Chapter 4

RAE

I didn’t want to be there. Crowds made me uneasy. My sixth sense constantly tingled because people with bad intentions surrounded me. They all looked like they were enjoying themselves on the outside, but I could sense the lust, the depraved thoughts mixed in with all of it. Someone would get roofied if they weren’t careful. It made me uneasy how such people could blend in. Innocent young women were hunted by lecherous older men and young men by lustful older women. 

Give me a picnic in the park any day. Or camping in the woods, surviving off the land, and fishing on a calm lake on a hot day? Now that was a party. But Vickie always dragged me to these places and dressed me up like a sex doll.  

I pulled the hem of my short dress down even though it wouldn’t get any lower. Vickie sometimes intentionally ‘forgot’ I had an ass when she bought clothes for me. The little blue dress felt completely indecent. I was pretty sure the guy staring at my ass from across the room could see the outline of the dimples on my cheeks. 

Don’t get me started on the bust that felt two sizes too small.

“Loosen up. Let me get some alcohol down your throat, and then we can hit the dancefloor,” Vickie shouted above the music.

She was gone before I could tell her I wasn’t drinking too much. My boss had changed my Saturday shift to the morning because Teresa had caught something. That waitress caught all the bugs that went around; that wasn’t new. Unlike me. I was fit as a fiddle all the time. I never caught even a common cold. 

I stood near a tall table along the back wall and tried to stay in the shadows to watch the crowd. I’d swapped my glasses for contacts, but they already felt uncomfortable in my eyes. Vickie said my glasses didn’t go with the dress, so they’d had to go. It was pointless arguing with her about such things.

I looked around the crowded club and leaned back against the wall. That would be my regular spot for the night because Vickie would be all over whichever man or men caught her eye after a few drinks. I would be stuck there like an idiot until it was time to go home. We came together and always left together to make sure we got home safely. Vickie never took her conquests home, so we stayed until we were both ready to go.

Vickie came back a short time later with a tray full of shots and I knew I was fucked. I wasn't going to be a wallflower after all. I should have told her not to get so much, but I didn’t think she’d go balls to the wall so soon. It wasn’t that I couldn’t say no. I liked a drink as well as any twenty-three-year-old. Or at least I thought I was twenty-three. But alcohol was the only thing that dampened my tingles, so it was easy to give in to the temptation of drinking too much. Usually, that was the only way to get through the night. Having a tray full of alcohol right in front of me was a bad idea.

I’d probably be an alcoholic before I graduated.

“Bottoms up!” Vickie said, and our first shots went down the hatch. 

The fiery liquid burnt its way down my throat and Vickie had the next one in my hand straight away. 

“We need to get you laid tonight!” Vickie shouted.

My cheeks heated up and my ears felt hot. When I hung out with Vickie, I was guaranteed at least two or three times when I wished the floor would swallow me whole. I knew the people around us heard her because I sensed a spike of lust in the air. The tingles went crazy.   

“You can’t concentrate on your finals if you’re sexually frustrated. It’s a proven fact,” Vickie grinned as she put another shot in my hand. 

Unlike me, Vickie looked comfortable in her little red dress. She had the body for it and I could see the men and women already eyeing her. She must have gone to get her hair done before I arrived at her apartment because it was done up in curls on the top of her head when it had been bone-straight that morning. 

And there I was—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been able to do more than a quick hair wash in the shower when it got too greasy. If I hadn’t sweated that much running home from the park last night, I could have easily stretched the time until the next wash day. Still, a quick wash and blowdry at home couldn’t compare to a professional job. My black hair looked limp and lifeless next to hers, even though I had been proud of the way it hung down to my back in waves.

The third drink went down the hatch. The warmth spread through my body and I felt the delicious buzz. 

“I can’t drink more than this,” I shouted. “My shift got changed.”

The smile left Vickie's face as I’d known it would. 

“Why do you have to be the one that always covers for other people or stays to clean and lock up? You even help them prepare their books for their accountant.” 

Because they paid me to do it. Vickie was a genius but I don’t think she truly understood how hard some of us had to work. I hustled anywhere I could to afford the things she took for granted.

“Because I told them they could. Don’t worry, Vic. No one is exploiting me,” I laughed, pulling my friend closer.

“As if they could,” Vickie snorted. 

By the fifth shot, the tingles were gone and the dancefloor looked pretty good. I was the one who abandoned my safe wall and dragged Vickie right to the middle to dance. That was something else that happened when I drank. I forgot about my shitty life and danced like no one was watching. I had no rhythm, but I didn’t give a shit about that either. A boy came up behind me, rubbing up all over me as he danced, but I was in a good mood so I didn’t push him off as I would have. Almost immediately, Vickie was whisked away by a potential one-night stand. She gave me a thumbs-up, encouraging me to take the next step with the sweaty boy behind me. 

But I knew that night wasn't the night I would let a stranger touch me. I still had another year before I got my qualification, and I couldn’t risk doing anything that would get me off track.

I evaded my persistent suitor and slipped through the bodies at the bar to get another drink. I never really got drunk; I just had a nice buzz that I would maintain the whole night to keep my sixth sense blissfully quiet. But the hangovers were always a bitch; I would regret that decision at work. 

As I downed another shot, the back of my neck prickled. I was fully loaded on alcohol, so I shouldn’t have felt anything. Maybe I hadn’t drunk as much as I thought I had. 

The only option was to drink some more. I ordered two more shots and drank them both before I danced my way through the crowd back to the dancefloor. I didn’t want to think about what anyone else felt or thought in the club. I didn’t often drink so I was going to take this chance to keep my sixth sense quiet for a few hours. 

A song I loved started blasting through the speaker and my body swayed to the beat. My suitor had given up and moved on to another girl. I preferred dancing by myself anyway. The song changed to something much older; as always, I wondered if that had been my favourite song when I was younger. Did I dance like an idiot like this before the accident?

My mood shifted and a slight chill rippled over my skin. My reality slammed into me and took all the joy I had felt on the dancefloor. That was it; the end of the night for me.  

The visit to Dr Whitman’s office had brought all that back to the surface and messed up my head. Of course, I wished I was whole. Of course, my anger and frustration hadn’t just gone away. I’d just buried it deep enough that it couldn’t hurt me too much. 

Or maybe my mood shifted because of the dream. That man had felt familiar and part of me wished he was real. I pushed away the hope that I’d had a flashback after all those years and gave myself a mental shake. My mind wasn’t trying to tell me something; it was just like Vickie said, I needed to get laid. I’d been trying not to think about the dream because it didn’t make sense. Why would that guy tell me ‘it was time’? Time for what? What the hell did that even mean?

Still, that wasn’t even the worst of my dreams since I became Raechel Bourne. Sometimes I dreamt of simple things like going home to my family and having dinner. Other times I had nightmares. I’d go home for dinner, and the house would be full of animals trying to kill me. Wolves, to be more specific. They were always wolves.

I abandoned the dancefloor and walked back to my original spot against the wall at the back. Hopefully, Vickie would finish soon so we could go home. It didn’t happen very often since I started college but I still sank into depression now and then. Not that I would tell Dr Whitman about it.

If she found out—

My body tingled unexpectedly, so intense that I had to suck in my breath. It wasn’t the usual sixth sense type of tingles. I felt... Someone was watching me. No, something. Something that felt like what had chased me in the park. The hair on the back of my neck rose and my heart pounded when that icy feeling inched up my spine. 

My eyes scanned the crowded dance floor and then along the walls. I didn’t see anything suspicious but I could still feel it pushing against me. 

My buzz died entirely and the usual tingles from my sixth sense started to return, adding to the sick feeling in my stomach. I sensed something I hadn’t felt before I’d quietened it down with the alcohol. Anger. So much anger. My fight-or-flight instincts reared inside me. The danger was all around me, and the crowd I had been dancing with became a threat. I couldn’t breathe. Panic welled inside me as I continued to look at the faces around me.

Maybe I imagined it. I was probably still projecting my emotions because I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident in the park.

I took a deep, harsh breath to settle my nerves and looked around for Vickie. We had to leave. 

My eyes went around the room again and then up to the people standing on the VIP balconies where Vickie often disappeared. My gaze stopped on a man who was staring right at me. 

I froze.

I forgot to breathe.

My heart skipped a few beats before it started drumming against my chest. 

Silver-grey eyes.

Angry silver-grey eyes.

How...?

He looked a little older and had shorter hair, but I was pretty sure I was looking at the man in my dream.