2.

Hannah

"No more dares, Princess. No one else touches you, and you don't touch anyone," he warns smoothly with no expression on his face, then releases my wrist and goes about adjusting his coat.

I don't spare a second more in the room. I run out immediately to meet Sophie, who, from the look of things, is already on her third shot. At least she is still sitting at the bar, where I left her.

"Oh, there you are! I was beginning to think you'd never return, so I continued without you," She slurs, baring her pearly white teeth at me with a sheepish smile.

Just wow.

"Take your bag, Soph. We have to leave. Now." I say to her immediately, grabbing her arm, but then I stop, feeling the dreadful sensation of being watched. I turn, looking around, back to the section of the bar where the green-eyed man had been sitting when I walked up to him earlier, and sure enough, I'm right. He’s sitting still, his fingers interlocked together and his eyes narrowed, as he stares at me intently. Another shiver runs down my spine.

"Look, Soph, the guy I went back there with is a complete psycho. He wants to take me home with him.”

Sophie claps her hands, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "That's great! Isn't that great? This way you get to forget Connor!" Sophie giggles, and I shake my head immediately, tapping her shoulders so she can get a hold of herself.

"This man screams danger. He demanded that I follow him to his place. He's also a pervert because he's over there watching us, and I think he’s been looking this way since I left him, after he practically threatened me about sucking other guys dicks tonight.”

"He must really like you then, because he had his eyes locked on you the moment we stepped in here. That was why I chose him. I think he's attracted to you."

Sophie's words sink into my mind like a stone thrown in a body of water, and his words from earlier make sense.

"This was not a mistake."

I should’ve known he was far from normal, but I was in my head about Connor, and then I landed in a mess I'm now sure I can't get out of tonight.

"We need to find a way to leave here without alerting him. He's strange, and I'm never leaving here with him."

That seems to wake Sophie up. She straightens her shoulders, widens her eyes, and slaps each side of her cheeks.

"This is serious. I'm so sorry, Hannah. I didn’t know he was a psycho."

I sigh. "There's no use in apologizing; it’s not entirely your fault. Let's just try our best to leave here alive first," I tell her, and she nods as we proceed to devise an escape plan.

Our plan is simple. I'll go to the restroom to hide while Sophie will go out to look for help, and when she returns, she’ll shoot me a text, and then we can leave with the help. It’s an easy and effective plan, which works. I’m out of the restroom and standing by a corner when I look up from the text Sophie sent to see her entering the establishment with two policemen. I smile, already tasting victory, but I then receive the shock of my life when the policemen stop to greet the green-eyed man like he's their boss or something. Sophie comes to me.

“I think I'm fucked," I tell her. She grabs my arm, digging into it hard, and shakes her head as we watch the exchange.

"You're not fucked. Let's just walk out of here while he's distracted," she suggests, and I nod, wanting to leave the bar more than anything. But when we reach the door, the suited bouncers with earplugs hanging on one ear block our path.

"Boss says you only leave if you're leaving with him,” the one on the left says. He’s more mean-looking.

"What?"

I freeze where I stand as the realization that I'm in a bigger mess than I have bargained for hits me, and we watch the men in wide horror as they take two steps towards us, menacing glares of indifference on their hardened faces.

"Are you aware there are policemen here? You can't just stop us from leaving because your boss says so. We don't know who your boss is, and we sure as hell don't care who he is!" Soph growls, her deep voice a little slurry from the alcohol she had earlier, though I'm sure she's beginning to sober up. I shake my head at her and hold her tightly, making sure she won't slip out of my arms when the slim chance to escape shows itself.

"Is there any issue here?" One of the policemen, a dark-haired man, asks with one hand resting on his walkie-talkie, and the other on his belt, his inquisitive eyes darting from Soph to me, never to the hefty men next to us.

"These men won't let us leave," I report, pointing to the two bouncers with an expression on their faces that says they are paid enough to not be bothered by the cops.

"That's because they haven't paid for their drinks," the now familiar deep baritone voice replies. I turn immediately, feeling the hairs on my skin rise, in which case, when his words register, I stiffen, exchanging identical glances of embarrassment with Sophie.

"We would've paid had we not been threatened and scared to death," the words roll out of my lips before I can stop them, my eyes unintentionally finding Mr. Green-eyes as the words hit.

I see his eyes, large, glistening ovals of amusement. As though he can't believe my audacity. Well, that makes two of us.

Sophie excuses herself quickly and runs off to clear our tab, and I cuss her silently for not dragging me along with her, while both policemen cuss loudly at us for wasting their precious time on a matter so trivial. I can't blame them, though; it seems trivial on the surface. They can’t see my life on the line.

Mr. Green-eyes leans forward.

"Getting the cops? That's clever of you, Princess. But do you think they're enough to keep you from me?" he whispers, and shivers run up and down my spine for the third time in less than an hour.

What do I even say in response to that?

I mean I do have a list of curse words that threaten to pour out of my lips, but I don't dare say a word. I even find it difficult to breathe in his presence, because the man is not scared of the cops or higher authorities, and that can only mean one thing: that he’s sure enough he’d go unscathed if the authorities tried to get him. I mean, I did witness the policemen go to greet him in a way that seemed like they were paying their respects to him.

"I'm still very hard for you, but I'm a patient man, Princess. You'll come to me," he finishes, then he backs away the same time as Sophie returns to me. She grips my arm tight and pulls me out of the bar with her in silence until we are a far distance away—in a taxi, five minutes away from the apartment we share.

"That's crazy. Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy?" she asks, and I scoff.

"Try being the one who had the man’s dick in your mouth and was threatened, you'd know it's crazier than what you think," I whisper the last part, still unable to believe it myself. We stay silent for a total of three seconds before we embrace each other, tears pooling in our eyes.

"I'm so sorry for tonight–"

"–I’m so glad we made it out alive."

We cry simultaneously into our embrace.

From the corner of my eye, I see the taxi driver peek at us from his rearview mirror, his curious orbs trying to decipher what's happening. I bet if I narrated the entire thing to him, he wouldn’t believe me. I close my eyes and suck in a breath because he’s the least of my problems tonight.

"We're never doing that again! You hear me?" Sophie declares, and a chuckle at the irony of her words escapes from my lips. One would think I talked her into going out, and she was the one who suffered for it.

Sophie pulls away from the embrace, instead taking my hands in hers, her brown eyes glassy.

"I'm deadass serious, Hannah. If I ever suggest shit like this, even as a joke, make sure you give me a hard slap. You hear me?"

I smile and nod, all the while fearing for my life, which might have been ruined within just three days of living in the city.

"Getting the cops? That's clever of you, but do you think they're enough to keep you from me?"

"You'll come to me.”

He has to be joking. There's no way this is not some big joke.