escalated in the seconds since Jaxon and the other guy burst into the living room.
The vodka that was in the shot glass burns down my throat, making my eyes water as I charge towards the two of them. If I was thinking straight, I’d never have gone into the fight—the guy who is currently backing Jaxon towards a table is bigger than anyone I could reasonably fight. But I’m too angry to think rationally, and I rush towards them both, shoving myself in between the two men just as the bigger guy is about to bring his fist down towards Jaxon again.
I take the hit hard, right on the shoulder, but Jaxon trained me well. I duck under the next punch as the man screams “Get out of the fucking way, bitch!” and bring my knee up into his groin, throwing my weight forward as he staggers backwards. I manage to get a punch in, weaving under his next swing and then bringing my fist up into his nose.
He lets out an angry shout, blood spurting from his nose as his hand comes up to cover it, and I stand there panting, my fists still up and my shoulder burning as I wait to see if he’s going to recover.
“Fucking bitch,” he spits, glaring at me. “Slut.” He rears back, spitting a wad of blood and mucus onto the floor, and then turns away.
I see Cayde and Dean start to move towards him, likely with intent to eject him from the party, but I’m already turning towards Jaxon. “What the fuck was that?” I demand as he stands up, and he shakes his head, his lip split again and bleeding.
“Fucker called you a whore,” he growls, his eyes narrowed. “Said he was at the party where you—” Jaxon gestures towards Cayde, his mouth tightening as if he doesn’t entirely like remembering it either. “He said—”
“You said the same thing to me,” I snap at him, my arms crossed over my chest. “That night you left me out in the cold. Remember? You called me—”
“I remember.” Jaxon looks away, and I see a flicker of shame cross his face, but it’s not enough to make me forgive him. Not yet. “But a fucking stranger doesn’t get to talk about you like that. You’re fucking ours. And I—”
“You, nothing.” I grit my teeth. “I’m not yours, Jaxon, because you lost that right when you nearly killed me because you were pissed I made a decision and it wasn’t the one you wanted me to make. I kept something from you, and however wrong that was, it didn’t warrant the way you handled it. So no, you don’t get to ‘defend my honor’ or whatever the fuck to some asshole who saw me fuck Cayde at that party. You and I? We’re nothing right now. We’re---”
I swallow hard as Jaxon suddenly splits into two in front of me, the two separate Jaxons wobbling and swerving as I feel myself suddenly tilting to one side.
Fuck!What the fuck is happening?I feel suddenly like I can’t breathe, my throat closing up, and the room is spinning, the two Jaxons splitting into more, shifting colors as my vision darkens a little at the edges.
No! Fuck!All I can think is that it’s happening again, that once again I’m at a party and somehow I’ve been drugged, that I’m hallucinating, that any second now I’ll feel hands on me, dragging me out of here and into the hard bed of a pickup truck, out somewhere to be hurt and abused again.
Idofeel hands on me then, and I try to scream, but my throat feels too tight. I can’t make a sound, not even when those hands lift me into the air. I want to fight, to scratch, to get out of whatever is happening to me, but I can’t seem to move. I don’t even feel as if I can breathe.
Vaguely, I hear voices that sound familiar, and I feel as if I’m floating through the air. The sensations that remind me of being abducted war with the familiarity of the voices I hear, and I don’t know whether to be terrified or comforted, if I’m in danger or not.
“Athena!” Something that sounds like Cayde’s voice echoes in my ear, followed by what sounds like Jaxon shouting my name as well. I feel hard tile underneath my knees, and more vaguely disembodied voices floating around me.
“Something was in whatever she drank,” one of them says, and then there’s an angry growl from my other side.
“She just took a drink? From who?”
“I don’t know, it was in her hand.”
“Fuck! That needs to be out of her system, now. Fucking now!”
“What the fuck do you want me to do about it?”
“She needs to throw up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You don’t know what was in it. Do you want her to die maybe? There’s no telling—”
“Fuck, alright. I’ll do it—”
I have no idea what they’re talking about. It sounds like Dean and Cayde and Jaxon, but I don’t know where I am or how I got here, or what they’re doing. I’m glad that I’m not alone, if it really is them, but part of me is terrified that I’m hallucinating, and it’s not them at all.
When I feel fingers prying my lips open, sliding into my mouth and towards the back of my throat, I panic. I twist in the grip of the hands holding me, trying to get free, but they’re too strong. I try to bite down, but other fingers are holding my mouth open, letting the fingers inside slide towards the back of my throat, and I can’t stop what happens next.
My entire body seems to revolt, vomiting everything up as I lurch towards what I hope is a toilet, or a sink, or a bathtub, although I can’t really see. My vision is a swirl of blurred white and colors, like paint swirled on a canvas, and even if the fingers in my throat weren’t making me throw up I think I’d want to anyway.
I don’t know how long it goes on. “Get it all up, come on. There’s a good girl, you’re almost there, I know it hurts—” There’s a voice in my ear, whispering something encouraging, trying to help, but all I want is for it to stop.
“I think that’s enough,” another rough voice that sounds like Cayde’s says, and then the fingers slide out of my mouth.