The 200-Year Bride Swap

(Alicia)

I wake with a start, the incessant buzzing of my phone against my thigh having done the trick. I ignore it, let it buzz to its little heart’s content. Whoever it is can leave a message.

But now that I’m awake, I take note of my surroundings. Oh hell. What did I do?

The room smells like old beer and too-much perfume and something warmer, darker. Six people lie scattered across the furniture, butt naked and asleep in that awful, sudden way that follows a lot of sex, too many drinks and too little care. I know two sets of breathing: Shannon and Phoebe, Ruben and Dimitri. The other two are strangers, unfamiliar weights and a human scent that doesn’t belong to our crowd.

The two strangers worry me slightly more on reflection. They hadn’t been here when the night started, I’m fairly sure of that. And the state of everyone suggests things had escalated well beyond what any of us had planned. I have a vague, blurry memory of the music getting louder and the lights getting lower, of someone laughing too hard and someone else crying a little, the way people do when inhibitions just… dissolve. Not all at once. Like a slow tide going out.

I’ve seen this before. Not often, but enough to recognise my own handiwork.

This is the part I hate. The part where I have to sit with the fact that whatever cocktail of biology and bad luck I was born with, it leaks when I’m not paying attention. Last night, clearly, I wasn’t paying attention. The scene says the night had been loud and messy. It says things I don’t want to commit to memory.

I reach up and discover a sticky smear across my collarbone. Someone has spilled something, left heat and residue where skin should have been. I gag, grab a stray bra from the arm of the couch and wipe at it with one hand while keeping my tank top clutched open with the other. I’ve stayed clothed, as usual. These jeans are so tight they need peeling off, anyway. That’s a small mercy.

The buzzing starts up again, but I leave it safely in its pocket against my thigh while I sit up and rub my face. I may have partied a bit too much, and this lot clearly did too.

I slide from the couch on bare feet and pad to the door. Where the hell are we? The corridor outside smells of stale smoke and the echo of the night. At one end a door gives to an emergency exit, then to an alley and sunlight. I push it and let the brightness punch the dark out of my eyes.

The bloody phone starts buzzing again. I fish it out of my pocket and stare at the screen. Hell no.

Without answering, I put the phone back where it came from and look around. At the end of the alleyway cars zoom past on a busy street.

I really should try harder not to end up in situations like this. Sighing, I look up and down the street for any clues as to where I might be. Juniper and Close, the street signs on the corner say when I look that way. Another sign on the wall next to me reads ‘Mike’s Bar’. Not a place I’d planned to remember.

I fish my phone out again and type in the location. I’m in an area downtown that I’ve never been to before. Just going by reputation, this is not an area I should be in either. It’s one of those spots we tend to avoid because it’s right on that murky line where several supernatural species’ borders meet.

I think about going back and waking my four acquaintances, but then I hesitate. It’s better for me if I make a clean getaway before they wake up. There’s four of them, they’ll be fine, I tell myself and open my Uber app. Time to go.

My phone buzzes another five times on the drive over to my place. It vibrates like a tiny, insistent insect the whole way home. Every time I glance at the screen, note the caller, and ignore it. I don’t have the energy to deal with my father’s lackeys right now. He can wait. Nothing can be that important.