My fingers flex automatically, my claws itching at the tips. I squeeze my hands into balls and yank my gaze away.
Going feral cat in the middle of a dance club will not help our cover one bit. And who am I to get possessive over Jacob?
He’s made it one hundred percent clear that he has warmer feelings for a piece of used gum stuck to his shoe than for me.
But the next place my gaze lands is on Zian, standing a couple inches taller than even the biggest of the other guys around, and the ring of girls clustered around him, twirling their hair with their fingers and peering at him coyly through their eyelashes.
My stomach lurches, and I rip my eyes away again—only to find myself watching Andreas aiming a flirty smirk at a dark-haired woman in a skintight dress as they move with the beat together.
Isthatwhy he wanted to come—why the other guys agreed? So they could find a pretty girl or two for a quick hookup?
It shouldn’t bother me. We were never together that way, no matter how much I craved an even deeper connection before. But a now-unsettlingly familiar vibration resonates through my chest, scraping against my insides.
The guys are all rubbing it in my face: how much they prefer the company even of strangers over mine.
I close my eyes for a moment, willing the thrum of anger down. The bitterness keeps creeping up my throat.
At a gentle nudge of my shoulder, I glance up and find Brooke studying me. “Are you okay, Rita?”
“Yeah—yeah, I’m good,” I mumble, and focus abruptly on the fresh drink in her friend’s hand.
Maybe having my senses a little muddled would be helpful for getting through tonight. Just one cocktail shouldn’t affect me very much.
It’ll simply dull the sharp edges of that awful feeling inside me.
“I think I’m ready for a cosmo now,” I add, not entirely sure what a cosmo even is. If Brooke likes them, they’re probably okay.
She grins and comes with me over to the bar, where she orders one for herself too. The pink concoction arrives in a wide-mouthed, narrow-stemmed glass that I raise cautiously to my lips, half afraid I’m going to snap the stem by accident.
The cool liquid slides down my throat, both tart and citrusy sweet, with a sour tang potent enough to make me shudder. I only take a few small swallows, and then I follow Brooke back into the crowd.
I go back to my bobbing and swaying, taking sips in between to drain the glass. By the time I set it on the tray of a passing staff person handing out shots, there’s nothing left in my chest but a soft fizzing sensation.
There, that’s better. Now I might as well enjoy myself.
It feels perfectly natural to meld into the bass, to let the melody flow through my limbs and direct my muscles. A sense of elation washes over me.
I swivel and dip, sidling one way and twisting another, and the music holds me in its grasp like the perfect partner. It always tells me exactly where to go to match it.
As one song fades into another, Brooke gives a little cheer. “You’ve got some moves!”
One of her friends shoots me a thumbs up, and I grin hazily at her.
Was I worried about this before? Everything’s good.
I’m getting hot, though, sweat trickling down my back under my hoodie. Everyone else is wearing short sleeves or none at all. Even having it unzipped isn’t giving me enough air.
I tug the hoodie right off. It slips from my fingers and gets tugged away under nearby dancing feet, but I find I don’t really care.
My hands soar toward the ceiling, and I undulate beneath them. I can really move without the extra fabric holding me back. Now I’m soaring.
When I notice Brooke again, her gaze is fixed on my arms. I glance at one as the black light sweeps over the dance floor. The scars that mark my flesh, just a little paler than the rest of my skin, flare with a momentary glow.
Brooke is frowning now. “What happened to you?”
I consider my arms, still swaying the rest of my body with the rhythm of the song. I don’t havethatmany scars, do I? A few here and a few there. The cluster of tiny ones under my right arm are too small to show at all in this atmosphere.
“I got into lots of fights,” I say, pleased that I can tell her this, and it’s true, and it doesn’t really reveal anything.